The last week of every month at theStory we are discussing the practices we do together as a community. We are trying to give some substance to why we do the things we do. We recognize that the practices we partake in a formative and shape us into the body of Christ. So how and why we do things is important for us because they shape what we love and desire.
THE PRACTICE
1. Each week we have two people or families sign up for a Main Course on the desk in the foyer.
2. Each week everyone who is not signed up for main dish should bring a Side Dish.
3. Do your best to sign up for Main Course once every two months.
4. Each week we will send out a reminder about who is scheduled for that week.
5. Everyone cleans up.
MAIN COURSE
A meal that should feed 20-30 people. There are a number of vegetarians, which is something to keep in mind when preparing. Some suggestions are Chili, Pasta, Lasagne, Soup, Sandwhiches, Rice Dishes.
SIDE DISH
Something that can be added into a meal to help complete it. Some suggestions are Drinks, Desserts, Salads, Fruit, Vegetables, Dips.
THE THEOLOGY BEHIND THE PRACTICE
The meal that Jesus blessed that evening and claimed as his memorial was their ordinary partaking together of food for the body. In celebrating their fellowship around the table, the early Christians testified that the messianic age, often pictured as a banquet, had begun. What the New Testament is talking about whenever the theme is “breaking bread” is that people actually were sharing with one another their ordinary day-to-day material sustenance. Bread eaten together is economic sharing. Not merely symbolically, but also in fact, eating together extends to a wider circle the economic solidarity normally obtained within the family. The Eucharist is an economic act. To do rightly the practice of breaking bread together is a matter of economic ethics. The Eucharist is one [way of planting signs of the new world in the ruins of the old], but so is feeding the hungry. One is not more “real presence” than the other.
– John Howard Yoder, Body Politics
Isn’t a meal together the most beautiful expression of our desire to be given to each other in our brokenness? The table, the food, the drinks, the words, the stories: Are they not the most intimate ways in which we do not only express the desire to give our lives to each other, but also to do this in actuality? . . . When we eat together we are vulnerable to one another. Around the table we can’t wear weapons of any sort. Eating from the same bread and drinking from the same cup call us to live in unity and peace .. . a really peaceful and joyful meal together belongs to the greatest moments of life.
– Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved
