1 Cor 10:31: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (ESV)
I still, with fond memories, remember the early days of when Lorna started to meet my university friends. At the time Lorna was living at home with her parents in Norfolk whilst I was working and living in Sheffield. One Friday evening Lorna travelled up to Sheffield, and after getting herself settled into the spare room of some friends who lived just around the corner, we all went out for dinner. This was a pretty daunting moment for Lorna as there were somewhere in the region of ten or so of my really close friends all wanting to get to know her! We’d all been at university together and lived in the same houses for the last three years. As you can imagine this was a pretty tight community or ‘family’. Yet as the night unfolded I could see Lorna relaxing and slowly moving from being an outsider enjoying the company of my friends to being part of the crowd. Defences started to come down and jokes started to flow, especially between Lorna and Glen who grew up in ‘souf-east’ London. Why am I telling you all of this? There is something universal about sitting and sharing food together that cuts across culture, gender, age and social class. It’s a wonderful place for friendship to be forged, fears to be dispelled and community to be strengthened.
Maybe this all sounds a little too ‘unspiritual’, but notice Robert Karris concludes “in Luke’s Gospel Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal.” What an amazing picture of the life of Jesus. In fact he was so accustomed to meals and banquets that at one point he was even accused of being a glutton (see Matthew 11:19). Let me give you a few examples of Jesus’ dinner table interactions:
- In Luke 5 Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners at the home of Levi.
- In Luke 7 Jesus is anointed at the Simon the Pharisee during a meal.
- In Luke 9 Jesus feeds the five thousand.
- In Luke 10 Jesus eats in the home of Martha and Mary.
- In Luke 11 Jesus condemns the Pharisees and teachers of the law at a meal.
- In Luke 14 Jesus is at a meal when he urges people to invite the poor to their meals rather than their friends.
- In Luke 19 Jesus invites himself to dinner with Zacchaeus.
- In Luke 22 we have the account of the last supper.
- In Luke 24 the risen Christ has a meal with two disciples in Emmaus and then later eats fish with the disciples in Jerusalem.
Jesus understood the universal currency of dinner table conversation and used it to reach over the divide into people’s lives. Notice also what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:31 about living a God-glorifying life: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”(1 Cor 10:31). He doesn’t focus on special Sunday gatherings, although these are important, instead he draws our attention to the apparently unspiritual, even mundane issue of eating and drinking. In the eyes of the Apostle Paul there is nothing that we do that can’t in some way either bring attention to the glory of God or sadly diminish it in the eyes of those around us. This includes the way we use our time, our table and our tummy!
Just think again for a moment about those few hours that Lorna spent in the restaurant with my friends or my ‘community’. In many ways they are very much like those first few hours that the many guests we’ve had at Kingsgate over the last year. These newcomers are stepping into our world, our community and our relationships. Why don’t we make it a priority to use the universal language of a meal to help people move from being an outsider looking in, to someone who belongs and is part of the crowd! I’d like to encourage and set you two challenges over the next 6 weeks:
Challenge 1: Invite a newcomer who attends one of our Sunday morning meetings back for dinner
Challenge 2: Invite someone who is already part of the church but you don’t know that well for dinner or coffee
As I’ve said before, hospitality is not the ability to provide Michelin star cooking, but rather the ability to open up your home to strangers and make them feel welcome, in a way that you would want Jesus to feel welcome in your home.
If everyone in the church family took hold of these two challenges Kingsgate would be an amazing place for both as a newcomer and someone who has been around for some time!
Let’s not wait for someone else to take the initiative, let each of us look to grab hold of this challenge and eat food and use our homes and tables for the glory of God!
by Adam Bradley