Hospitality of Food...

Isaiah 25:6-9

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

Food is an important part of who we are. Food expresses everything from our cultural background to our understanding of who God is in our lives. How we share food, with whom, when and where we share food are all important aspects of our identities and defines us to a certain extent.

Throughout the Scriptures food has played an important role in the lives of the people of God. Had Abraham and Sarah not set out a small feast for the angels God would have chosen another couple to be the parents of great faiths. Jesus in his day sat at table with the outcasts and disenfranchised of his time much to the chagrin of religious establishment of his day.

Food has been and continues to be a means of expressing hospitality. The funny thing about food is that it is a fundamental part of who we are as people. We mourn with food, we give thanks with food, we gather to reconcile, remember, drown our sorrows and even worship around food. Heaven has to be a place of dining tables!

Isaiah’s vision of a rich banquet, replete with foods of all kinds, the bounty of the nations gathered at God’s table to celebrate the best of who we are, is an inviting scene. This is Isaiah’s picture of heaven. I like the idea that heaven is a banquet. If heaven is a banquet of rich foods (and I would imagine no calories, this is heaven after all) we are in good company. We get a chance to preview heaven whenever we as a community gather for simple meals in our homes, for pot lucks at our church but especially on Sundays around the altar.

But like any good thing we can be tempted to draw lines around who is invited to the table and who is not. In Isaiah's vision all the nations come streaming into God's abundant feast and that is what we are to be about. We find it hard sometimes to even share food with the people next door furthermore inviting strangers to our tables. But hospitality around food makes the world of difference.

Imagine if you invited your next door neighbor over for dinner? Imagine if you invited that new couple at Church or that single guy you don't know very well to have lunch? I think stories would be told, common interests would be found, new relationships and connections would be made all because we chose to share the hospitality of food.

So think about Isaiah's vision and think about your dining room table. Perhaps in no other place in your house do you get an opportunity to glimpse the life of heaven than in the place where we share food.

P.S. The early church buildings were designed to be giant dining rooms so in a sense our churches remain basically feasting halls.

Prayer: A Celtic Welcome Prayer

We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place,
And with the sacred name of the triune God
He blessed us and our house,
Our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song:
Often, often, often, goes the Christ
In the stranger’s guise.