Who enjoys it when someone shows up unannounced? And yet Jesus invites himself into people's homes. He did this for example with the tax collector Zacchaeus. That intrusion provided a liberating moment for the little man from Jericho. Are the open meals unique to Jesus' mission? Why did he choose this activity? And what modern ideas can help us better understand the power of eating together?
Photo by Chelsea Cook The first thing my grandmother asks when we enter is, "Have you eaten yet?" It is the custom of a woman who has spent her entire childhood in Indonesia. Born there, she fell in love with a Dutch Reformed man, who visited the country as a colonel in the Dutch army. When we ask about how they met, food comes into play as well. He had an alive chicken with him and would not have known how to slaughter and cook it. She said she would do that for him. And that's how love would have been rekindled around the campfire, the sunset and the freshly prepared chicken. Even as a child I think the story is too good to be true. And when I later read about the atrocities during the colonial rule, I find it even more uncredible. But instead I choose to believe that story. And who doesn't want that? A lot of good can happen around eating together. It is not for nothing that the biggest diplomatic talks are settled around the table. Even though some opt for a very large table where the distance between host and guest is getting bigger and bigger. Not with my grandfather and grandmother and not with Jesus. Eating together says everything about people If you want to understand people look at how they eat together. That is to say in one sentence what there is to say about people, their culture and their eating habits (Nancy Siusa, Sharing Meal, Sharing Life Together). It is a way not only to promote social cohesion or simply eat well together, but also to exchange ideas and experiences. It is therefore not surprising that Jesus chose to make eating together such a fundamental part of his kingdom message. It is around eating together that he takes the space to get to the core. So yes, the conviviality or 'gezelligheid'- as we would call it here in the Netherlands - but also the exchange of ideas. In the story of Zacchaeus, the (little) man does everything he can to be noticed by Jesus (Lk. 19). Finally, he actually climbs a tree. His efforts are rewarded as he is asked to make his house available for Jesus and his followers. And that's not nothing. In a culture, insofar as we can reconstruct it, where eating together is high on the social agenda, this is quite an honor. Thus, Luke, the gospel of the meals, hints. That's one side of the coin. It's an honor, but the other side is that the tax collector has a whole club of people to feed. From a practical point of view, it is by no means a bad idea for Jesus to invite himself to a wealthy man. There are some mouths to feed and stomachs to fill. It remains a mission 'on the move'. How exceptional for a local medicine man to consider Jesus, to be on the road and to depend on the local hospitality (John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus). Why does Jesus eat with sinners? More striking is that Jesus does not eat with someone who is highly regarded. Zacchaeus is and remains a tax collector. And as we can read a chief tax collector, so someone who is used to having people under him and directing them. If it is true that it was a Roman custom to appoint men who bid against each other for how much toll they could collect, then this little man from Jericho once won that battle. Those who collect taxes among their own people are not so popular. Why then does Jesus choose to eat with these 'traitors of their country'? The word combination of "publicans and sinners" occurs so frequently in the Gospels that it is inevitable that this goes back to a tradition that reflects the life of Jesus (Mark 2:16; Mt. 9:11; Lk. 5:30). However you understand the term "sinners," it is clear that it refers to a group of people who have something up their sleeve. Judeans who simply do not follow the purification rites to sit (or lie) at the table of other denominations or who have simply done wrong things (James Dunn, Jesus Remembered). Tax collectors are thus included in this group when they are mentioned in the same breath as sinners. For example, 'Prostitutes' is also such a subgroup of people who are often mentioned under this larger group. The question remains. Why? Why eat with these people who seem to be clearly left out? Why put yourself in that position in a culture where associations with others can lead to exclusion? You are who you are by who you eat with, we remember from my blog 'Jesus, a Glutton and a Drunk'.
3 perspectives as an answer
To find an answer to that question, we should really go back to the time of Jesus himself. Wouldn't that be great? But unfortunately that is not possible. We cannot make that great historic leap. But what we can do is try to reconstruct with the resources we have. We can internalize and apply the insights of cultural anthropology, archeology and exegesis (here I follow John Dominic Crossan). And then we slowly come to discoveries that we can tie together in a methodical way and yield an (imperfect) picture. And then we see that other groups like Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes also had their meals and had their own customs (Sarah Sahu, Life in the Kingdom). And that Jesus' open meals are a way of demonstrating in real life that the kingdom of God is at hand. A kingdom to which the people are invited who, according to the parable of Jesus, are drawn in when the previous guests failed. The people who should have been happy with the day that has come, the day of the big banquet, are now too busy with other things. No wonder some groups became angry with Jesus' message. It is inevitable that they felt addressed. They heard a substitution idea in his words. Not the pious, but the poor, crippled and blind get the beautiful places at God's table. Perhaps we could say that Jesus saw the open meals as the outstretched arms of God's heart. Let's take a look at three modern perspectives that might help us understand that better.
