Table Grace

The role of hospitality in the Christian Life

Douglas Webster

• Publisher: Christian Focus Publication
• eBook ISBN:
  9781845508265
• Year: 2011

1

The Invitation

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Psalm 34:8

God’s invitation to table fellowship can be found throughout the Bible. A simple meal is one of the best places to begin to understand and practice true spirituality. Jesus invited more people to lunch than He did to the synagogue. To the surprise of many, eating and prayer belong together. Devotion to God and friendship with one another meet ‘around the table,’ so to speak. God designed us in such a way that the measure of our communion with Him is reflected in the depth of our relationships with others. Physical nourishment and spiritual sustenance were meant to go hand in hand. Table fellowship reminds us that there is a remarkable symmetry between our communion with God and our community with one another. Life’s meaning happens at God’s invitation.

Conversation around a simple meal may mean more to the Lord than all the hype we generate in busy churches. The act of opening our homes and our lives to friends and strangers holds real promise for spiritual growth. It is amazing how lunch together can build us up in Christ. Table fellowship in Christ is one of the best ways to experience the communion of the saints. The Holy Spirit has assured us that there is a deep-level mystery involved in hospitality. We meet Christ in the midst of relating to others. ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it me’ (Matt. 25:40). ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angles unawares’ (Heb. 13:2).

Hospitality has greater rewards than most of us imagine: ‘Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me’ (Matt. 10:40). The measure of our openness to others reveals our intimacy with the One who said, ‘Come unto me.’ Søren Kierkegaard understood this: ‘Oh, where heart-room is, there house-room always is to be found. But where was there ever heart-room if not in His heart?’¹

One of the best-kept secrets about hospitality is that those who offer it benefit more than those who receive it. When we open the front door of our homes to friends and strangers, set the table, put on a meal, and break bread together, we invite God’s blessing. We think of hospitality as giving to others, but what if hospitality is the Lord’s way of bringing people into our lives who will give to us: the foreign student who enlarges our world, the homeless person who deepens our compassion, the missionary who causes us to pray more earnestly, the single mom who increases our family, and the neighbor whose next-door-presence trains us in practical love? We may be like the reluctant widow at Zarephath, entertaining the prophet Elijah, or like the eager-hearted Lydia hosting the apostle Paul. Whether we are reluctant or eager, we should understand that hospitality was meant to be an opportunity, not an imposition.

Most of us lead very private, busy lives and complain that we experience little community. We tend to be over-programed, protective of our time and families, and passive when it comes to inviting people over for a meal. We have every intention of reaching out to others, but our hospitality falls victim to a host of excuses—we’re too tired, our lives are too hectic, the house is messy, we don’t know what to serve, and the list goes on.

Yet hospitality remains one of Christ’s most basic provisions for community. I am surprised at how much happens over meals in the course of salvation history. The Lord accomplishes extraordinary work over ordinary meals. In this most basic of ways, materiality and spirituality converge. Abraham invites the Lord to lunch with a simple and sincere invitation. He offers them something to eat to strengthen them for their journey (Gen. 18:5). The Lord applied the principle of hospitality to the Passover meal with the command that if a household was too small for a whole lamb, they could share the lamb with their neighbors (Exod. 12:4). The Lord set up the Tabernacle with a small table overlaid with gold to symbolize fellowship between Himself and His people. On the table was the bread of the Presence (Exod. 25:30). Even in the wilderness, Yahweh furnished a table for His people (Ps. 78:19). Manna in the morning meant God’s miraculous provision for the Israelites’ material needs (Exod. 16:15). Daily bread and God’s redemptive blessing coincide in a down-to-earth way.

Throughout the Old Testament, table fellowship was a way of reaching out and bringing reconciliation. David promised Saul’s descendent Mephibosheth a seat at his table for as long as he lived (2 Sam. 9:7). Nehemiah made room at his table for visitors from the surrounding nations (Neh. 5:17). After Ezra ‘opened the book’ and read from the Word of God, Nehemiah encouraged the people to celebrate: ‘Go home and prepare a feast, holiday food and drink; and share it with those who don’t have anything: This day is holy to God. Don’t feel bad. The joy of GOD is your strength!’ (Neh. 8:10, MSG). Clearly, eating in the Old Testament became an occasion for God’s grace to become evident in both physical and spiritual ways.

