Credit: Lan Pham
Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/slyyeNC6qzY
This daily post is designed to help you live into our New Room Society covenant of practicing daily prayer together. Below is this week’s theme and daily practice.
Week 6: Risen
Why is communion is so closely linked with the risen Christ? How is it that meal-sharing and friendship are so foundational to the moral life?
“And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him.” Luke 24:31, The Message (MSG)
Have you ever wondered if sharing food is becoming obsolete? It’s a serious question, with far-reaching implications. And it speaks to our basic theology.
Food is a necessity, certainly. But in first world countries, food is also a status symbol (bulletproof coffee, anyone?), a luxury (Beluga caviar runs about $4,000 per pound), and ironically, a rapidly-expanding health hazard in the form of a wide range of nutrition-negative fare.
Have you ever noticed how rare it is to find a church group that meets for a meal where the hosts don’t go “all out” to feed everyone? Methodists even make proud jokes about it.
How might our theology change if everyone agreed, any time the church met together, to share a simple meal of bread and soup, and perhaps even bringing one’s own bowl and spoon?
Who might then feel welcome, where before they did not? And what else might be revealed?
What a hearty echo of the communion feast that sounds…
Sunday: Master of the feast
What does it mean that the “stranger” from the Emmaus road was, in fact, the one serving as host at dinner? Does it make you ask who the strangers at the meal really are? Or, based on the host’s clear authority and affection, are there any strangers?
The next time you are sharing the Eucharist meal, consider how you think of the word “mine.” Who is Master in our lives? Who is Master in our travels, in our friendships, in our homes, and around our tables? How is that evident?