A Unifying Meal

Ok, another quote from Leithart's book:

Private dinners in the Greco-Roman world were used to inflate the honor of the patron and frequently displayed social divisions in the arrangement and fare of the meal. Pliny was opposing a common custom when he complained that the host of one banquet and his social equals were given food and wine, while those of lower social status were seated at a seperate table and givven ordinary foor and bad wine.

The Corinthians were, in short, simply following standard custom when they introduced social and other divisions into the meal.

But Paul condemned this "standard custom."

Paul did not permit the Corinthians to organize their festivals like the banquets of Roman aristocrats. He did not allow the rich and powerful to take the head seats at the table. He insisted that the meal of the new city should reflect the civic order of the new city. The meal of the new city manifests the perichoretic unity of the members of the Church in one another, which reflects and participates in the eternal perichoretic koinonia of Father, Son, and Spirit.

Me:

In other words, the Eucharist, the meal of Jesus, is socially subversive in that the Greco-Roman society, and, let's face it, our society, divides people by money, education, family ties. But the gospel of Jesus unites. Those who were prohibited from the table are invited as they find their common bond in their relation to the Triune God rather than how much money they make, school they went to, or...

The Last couple of Weekends

So the last post I just mentioned today. I actually meant to mention the last two weekends while I was at it. They were great! Though I have to say, it kinda messed with my school routine, and the last few days, thought I have spent the time in the library, have been really unsuccessful as far as productive studying goes. Anyway, two weekends ago my older brother, who is one of the greatest guys I've ever known, had a competition for lineman's (which is basically high-power electricians) out in Kansas city. So my dad flew into the Lou and he and I made our way over to KC. It was a fun time. I got a little taste for what Jeremy does for work and I got to hang out with him and my dad. They came back to St Louis with me and spent a couple of days here. I really love those guys. It's hard to get better.

Here's a few pictures from our time in KC:

The next weekend my good friend Patrick was out here for the Youth Specialties National Youth Workers Conference. There's nothing really like speading time with someone who really knows you. But I didn't take any pictures - pathetic, huh? - and it's time to go to bed, so that is all I'm going to say about that .

Today's Table

So today is the Lord's Day. I haven't written on this blog about anything that is going on in my life for a long while. Well, since about April. I've just given you (whoever that really is, since I lost any sort of regular reader due to my six month hiatus) some highlights from some "fun" reading that I've been doing. I really don't have the time for any of fun reading except for the first in seven days when I'm commanded to do stuff that is restful. I thought that I might mention what I did today. I do this out of a desire to be encouraging.

This morning I went to church to worship the Triune God. It was glorious, as usual. About ten months ago I started going to Memorial Presbyterian Church, which calls itself "an urban evangelical church seeking to renew the city spiritually, culturally and socially." I loved going to Cornerstone but wanted to join one of the churches that is seeking to the city. Today I went to a couple's house in the church for lunch. It was fantastic! We sat down at the table at about 2:00 and got up at 5:15 - not that I was timing it or anything, i just have a good clock in my head. This was a really wonderful time of eating delicious food (Jenny made pumpkin lasagna, which was really wonderful even though I wasn't expecting it to be all that great) and having great conversation. When I left I made my way over to Crossroads Fellowship where my good friend Nate Walker was going to give the sermon for the evening worship. Crossroad's evening sermons this month are on a theology of food. He had some great things to say and did a really wonderful job at explaining some helpful things for people to understand. There are two holy places in the house, he said, the bedroom and the dinner table. It's in the bedroom where the husband and the wife show that they are not just friends or not just family members or not just brothers and sisters in Christ, but they are one body as husband and wife. It's at the dinner table where people move from acquaintance to friends. One is exclusive while the other is inclusive. I think that I experienced the truth of this today. It's incredible what having a meal with someone does to the relationship between the people that have the meal together. I don't what having the meal this afternoon did for my hosts, but for me it made me feel more like a part of Memorial, glad to be part of the body of Christ, and interested in how Gary is doing in his new job. I moved from someone who care from a distance to someone who cares from across the table. I feel closer and it feels right.

We are not invited into one of the holy places of the house, nor should we be. It has it has its own way of building people together, which is limited to the one that said "I do" to the other. But the dinner table is open. I was one who was blessed today to be invited to sit around one of the holy places of another's house, and it encouraged me to be more intentional in having people join me in the formative act of eating.

Up above is a painting by Mattise entitled "Dinner Table."

Two quotes just because I read them today and I think that Chesterton is brilliant:

"A man's soul is as full of voices as a forest; there are ten thousand tongues there like all the tongues of the trees: fancies, follies, memories, madness, mysterious fears, and more mysterious hopes. All the settlement and sane government of life consists in coming to the conclusion that some of those voices have authority and others not."

"A man dying for his country does not talk as if local preferences could change. Leinidas does not say, 'In my present mood, I prefer Sparta to Persia.' William Tell does not remark, 'The Swiss civilization, so far as I can yet see, is superior t othe Austrian.' When men are making commonwealths, they talk in terms of absolute, and so they do when they are making (however unconciously) thsoe smaller commonwealths which are called families."

Both of these come from his essay "Questions of Divorce," found in The Uses of Diversity, which is the best collection of his essays that I've read.