Was there a time in
your life, maybe the time is now, when you ate most of your meals
alone? I always found it a strange feeling. Meals became more a
matter of sustenance than an occasion. There is so much more to a
meal that is shared with friends or family.
While looking for
lyrics to something different I came upon a Johnny Cash song which
contains these lines:
It's
not the barley or the wheat It's not the oven or the heat
That
makes this bread so good to eat
It's
the needing and the sharing that makes the meal complete.
Our English word companion speaks of sharing food. The Latin roots
are together (com) and bread (panis). WE use it to talk about someone
who shares a portion of life’s journey with us. Because we know
that life is almost always better and easier when we share it with
one or more others. We mark events and anniversaries by eating
together with one special person or a group of special people. It
isn’t about the food, we can eat alone if need be. It is about the
people.
Yesterday
I saw a video (actually a commercial for President’s Choice) where
a couple of young women set up a table in the hallway of their
apartment building. As the video progresses more and more people
gather, each bringing something to share with the table. And as they
gather they meet each other (how many of us never get to know our
neighbours?) and there is laughter. Community is built when we eat
together. As I watched it I
saw the sacrament of the neighbourhood potluck.
Another song. There
is an African American spiritual that I learned as a child (long
before I knew what an African American Spiritual was) which says:
Let
us break bread together on our knees;
let
us break bread together on our knees;
It
is a song often sung at
communion services, the time when we gathered at God’s Table to
celebrate the meal of faith and hope.
From
the beginning of the movement that followed and continues to follow
Jesus meals have been crucial. Jesus knew the power of sitting at the
same table as others. Indeed on more than one occasion people sneer
at and complain about Jesus because he is willing to eat with tax
collectors and sinners and people of ill-repute. Jesus knew that to
eat with people is a way to let them know that they belong, that they
are loved, that they are accepted. Then, just before his death, Jesus
told his friends to continue to break bread and share a cup of wine
in remembrance of him. The
common table, and the fellowship shared there, was a marker of what
it meant to follow Jesus.
To
this day the church continues to break bread and share wine or juice
and remember Jesus. And when we do this together we meet God. We
meet God in the bread and the cup and in
the neighbours with who we share the meal. It
is not about the ritual. It is not about wine vs. juice.
It is not about what kind of bread is broken. Or rather it is about
more than all those things. It is about the community which gathers
to share and to support each other.
One
of my favourite Easter stories takes place in Luke 24:13-35. A pair
of travellers encounter a stranger on the road. They discuss the life
and ministry of Jesus with him for many miles, and then invite him to
spend the night with them. He breaks the bread and they recognize
that Christ is with them. When we break bread together we enter a
holy place, and Christ is revealed in our midst. Christ is in the
bread and in the gathered community. In
one of his books Bishop John
Spong suggests that for some portion of the early Church Easter
became revealed and real to them when they continued doing what Jesus
had done and gathered people together at the table. Then they knew
that Christ was still with them. I
would tend to agree. A meal
shared is a sign of grace.
Christianity
is a faith based on being in community. We are a faith that knows
that we are stronger in community. We know that we meet God in
community. And so when we
invite each other to eat, be that at a ritual Communion meal or at a
potluck or at a neighbourhood BBQ we are inviting each other to a
holy time, a place where we can meet God.
When
we eat together, we are stronger as a community. Thanks be to God.
Let us break bread together.
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