A meal with Jesus - a call to hospitality

In many ways food defines our lives.  We need it to live.  We spend the vast majority of our income on food.  Our daily routines are shaped around it.  The average american in 2011 was reported to eat almost a ton of food in a year.  To put that into perspective a small car weights about a ton.  With majority of that consumption on diary products, the average person ate almost 700lbs in one year!  If we were to look at this over a person’s life time, from cradle to grave, it is estimated that the average person will consume over 15000 pints of milk.  You will eat, on average unless you are a vegetarian, 4 cows, 21 sheep, 15 pigs and 1200 chickens.  We will eat over 4000 loaves of bread.  To wash all of this food down, the average British person drinks 74802 cups of tea.

So it seems food matters and we get through a lot of it!  However, what we are thinking about is so much more than the individual components of food.  Because as important as food is, what is matters even more is the meals we shaped around the food.

Meals matter.  Meals are full of significance.  ‘Few acts are more expressive of companionship than the shared meal…Someone with whom we share food is likely to be our friends, or well on the way to becoming one.’  The word ‘companion’ comes from the Latin cum (together) and panis (bread).  We all have favourite images of good meals.  Think about your dining room or kitchen table.  What dramas have been played out around this simple piece of furniture?  Day by day you’ve chatted with your family, sharing news, telling stories.  Values have been passed on.  Guests have been welcomed.  People have found a home.  Love has blossomed.  Important decisions about the future made.  

The New Testament writers knew the significance of sharing meals with others.  There are 5 different occasions where there are commands to believers to practice hospitality.  The apostle Paul also praises various believers for their hospitality on two different occasions.  

Let’s have a quick look through the New Testament says on the matter.  In Romans 12v13, Paul commands the believer to share with the Lord’s people who are in need and practice hospitality.  In 1 Timothy 5v10, when describing the characteristics of the widows who could be put on the ‘in need list’, one of them was showing hospitality.  In Hebrews the writer of the letter says, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”  Peter in his first letter not only commands hospitality but also the attitude with which it should be done, “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.”  Then finally, John in his third letter gives one reason why hospitality is so important.  He says, “We ought therefore to show hospitality to such people so that we may work together for the truth.”

It is clear that the Bible sees food as more than just fuel.  There is a significance is sharing meals with other and if you look through the gospel’s you see that Jesus knew the significance of meals.  The way he interacts with those around him showed that he saw food as more than just fuel.  He placed a high value on eating with others.  And it is important to say from the out set that through Jesus’ example we see that sharing food doesn’t necessarily require hosting.  Instead Jesus accepted invitations.  He was a guest more often than he was a host.  

So what can we learn from Jesus? How did eating meals with others shape what he did?  If I was to ask you to complete the following sentence “The Son of Man came…”, what would you say?  The Son of Man came…preaching the Word…to establish the kingdom of God…to die on the cross.  

There are three ways in which Jesus completes that sentence in the New Testament.  In Mark 10v45, Jesus says ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’.  In Luke 19v10, He says ‘The Son of Man of came to seek and to save the lost’.  These are both statements of purpose.  Why did Jesus come?  He came to serve, to give his life as a ransom, to seek and save the lost.  But the third is a little more surprising and looks at how Jesus came and what characterised his ministry.  In Luke 7v34, in response to criticism from the Pharisees, Jesus says ‘The Son of Man came eating and drinking.’

Son of Man is Daniel’s label for one who comes before God to receive authority over the nations.  And now Jesus, the Son of Man, has come.  But how does he come?  Does he come with an army of angels?  Does he come on the clouds of heaven?  Does he come with a blaze of glory?  Not the first time, he will come like that in the future when he comes for the second time.  But Jesus’ time of earth was characterised by the normal routines of life, ‘eating and drinking’.  So much so, that he got criticised for it.  

In Luke 5 the Pharisees criticise Jesus and his disciples for not fasting and praying as much as the disciples of John the Baptist or the disciples of the Pharisees.  Instead they were know for eating and drinking.  So much that the accusation Jesus was responding to in chapter 7, accused him of doing it to excess.  They said, “Look at him!  A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”  Now I don’t think Jesus was rolling around drunk and stuffing his face.  But I think his behaviour was noticeably different to the other teachers and religious leaders at the time.  He didn’t stand on street corners and preach over people’s heads.  He got involved in their lives.  

I think the meals of Jesus represent something bigger, not just his attitude to food and drink.  They are a window into Jesus’ message of grace and ground that message in the concrete stuff of life.  They represent a new world, a new kingdom, a new outlook and they give the new reality substance. 

Tomorrow - part 2: What do the meals of Jesus represent?