A Life-Transforming Meal

Today we continue our series on “communal spiritual disciplines” by discussing the discipline of “eating together”.  Since I wrote about this extensively in It Takes a Church, I’ll offer another excerpt as “food for thought.”

What Jesus gave us when he left us was a meal.  Don’t ever forget that the “high tea” that most of us do once a month or so with a little tiny piece of bread and a little tiny cup is supposed to be a foretaste of the heavenly feast of the Lamb that we will celebrate for eternity.  It is the most ordinary and extraordinary experience all at once. 

In the early church the Lord’s Supper was celebrated every time they took bread, every time they took wine. (See Robert J. Banks, Going to Church in the First Century, 1992,  for a description of what an early church gathering and celebration of the Lord’s Supper.)  They believed that every time Christians share the cup and loaf with other people we offer a remembrance of the Lord and are nourished by his Spirit; demonstrating in every part of our lives our connection to God and each other.

What we do when we were gathered on Sunday mornings is meant to be just a small foretaste of what Jesus intends for us all to be.  And, our experience of the Lord’s Supper—our living out the Lord’s Supper—is to be the most central demonstration of what we offer to the world:  Life-Transforming Communion.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 says,
“Now, the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. And all of us with unveiled faces seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord the spirit.”

This passage teaches us that intent of the Spirit is to transform us through the face to face encounter with the glory or personal presence of the Lord.  In his commentary on this passage John Calvin asks, “So where is the glory of the Lord reflected?” The answer?  At the communion table.   (See Calvin’s Commentary on 2 Cor 3:18).

For most of us, this is a most unexpected answer, but tomorrow we'll look at how the film Babette's Feast gives us a glimpse of how truly transforming one great dinner can be.