Every Meal a Banquet

Back in the first century, Roman culture dictated the customs and decorum of hospitality. Roman banquets, also known as “symposia” (most definitely NOT the staid lectures we think of when we hear this term) were scenes of exquisite excess, the very definition of “conspicuous consumption.” They featured gluttonous amounts of food, course after course of rich delicacies, often lasting for ten hours or more. Flamingo tongues and mullet livers were a few of the delectables favored by Marcus Gavius Apicius, a noted Roman gourmet who lived at the same time as Jesus.

What’s more, the food was just the precursor for the tidal waves of wine and entertainment that would follow. Ancient Romans hoped that all of this partying would detour any meddling or punishment that their pantheon of bored gods might want to pour down upon the pathetic, mortal human population. The Romans used “bread and circuses” not just to keep the general populace happy, but also to keep their unpredictable gods at a distance.

In first century Jewish households, dining was a bit different. Although there were economic differences between the peasant population and the educated elite, the over-arching mandates of the Torah tempered those differences. The members of the Sanhedrin and the Pharisaic power structure might have had more to spend on what they served. But they maintained the basics of Jewish faith that were practiced daily in every Jewish household. Unlike the Romans, the feast days within Judaism did not exist to keep God away, but to invite God’s presence.

Whether it was a formal “feast day” or the weekly “Shabbat,” the meal that was shared was intended to invite God’s presence as well as the presence of other members of the community. It was the presence of the divine that made these meals sacred and special. With the structures and strictures of kosher laws, dining together in a first century Jewish community was always oriented towards the Torah, towards God’s special presence at their table. But that also meant that many others would be excluded.

Jesus broke all these dining rules. Jesus introduced a whole new set of table manners. He ate on fast days. He ate with tax collectors. He ate at wedding feasts and at smart, sophisticated Pharisaic gatherings. He sipped water at a well out of the bucket of a woman of highly questionable reputation. With no home of his own, Jesus ate as a guest in someone’s home every night of his missionary life.

But most “rule-breaking” of all was this: wherever Jesus dined he was the guest…and yet always took on the role of the host.

When Jesus showed up for dinner, the menu changed. Instead of simply good food, those around a table that had invited Jesus received the gift of God’s presence. It’s a gift that still continues at every faithful meal we sit down to today.

In this morning’s Gospel, Cleopas and his companion walk along the road to their home village of Emmaus. They are mulling over the dreadful events that had happened in Jerusalem: the crucifixion of Jesus and the strange disappearance of his body from the tomb.

Suddenly, they are joined by a stranger who seems to have no knowledge of all these tragedies. It’s the equivalent of someone asking you “Covid-19?  What’s that?” Cleopas cannot believe how clueless this fellow traveler is.

Yet after Cleopas offers his version of the Jerusalem story — the trial, the torture, the crucifixion, the death, the strangely empty tomb — this new companion on their journey is surprised only by Cleopas’ ignorance of his own family history. “Oh how foolish you are, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared” (Luke 24:25).

Instead of decrying these recent horrors, the person walking with these two disciples of Jesus offers the testimony of the ages, the words of the prophets God had sent to countless generations that confirmed the work of God in the events that had just occurred in Jerusalem.

Those words warmed the hearts of these Emmaus travelers so much that when their companion acted as though he might head out in another direction, they invited him to stay with them, to join them for a meal, and even overnight. “Stay with us,” they implored.

And so he did. He accompanied these two disciples to their family home in Emmaus and patiently waited for the evening meal. Finally they sat together at table. Then this invited guest stepped over the bounds. Instead of being a good guest and waiting for his host to offer the blessing over the food, this guest grasped the bread and lifted it up and offered the traditional Jewish blessing, “Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the land.”

As this guest reached for the bread, his hands were exposed as he turned his palms upward and opened his fingers to receive the staff of life. His fingerprints, his palm prints, were marked upon the meal. The wounds of the crucifixion were laid bare. The familiarity of those hands was revealed. These were hands they had seen before. And these were the hands that took their wounds with them into eternity. Not the scars, which are closed, healed wounds. But the open, raw wounds.

In the Emmaus Road story, when the two disciples saw his wounds, the family realized who was at their table. When Jesus once again breached “table etiquette” and grasped the bread and blessed it, he was revealed to Cleopas and his family as the risen Christ.  And Jesus assumed the place of head of the table.

At every meal Jesus ate with outcasts, outliers, friends, strangers, and officials he was both guest and host. He graciously accepted, and sometimes cajoled, invitations to meals in unexpected places. Jesus’ presence turned every tablescape into an altar. There was always a mystery food on the table wherever Jesus ate: the food of his presence. Every place where Jesus ate was a pot luck meal: but the biggest pot on the table was the gift of his presence, the meal of the very revelation of God.

We commonly imagine the “Last Supper” Jesus presided over in his earthly life to be a Passover Seder. But the fact is that, when Jesus walked the earth, the Temple was still offering the Passover sacrifices for the Jewish faithful. There was no “Seder supper” for these Temple-era Jews. The “Passover” meal was a feast on the Paschal lamb that had been sacrificed at the Temple — not some memorial meal with bitter herbs, eggs, and matzo. It was not until the Temple was destroyed that the home table became the new altar for observant Jews — a way to commemorate the history of the Hebrews.

For those who follow Jesus, a new tradition was launched in the Upper Room in Jerusalem with the Last Supper. The unleavened bread and the cup of wine offered to his closest disciples marked the first “Passover” of a new era. This was an invitation to a meal where the Lord would always be present, where a gift of hospitality, the offering of food and drink in the name of Jesus Christ, would transform whatever the meal, whatever time of year, into a banquet. When Jesus is at the table, the best thing on the table is not the roast lamb: It is the presence of Christ. The very presence of Jesus turns a simple meal into a sumptuous feast.

It is in sharing a meal where Jesus is present that Jesus once again becomes known to those who would follow him. It is as he becomes the head of the table that the bread of life is revealed in all its resurrected presence and power.

Where is Jesus at your table? Is he present?

We often talk about a Jewish “coming of age” ritual as a bar or bat mitzvah. But it’s improper to talk about “having” a bar mitzvah. You don’t “have a bar mitzvah.” You become bar mitzvah. “Mitzvah” means commandment, or blessing. “Bar” means “son of.” “Bat” means “daughter of.” So to be “bar mitzvah” means to become a “son of the commandment” or “son of the blessing.” To be “bat mitzvah” means to become a “daughter of the commandment” or “daughter of the blessing.”

A Jew is bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah.

And a Christian is bar messiah or bat messiah: Son of the Risen and Rising Lord. Daughter of the Blessing.

The Table is our bar messiah, our bat messiah ritual. It is where we discover who we are.

Have you invited Jesus to be the head of your table?