Table Talk
Dear Friends:
Last week, I preached about our real need for rest and nourishment, not only physical nourishment but the kind of sustenance we receive in gathering around the table together. In lingering over a meal, we learn something about love we can’t learn anywhere else.
When I wrote this, I sort of knew that for the next six weeks we would be hearing from the “Bread of Life” narrative in the Gospel of John, beginning with his version of the Feeding of the 5,000. And what strikes me most about the story this year is different than the miracle of the food itself. It’s the miracle of gathering.
As John describes the scene, Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee, and takes his disciples up a mountain. Immediately he notices a large crowd following them — a crowd filled with hope, need, want, and hunger. His first thought when he sees the throngs of people approaching is, “How might we create conditions where they can remain together? How can we gather them, and help them to receive nourishment in community?”
However, we know from the other Gospel accounts that the disciples aren’t on the same wavelength. In Mark’s version, they object to Jesus’ desire, and say, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” In other words, the disciple’s impulse is to scatter the people, sending them off to fend for themselves. To resist the burden of meeting their needs in community.
In the words of writer Debie Thomas: “Maybe, after the past year, we are in an especially good position to appreciate Jesus’s vision. We, too, have been scattered. We have known the loneliness of the empty table, the unused guest room, the locked-up church building, the fast from Eucharist. We have discovered anew how sacred and life-giving it is to gather, and how much we ache when we’re denied the means to do so. We’ve experienced in urgent ways how much our humanity depends on proximity. On eating together, and finding nourishment together. I wish I knew the original source of this wonderful phrase, but I have heard it said more than once that “Christianity is the eatingest religion in the world.” Indeed.
When Jesus feeds the five thousand, he does more than fill their stomachs. He encourages hungry, needy, weary people to sit down together, to notice and attend to each other, to take pleasure not only in the possibility of their own fullness, but in the fullness of the whole.
As we move through these remaining summer months, let’s find our way to one another around the table. If you have ideas, share them with me. Share them with our vestry. Share them with each another. Remember, it was Jesus himself who told us he would be made known to us in the breaking of bread.
In Christ,
Amelie
