For the first 350 years of Christianity, followers of Jesus gathered in homes. There were no church buildings. Until Constantine came into the picture and made Christianity the official Roman religion (not all good), Christians views their homes as their primary place of worship and fellowship. In fact, the central picture for the gathering was not the stage or the pulpit, it was the table. This is exactly what we see Jesus model in the Gospels.
One theologian noted that in the Gospels we see Jesus “going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal.” Life for Jesus and His early disciples was rooted around the table – in the homes and with people you would least expect. Jesus ate with the people that others would not be caught dead associating with. He ate with tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, religious elites.
In fact, in Luke 19, we see Jesus choose to invite himself over to Zaccheus’s home for dinner. Zacchaeus was a tax collector who made a living taking money from his fellow Jews for the Roman Empire. He was hated. Despised. Cast out from his family, friends, religious circles. Yet here was Jesus, at his table. And not long after, Zacchaeus became an apprentice of Jesus.
We can look at this story and find it heartwarming but the people in Jesus’ day found it offensive. Meals were (and still are) a symbol, a marker, both for brining people together and also for keeping people apart. John Mark Comer notes that “in Jewish culture, this was called “table fellowship” – to eat with someone was a sign of welcome, not just into one’s home but also into good standing with the community and even with God himself.” Jesus ate with the wrong people and in so doing, he was accused of being a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Luke 7:34). In fact, one theologian wrote that “Jesus got himself crucified by the way he ate.”
The table is a picture of hospitality – the act of welcoming in the outsider, and in so doing, turning strangers into guests, guests into neighbors and neighbors into the family of God. We cannot force our neighbors to follow Jesus (didn’t work in Roman times, we shouldn’t want to try today) – BUT “we can actively seek out the lonely, the newcomer, the uncool, the poor, the immigrant or refugee – those with no family or no home – and welcome them into a community of love” (John Mark Comer).
When we open our homes and our lives to be the hands and feet of Jesus and live out our identities as Children of God, we will see that the greatest thing we can offer to those around us is to be a people who invite all kinds of people to “TABLE FELLOWSHIP” with us. This is the type of people we aspire to be and the type of church community we hope we can become for the sake of Parker and beyond.
“In our world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found…It is possible for men and women and obligatory for Christians to offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.” – Henri Nouwen
