Fellowship Meals and the Art of Eating Like a Fat King

We ought to take every meal hostage in season and out of season. Every delicious bite is an act of praise and adoration.

We are going to experience a plethora of emotions starting this Friday as a church. On our platter will be lectures from gifted and accomplished speakers, an evening of Psalms with over 12 selections, a soup and salad extravaganza after our worship, and then a Shrove Tuesday party with all the accompaniments of God’s kindness in bacon and pancakes (my Friday substack will be an overview of Shrove).

You may have noticed in my description the fundamental supremacy of food in all these descriptions. It is undoubtedly the protagonist. Our congregation holds a monthly fellowship meal and other delicacies throughout the church year (Pentecost Sunday, Easter Sunday, etc.) It’s spectacular in every gastronomical way. We host people in our homes the other weeks, but we have a full blessing once a month with the entire church! There is something other-worldly when repentant sinners come home, and we kill the fatted calf and throw a party!

These monthly offerings are also shaped by what Robert Capon would savor were he present with us. That old departed saint once wrote:

“I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm.”

Fellowship meals renew our enthusiasm for life. They strengthen our creative juices with all the brothiness of hearty soups. There is something sublime when main dishes are joined with baked goods from gifted hands. Both have their place at the table. We need feet and hands and every other embellishment. We want sweet and sour, salty and savory. The desserts carry another special place, serving as holy ambassadors. They bring rest to the weary and energy to the little covenanters running around. Those cookies will not eat themselves, nor will those shirts be self-decorated with strawberry marmalades. These creations need instruments to carry them to their destination.

I don’t want these feasts to be distracted by modern analytical systems. Keep the modest consumers at a healthy distance. I don’t wish to see bow-tie scientists declaring what is good and what isn’t. God has already declared all things very good. It appears at times that food fellowships have lost their vigor in the scientific laboratory of the germaphobes of our culture. Long gone are the healthy gatherings of vivid recollections of stuffedness. We have allowed extraneous things to serve as an apologetic or an extra rationale not to eat as one should: with gusto.

One of the problems of modern evangelical “food theology” is that it has departed from its Hebrew history. We have chosen the mortification of the flesh over the enjoyment of life. Paul was a strong critic of the “Do not taste! Do not touch!” attitudes of his contemporaries and indeed our own (Col. 2:21). We have forgotten that the Bible is an edible book, a book of lovely and superb meals beginning in the abundance of the Garden and ending in the Supper of the New World. But, in every portion of Scripture, you will find a tree that gives and gives and gives food to the hungry.

We ought to take every meal hostage in season and out of season. Every delicious bite is an act of praise and adoration, and when eaten in the company of fellow saints, it is a festive day, one with additional pleasure, for we were made to eat with one another.

When we partake together at the Lord’s Table on Sundays, the common table afterward becomes an extension of the holy. It is good and beneficial. It is sobering and enlightening. It is both delicious and life-altering.

When we eat together, we change ourselves into living sacrifices edible to the Triune God who swallows us into his glorious grace.

Notations

• My interview with David Bahnsen will be available by Wednesday. It is the last one of Season 4. Mr. George Reed has Season 5 music on queue, ready to go. I hope you will see my latest two with Dr. Steve Jeffery, a pastor and theologian in Texas, and Norwegian composer Magnus Gaustetad.

• I crammed in four interviews on my new book. I felt the pain of politicians who do 5-10 of these a day during the peak election cycle. I have five more lined up in late February. Notably, I will be delivering a talk at the Sword and Shovel bookstore in Moscow, ID, on February 22nd.

• My friend, Dr. P. Andrew Sandlin, dedicated an entire substack to reviewing the book, and I honestly think he summarizes the book better than I could. I couldn’t be more honored!

Nuntium

• If you are in the Pensacola area, please come out to join us for our Wine and Psalm-Roar this Saturday.

  

  

• We are also delighted to host Rebekah Merkle this Friday evening.

That’s all for now. Eat well, my friends: the feast is coming!

Uriesou Brito