Photo van de Russische Icoonschilder Andrei Rublev 'the Trinity' (15de eeuw) op Wikipedia
1. Miroslav Volf: embrace your enemy as God has embraced you In Exclusion and Embrace, which won the Louis Graywer Award, Miroslav Volf makes a remarkable statement (1996, but revised in 2021). God challenges us to embrace each other as humans as He embraced us in Jesus. And Volf doesn't take that lightly. He himself once received the question from his teacher Jürgen Moltmann. "Are you capable of embracing a Serb as a Croat yourself?" The question hit him hard. He can theorize it all very well (and how!), but putting it into practice is also a challenge for him. It is the self-giving love of God that, in its trinity of Father, Son and Spirit, leaves room for all people to participate in this intimate bond of love (see the picture above). We can take a seat at his table. What we can take from Volf's perspective is that with his open meals, Jesus himself lives out his command to us to love our enemies. Can we make room at the table as God does for us? I find it terribly difficult. 2. Julia Kristeva: the strangeness is in ourselves Another perspective is that of Julia Kristeva who says that what we find strange in others is something that lies within ourselves. "Disconcertingly, the strangeness is within ourselves: we are our own strangers – we are split." In her book Stranger in Ourselves, the Bulgarian psychoanalyst and philosopher elaborates on this idea. But the bottom line is that we often have to work with ourselves if we want to overcome that sense of strangeness. We can ask ourselves where that feeling comes from. Why am I experiencing so much discomfort with this person? Why do I only get negative thoughts with that group of people? Where does my sense of fear of them come from? The feelings can of course be justified. Experiences have often preceded this. Someone who has harmed you cannot suddenly evoke positive feelings. But this is more about the mechanism of exclusion than of inclusion. Jesus somehow found the power to include the people who were excluded. Which people should we invite to the table? 3. Desmond Tutu: you are who you are because of others The last perspective is that of the recently deceased South African archbishop Desmond Tutu. Everywhere he went, he promoted the idea of 'ubuntu'. You are who you are through others. The man who played a prominent role in the fight against apartheid has come to symbolize forgiveness in his role as chairman of the Truth and Justice Commission. 'There is no future without forgiveness' is the title of one of his many books that he has written about that time. I'm adding his voice here because of the value of 'together' when eating together. I cannot tell it better than by paraphrasing the story he once told himself. The gist of the story is as follows. Once I walked into a room and saw a table full of food. Only the people were very thin. They tried to scoop the food into their mouths with their long spoons, but each time they failed. I walked into another room and there I also saw a table full of food, but the people were full and satisfied. They too had those long spoons, but instead of feeding themselves, they fed the others. And so everyone in that room had enough to eat. You can't live without each other. You need each other to be fully human. Jesus seems to be hosting the idea with his meals that we cannot live without each other. We must have the humility to always see ourselves as human beings to that other human being.
What can we do with this?
We don't know what Jesus said to Zacchaeus. I'd love to know, but Lucas won't reveal it. But something happens during the meal that causes the tax collector to get up. He sells half of his possessions and gives the proceeds to the poor (who does that anyway?). And he reimburses the people he has defrauded by giving back four times what he asked. What a moment. What a liberation. And that is what eating together with this 'sinner' does. That seems to me to be the power of an open meal, where a culture of forgiveness is implicit. Judgment is suspended. Can this also tell us something about the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist? It is not just that we remember Jesus at 'the Lord's supper'. It is how the early church remembers him and how we can remember him today. Here too we find forgiveness. Not only from God to us, but also to each other. It is therefore customary in many churches to first check whether we have anything to make up with others before partaking of the Lord's Supper (That's how I know it from the Pentecostal practice). Something unusual happens during something so ordinary. Shouldn't we just eat together more often? I do know that Jesus continues to invite us to open to him. He wants nothing more than to share the meal with us (Rev. 3:20).
What has been the best conversation for you at the table? Can we as church and communities offer other people the same culture of hospitality and forgiveness?
Some references to books or texts are linked to archive.org where you can borrow a book for an hour. This way you can get an impression of a book without incurring any costs (donations are allowed). You can always purchase the book at a later date if you have the financial space to do so.
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