“My most treasured moments are those I spend with my family, and none are so vivid as the ones involving food. The mixture of playful family fun and the unforgettable smells, tastes, and textures come together to form distinct memories that I will cherish forever.” Padma Lakshmi (Gourmet, May 2005, pp. 28, 62)
There is just something about sharing food around a table that draws people together. The power of the table is indescribable really. Sharing a meal together is a religious experience. Please don’t get me wrong. I know that there are numerous cases where the table has been more destructive than unifying, but this is a struggle with our own humanity. At its best, the table is a place where all of the senses are engaged with the food and the company in ways that destroy the barrier between the physical and the spiritual. At its worst, the table is a place where our prejudice and callousness reinforce the oppressive structures of society and the world around us.
This has always been the case. In Jesus’ world, “to welcome people at the table had become tantamount to extending to them intimacy, solidarity, acceptance; table companions were treated as though they were of one’s extended family. Sharing food encoded messages about hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and crossing boundaries…. As a consequence, to refuse table fellowship with people was to ostracize them, to treat them as outsiders.” (Green, Theology of Luke, 87).
In our texts this week Jesus reminds us that our table must be a place of welcome. They must be open to all. It is at the table that the
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