BIBLICAL HOSPITALITY

Table fellowship fits into the New Testament narrative so unobtrusively that we can almost miss it. A simple meal was the context for much of Jesus’ interaction with his disciples. The Master intended spiritual growth to occur during mealtime fellowship. In His ministry, physical and spiritual nourishment ran together in the ordinary course of daily life. He fed the body and the soul. Jesus broke bread with the disciples before instituting the Lord’s Supper. His high-priestly prayer, the longest prayer recorded in the Bible (John 17), was prayed around the table. After His resurrection, He fixed breakfast for Peter and the disciples and led Peter to reconciliation (John 21:15-19). Before His ascension, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit over dinner with the disciples. Luke described the setting this way: ‘As they met and ate meals together, he told them ... ’ (Acts 1:4, MSG). The ambience must not have been super-spiritual, no incense or prepared liturgy – just a simple meal. Jesus’ way of relating to people rules out any method or manner that is either artificially contrived or self-consciously ‘spiritual.’

Jesus is authentic, and He models the way He expects us to relate to one another. If we pay attention, the way Jesus made Himself known becomes just as meaningful to us as His revelation. Method and message work together. The prologue to the Gospel of John ends with these words: ‘No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known’ (John 1:18). God-incarnate made the invisible God real to us by inviting Himself into our lives, not in some ethereal other-worldly sense, but in a way that really works in our ordinary daily lives. In His humility, Jesus invites our hospitality: ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me’ (Rev. 3:20). The experience of Jesus’ table grace makes us one with Him in revealing the invisible God. Love reigns around the Lord’s family table. I John 4:12 parallels John 1:18 and reads, ‘No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.’ In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the revelation of the invisible God. In the Epistle of John, those who love one another reveal the invisible God. Table grace transforms our lives.

In New Testament times, a kosher table defined identity and fellowship, making Jesus’ table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners controversial. His ministry marked the end of the old object lessons of clean and unclean animals. Who would have thought that God would make such a big deal about eating? Leave it to our Creator to turn a simple meal into an object lesson of grace. ‘There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God,’ wrote C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. ‘God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.’²

As Eugene Peterson has noted, ‘It is striking how much of Jesus’ life is told in settings defined by meals.’³ We tend to talk about complex evangelistic strategies and techniques, but Jesus used simple hospitality and mealtime conversations to share the gospel. The question for us is this: how did Jesus befriend such a wide array of people on their own turf? How did He turn their hearts to the good news of God’s grace over lunch? How did Jesus, who was ‘homeless,’ feel at home at a great banquet hosted by a tax collector named Levi and attended by a large crowd of his tax collector friends? How did Jesus, who was dirt poor, become the honored guest of a man by the name of Zacchaeus, who was filthy rich? The Pharisees may have called Jesus a glutton and a drunkard (Matt. 11:19), but they still invited Him for dinner, and He obliged them by telling parables with not-so-hidden meanings.

Jesus shared much of His ministry over meals. In the end, He invited His disciples to share the final meal with Him. This Last Supper, this eucharistic meal, is best observed in the household of faith, not with pomp and circumstance, but with the closest of connections to our ordinary, everyday life. The association between eating our daily bread and eating Christ’s flesh and drinking His blood was close enough in the early church that they used the Jewish ritual of ‘breaking bread’ as a euphemism for celebrating Holy Communion (Acts 2:42). As Eugene Peterson reminds us, ‘Our continuing witness to and fear-of-the-Lord participation in the work of salvation is formed eucharistically around our kitchen tables. Daily meals with family, friends and guests, acts of hospitality every one, are the most natural and frequent settings for working out the personal and social implications of salvation.’⁴

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus talked with the risen Lord Jesus, but they didn’t recognize Him until He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Likewise, we recognize the crucified and risen Lord best in the ordinary course of our daily lives. The apostle Paul’s challenge remains, ‘So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering’ (Rom. 12:1 MSG).

HOME HOSPITALITY

One Sunday in particular stands out for me as a wonderful experience of table fellowship. It gave me a taste of what the Great Banquet is going to be like. Following morning worship, our Sunday dinner took on the character of an early-church agape meal, the kind of table fellowship experienced by the church in Acts when they climaxed their dinner fellowship with Holy Communion. We have had many meals like this in our home, but this one was special. It was Easter, and out-of-town friends converged in San Diego. Earlier that day, we had met at church for worship. Eric flew in from D.C., Karen from Oregon, and close friends of our son, Chad and Kim, from Spokane, unexpectedly showed up at church that morning. In addition to this lively crew, our daughter Kennerly and her boyfriend Patrick had just announced their engagement. We were bound to have great fellowship with or without good food, but my wife Virginia outdid herself in preparing the meal: baked salmon topped with sun-dried tomatoes, shallots, capers, and pine-nuts; wild rice; tossed salad with apples, cashews, and Cheddar cheese; and fresh bread.

In our house, setting the table for a special meal involves adding a leaf to the table, with a pressed tablecloth, folded napkins, plates and silverware properly placed. Virginia cuts some flowers and arranges a small centerpiece, careful not to obstruct anyone’s view. Setting the table also involves relational work. People are befriended and invited. Food is purchased with the guests in mind and prepared specifically for them. In addition, spiritual preparation goes into the meal. What we bring to the table, whether it is joy or sadness, maturity or immaturity, has been in the works for some time leading up to the fellowship.

