Breaking bread together

The Lord’s supper.

If there is one thing that characterizes true Christianity in a way that almost no other faith community has, it’s the priority that the followers of Jesus give to eating together.

If you think of this idea in churchly terms, we have the word “eucharist” that defines for the (numerical) majority of Christians the most important aspect of communal worship. The Orthodox have the Divine Liturgy which includes (as part 2 of 2) the Liturgy of the Gifts (another name for the Eucharist). The Roman Catholics have the mass. The “high church” Protestants (for lack of a better term) have the Holy Communion or Eucharist. Almost all other groups calling themselves “Christian” have some form of “breaking bread with one another” that is ceremonially administered and commemorative of the last supper of Jesus with His disciples, which was a modified Passover seder (by most accounts). Only groups like the Salvation Army and the Quakers do not make much of this, and not because they’re not truly Christian, but just because they spiritualize the concept of communion with Jesus and other believers to the degree where outward signs are abolished.

Still, almost no other faith community puts “feeding together” on such a high level as Christianity. At the same time, many or most Christians somehow lose part of the meaning and experience of this “communion” by restricting it to “the Lord’s table” as enacted as part of church services, not making the connexion that any and every act of dining with others can partake of the same real Presence that is experienced in the services.

I just realised this morning, after talking to my best friend, who is away for an indefinite period of time, on the telephone, how much I miss him, and the first image that came to mind was, how much I miss having breakfast, lunch or dinner with him. Though our friendship has many aspects and a wealth of shared experience, learning together, working together on projects, and witnessing for Christ together, it’s sitting down at table together, just he and I, eating, drinking and fellowshipping, that somehow is the apex of our friendship. When we are dining together, I experience Christ in our midst to an incredible degree. He is always with us, but I experience that Presence most when having supper with my friend. It seems like it's always been this way.

Thinking along these lines, I remembered just last night going to dinner with a mother and daughter after the four of us (yes, the daughter’s husband worked too, but had to go to his “real job” at the plumbing store and missed eating with us) had spent all day moving the young couple into their new townhouse. We are all Christians, and we dined together with Christ and had wonderful fellowship with one another, and then ordered some “take out” to share with the young husband when he returned home from work. To eat together satisfied our tired and hungry frames, but we were fed far more than the sum total of what we ate and drank. As Jesus says, “I have food to eat that you do not know about” (John 4:32), and “My food is to do the will of the One who sent Me, and to complete His work” (John 4:34).

How sad it is to have to eat and drink alone!
If food and drink were all that we required to truly feed us, this would be no problem, but it isn’t. When I have to eat alone, often (though not always, and I’ll explain later) it is a quick food break. I grab a sandwich, a drink and a book, sit down, wolf it down, read a few lines, and then I’m up and off to work or wherever, and my stomach is no longer growling, but it’s almost as if I hadn’t eaten at all.

When I am eating with even one other person and we are fellowshipping together as we eat and drink, I almost forget the food and am fed more by the interaction of our minds and spirits than I am by the food. This is when I am with others who are followers of Jesus, and even when we are not talking directly about Him, our conversation is still in His Presence, and He is among us, and our time together is so full of Him, that we feed on that Bread that He gives by which we live forever. The earthly food, as good as it can be, is just a condiment.

There are times, though, when I do relish eating and drinking alone, but at those times it is intentional, and I really am not alone, and neither do I dine alone, “for He is with me. His rod and His staff comfort me” (cf. Psalm 23). When a dear brother or sister is not with me, the Word of God still is, and the Book goes with me wherever I go, and internal Prayer “prepares a table for me, even in the presence of my enemies,” and so I do not dine alone, but with Him “whom the world cannot grasp” (cf. John 1:5).

To all my brethren and friends in Christ I say, I cannot wait to dine with you in person and in the Presence of our risen and living Lord Jesus, and may He grant it to come to pass, both now in this world and in the life of the world to come.

Christ is born! Glorify Him! He is among us!