Dear Reader, 

In April of 2022, Diana Butler Bass shared an essay titled “The Holy Thursday Revolu-tion” on her Sub Stack Newsletter The Cottage. It became one of her most read and shared posts. I read it for the first time this past Holy Week. 

 In the post, Bass, who is a religious historian with degrees from Gordon Conwell Theo-logical Seminary and Duke University, draws attention to the location of where Jesus met his disciples after his resurrection. Jesus appeared to them at “the house where the disci-ples had met”, where Jesus and his disciples had the Passover Meal. It was the house of the “Upper Room.” The disciples had gone back to the last place they had shared a meal with Jesus. Bass writes, “On Easter, Jesus goes from the tomb back to the table.” So the movement or scenes from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday goes like this. “Table – Trial – Cross – Tomb/Tomb – Table.” 

Bass asks, “What if the table is the point?” You can read more of her essay by clicking the link above or googling for the essay. When I read it, I thought her reflections were on point. They reminded me of some of my previous theological thinking related to Jesus’ ministry as told in the Gospel of Luke. 

It’s been said that in the Gospel of Luke Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal or com-ing from a meal. Others have said that ‘eating and drinking” serves as the organizing motif of Luke’s Gospel Story. Considering this, as I mentioned at the close of my ser-mon the first Sunday after Easter, over the course of the coming weeks of the Easter Sea-son through Pentecost, instead of returning to the cross, we’re going to return, like Jesus, to the table. We’re going to dive into Jesus’ practice of breaking bread and breaking bar-riers at the table. Through exploring Jesus’ practice we’ll discover invitations about who God calls.

We’ll also discover how the Christian communal meal looked like a typical Roman banquet but was essentially different. Finally, we’ll discover how the practice of early Christian meals promoted egalitarianism and instructed believers on how to live according to kingdom of God principles–the very principles Jesus displayed in his “eating and drinking” in the Gospel of Luke.

Finally, if the Spirit so moves, we’ll explore Jesus’ practice of “breaking Bread and Breaking Barriers” through inviting one another to break break together in our h homes or other locations.

I am looking forward to this journey together. I pray we’ll meet each other and Jesus at the table.

Pastor David