Before our noonday meal, we spent the morning in worship. We sang songs of praise and hymns. I preached on David’s wilderness congregation, from 1 Samuel 22:2: ‘And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to him. And he became captain over them.’ The message focused on the providence, power, and grace of God in forming congregations and building ministry teams. David’s motley congregation was compared to Jesus’ team of Twelve and Paul’s description of the local church at Corinth. The conclusion: God’s great faithfulness goes before us, shaping community, nurturing fellowship, and inspiring service.

Good food. Great stories. In the company of lively saints, fellowship is charged with meaning. On the day I am recalling, there was plenty of laughter, sometimes even boisterous, especially at the end of the table where my wife was sitting. Conversational jazz is awesome: the extemporaneous improvisation of the soul. At the heart of table fellowship is a free-flowing banter that can jump from the sublime to the ridiculous, moving from the serious to the comedic.

Like a sports fan talking about a great play, Eric highlighted the morning worship experience. He compared the worship impact of the contemporary anthem ‘Every Breath Is Yours’ to Beethoven’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’ He pulled his marked-up copy of the worship bulletin from his back pocket and summed up the message perfectly. From there our discussion went all over the map.

Lively saints produce lively yet unpretentious dialogue, free from one-upmanship. It may be edgy at times, but never cutting. Nothing fake. Everyone gets drawn in. Sincere questions. Real answers. This is a whole new experience for those raised on family meals filled with tension and berating. This is altogether different from the formal dinners where everything is about performing and impressing. Table fellowship may seem intimidating to those who grew up eating alone or in front of the TV, but it is worth the risk.

To bow in prayer and to break bread together is a eucharistic experience. This is because Christ is the real host, inviting us into His fellowship by His grace and mercy. The providence, power, and grace of God draw us into community. We bow and pray and pass the bread of life. We enjoy each other in Christ. Oftentimes, the benediction is unspoken as we part and go our separate ways into the world as salt and light and leaven.

I am not suggesting that all family meals are as meaningful as the one I am recalling. Perhaps it is their very rarity that makes them seem so special. It is not always possible to have friends and family together or to provide an elaborate meal for guests. Nevertheless, the principles of Christian hospitality are still in play, whether it is over a cup of coffee or a light meal shared on a lunch break.

Spirituality is often squeezed into a corner of life reserved for pious reflections and church services. But God intended spirituality to be at the center of our ordinary, everyday life together. Table grace refers to much more than the prayer at the beginning of a meal.

Table grace is food for the mind, a metaphor for communion with God.

Table grace is food for the body, a means for sustaining physical strength.

Table grace is food for the soul, a method for understanding God’s values.

Table grace is food for the hungry, a model for serving Christ and His Kingdom.

The metaphor pictures the message; the means links body and soul in community; the method sets the strategy for holistic spirituality; and the model empowers the mission. Eating is serious business, but in a well-defined way.

Because of Christ’s hospitality we have the opportunity to extend hospitality to others; to strangers and friends, to those who know Christ and to those who do not. In Christ, we learn that we need the fellowship of the needy if we are going to understand the hospitality of God’s grace. God’s invitation to us finds full expression in our invitation to others.

DISCUSSION

1. How have you experienced this biblical theme of table grace in your life? When have you served as ‘host’ for others? When have you been another’s ‘guest’?
2. Why is it easy or difficult for you to talk about your faith in Christ over a meal? How do spiritual preparations factor into your practices of hospitality?
3. In what ways can you integrate true spirituality into your ordinary daily life?
4. How have you personally benefited from hospitality?

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¹ Søren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), p. 13.

² C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001), p. 64.

³ Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 212.

⁴ Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places p. 214

2

Setting the Table

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Psalm 23:5

Whenever a meal is served somebody has to set the table, bake the bread, pour the wine, invite the guests, and host the meal. The Lord relishes this responsibility. We are invited to His table. To paraphrase the Song of Songs, ‘He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me is love’ (Song 2:4). Table grace underscores the connection between our ordinary, everyday world and the grace of God in Christ. Thomas Howard writes:

Holy things are ordinary things perceived in their true light, that is, as bearers of the divine mysteries and glory to us. Looked at in this way, eating becomes eucharistic, and working becomes the opus dei (‘work of God’), and loving becomes an image of the City of God... We are set free to live in the ...

Table of contents

• Testimonials
• Title
• Indicia
• Contents
• Dedecation
• Foreword
• 1. The Invitation
• 2. Setting the Table
• 3. A Working Lunch
• 4. Table Manners
• 5. Daily Bread
• 6. Real Food
• 7. Table Talk
• 8. The Guest
• 9. The Family Meal
• 10. Breakfast on the Beach
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