Meals are powerful. In my first workplace after graduation, my boss would often order in food and treat the team to meals. For her, eating together was a crucial means to bond and to work cohesively. Her motto was: ‘A team that eats together stays together.’
The workplace aside, we intuitively understand the power of eating together.
When we want to catch up with a friend, we’d say, ‘let’s catch up over a meal.’
During Chinese New Year, one of most important rituals in the Chinese culture is the reunion dinner.
Human beings, made in the image of the Triune God (Gen 1:26), are social creatures who long for communion with one another. To this end, shared meals are a powerful vehicle. We see this particularly in the life of The Human Being, Jesus Christ. In what follows, we will briefly consider Jesus’ meals to see what we can glean (no pun intended) from them.
Meals that Jesus shared
Soon, we will begin a new preaching series on the Gospel of Luke. In the gospel, we find our Lord having many meals, so many that the Pharisees observing his ministry, concluded that ‘the Son of Man has come eating and drinking’ (Luke 7:34). In fact, they dissed Jesus by pointing out that his disciples weren’t as holy as John’s or the Pharisees’. They chided him, ‘The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink’ (Luke 5:33). Jesus spent so much time in the ordinary activity of eating with others that it seemed like he wasn’t spending nearly enough time engaging in more religious activities.
Tim Chester, author of A Meal with Jesus, summarises Jesus’ meals in Luke this way:
‘In Luke 5 Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners at the home of Levi
In Luke 7 Jesus is anointed at the home of Simon the Pharisee during a meal.
In Luke 9 Jesus feeds the five thousand.
In Luke 10 Jesus eats in the home of Martha and Mary
In Luke 11 Jesus condemns the Pharisees and teachers of the law at a meal.
In Luke 14 Jesus is at a meal when he urges people to invite the poor to their meals rather than their friends.
In Luke 19 Jesus invites himself to dinner with Zacchaeus.
In Luke 22 we have the account of the Last Supper.
In Luke 24 the risen Christ has a meal with the two disciples in Emmaus, and then later eats fish with the disciples in Jerusalem.’
In other words, the shared meal was a central feature in the method of Jesus’ ministry.
A key theme in Luke-Acts is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Luke makes it clear that Jesus went about his ministry in the power of the Spirit (Lk 3:22, 4:1, 14, 18 etc.). Yet filled with the Spirit, what did Jesus do? He ate with others. To be sure: yes, he preached; yes, he performed miracles; yes, he isolated himself to pray – but core to his short three years of ministry was shared meals. Over the course of meals, he taught his disciples, associated with the ostracised, rebuked the self-righteous, etc. In short, through the ministry of eating and drinking, he communed with people and transformed them in the process.
What does this mean for us who want to follow in the footsteps of our Lord? In what follows, we consider just two implications.
Meals that minister
I once heard Dr Tan Soo Inn, director of Graceworks, share about one of the most meaningful ministries he was engaged in. He shared that a close friend was going through a dark period of crippling loss and deep sorrow. So how did Dr Tan minister to his friend? Two words: Dim Sum. Dr Tan shared that he would meet this friend every week on a particular day and they would just have Dim Sum together. No intentional counselling, no Bible study, no time of prayer – just sitting together over a meal of Dim Sum. He shared that this simple ritual became a refuge for his friend because it gave him something to look forward to each week.
Do you have the gift of having Dim Sum with someone? You may feel like someone who isn’t particularly gifted. Perhaps, you aren’t confident to teach the Bible or to counsel someone. But do you know of a discouraged friend who could use a meal together? Who knows what God may do through our acts of Christian love? John teaches us, ‘… if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us’ (1 Jn 4:12).
Meals that reveal
Among the many meals Jesus had in the Gospel of Luke, two meals occurred after the event of his death and resurrection. These two meals (Lk 24:13-49) form the concluding accounts of Jesus’ ministry to the disciples before his Ascension (Lk 24:50-53). Let’s consider each in turn.
The first one (v13-35) was a meal that culminated after a long journey to Emmaus on which the two disciples walked with Jesus. What was notable about the journey was that the disciples had no clue that Jesus was speaking to them (v16). They lamented the confusion brought about by Jesus’ death (v19-21) and his apparent resurrection (v22-24). In response, Jesus preached the OT scriptures to them (v25-27). Yet their eyes were still not opened to recognise him. The specific moment in which Jesus was revealed to them is as follows:
‘30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him…’
Jesus was not revealed to them during the journey nor even in the preaching but at the table where ‘he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them’ (v30). As if this connection wasn’t clear enough, Luke concludes the pericope (short story) emphasising that ‘he was known to them in the breaking of the bread’ (v35).
Likewise, in the second meal after the resurrection (v36-49), though less explicit, it seems a similar connection is brought out by Luke. While the disciples still doubted the presence of the resurrected Christ with them (v41), Jesus confirmed his presence by eating grilled fish before them (v42-43). Jesus then proceeded to preach to them from the OT scriptures, linking it to his death and resurrection (v44-47).
Intriguingly, like the previous meal, the preaching of the word and the eating of the meal came together – only here, the preaching came after the eating. Through both these post-resurrection meals, Jesus interpreted the scriptures and the events of his passion. Through both these post-resurrection meals, Jesus revealed himself to the disciples. Word and meal came together in climactic revelation of the resurrected Christ.
In light of these post-resurrection experiences with Christ, it is no wonder then that Luke describes the early church’s meetings as marked by devotion ‘to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers’ (Acts 2:42). Neither is it surprising that our Christian tradition has so emphasised the connection between the preaching of the word and the eating of the meal on a Sunday service.
Each Sunday, through the Spirit, we too can be beneficiaries of Jesus’ ministry of meals. For by God’s grace, we’ve received the Spirit who not only unites us with Christ (1 Cor 12:12-13) but who also reveals Christ to us (Jn 16:14-15). As we approach the pulpit and the table in faith, who knows how the resurrected Christ himself will minister to us. Perhaps our eyes too will be opened to recognise the resurrected Christ as the bread is broken before us.
