Feasting Today

 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

-Disestablishment & Decentralization—Have you ever experienced Dinner Church? Have you ever gone through a whole worship service, but seated, the focus of the service on the meal. Surely we gather—there is a whole protocol to greeting dinner guests isn’t there?, read scripture—cross table story telling is a beautiful thing, and are sent into the world to serve—perhaps even ending that service by drying the dishes… but the whole thing is embedded in eating. It makes the various pieces of advice from the early church make more sense… hey Corinthians don’t force the poor to pack a lunch, while the rich experience the eucharist as a catered meal!

In a world where gathering in a church building might feel foreign, bringing church to a restaurant, or at least a meal space, can speak afresh. In a world where going up to an altar rail and eating a wafer and a sip of wine doesn’t say “Feast” to some folk, it might be time to rely on a different central thing to hold some of the weight of our faith.

-Demographic Shift—Along with that Disestablishment concern—that our way of doing Communion doesn’t say feast to the average person—there is also the question of what culture’s feast are we basing the Eucharist on? What is the common bread of the people? What does celebration look like today?

How quickly these kinds of questions can go in a crass, and unhealthy, direction—from what I’ve heard two generations ago Pastors already pushed the question to the breaking point with nachos and beer kegs, fondu and box wine—but if we ask this question, not to shock and push the envelope, but to open things up and include everyone, what might that look like? What does a common heavenly party look like to an Anglo crowd? African Americans? Latinos? Is Naan or Pita more recognizable in your neighborhood? Does grape juice or saki say “Thanks be to God?” on your block? Or is there just different language we need to use around the words of institution to let folk know this is an appetizer of what will be the last best feast, provided by God?