What is the food doing here? Acts 2:41-47

The importance of food

How important is it to eat together? That’s the question we’re answering today. From the Bible. Research has its own answers. The annual World Happiness report that was released earlier this year found that people who dine alone have the lowest life evaluation rating globally compared with those who regularly share a meal. And the Gallup Poll behind the report found that those who regularly eat together are happier. This data was found to be true even among acquaintences… the numbers were even higher for those who ate together with family and friends. Those who share more meals with others also were found to have higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of negative affects. And it didn’t matter about ages, genders, countries, and cultures. It’s a global phenomenon. More than 142 countries were part of the poll.

Eating food together is important in every culture. Sociologists point out that in every culture, there are rules and expectations that go with eating and eating in groups. What did your mom tell you about eating what is in front of you? Our rule was there was no desert, there was no going outside to play, unless the plate was empty. And it didn’t matter if there were lima beans on the plate… you know how many deserts I skipped because I’d rather miss ice cream than eat a lima bean? In China, it’s different. I remember travelling there as a college student and being told to make sure I didn’t eat everything on the plate. What that meant was.. if the plate is completely clean, you would be served another round, even if you’re full or worse, you’re telling the host, your food wasn’t enough. So, in China, always leave something on the plate. There are rules for eating.

What if I took Emily to McDonald’s for our anniversary dinner? McDonald’s is basically right there in our neighborhood. You think that would go over well? There are rules for eating. Don’t talk with your mouth full of food, don’t chew with your mouth open, don’t play with your food, don’t make comments about the food. My aunt had a rule: make a comment about the food and the meal for you is over. LOL At our house… no TV at the table, unless the Bengals were playing. In fact, we had a TV especially for the Bengals that was small enough to fit on the counter top. There are rules.

But there are more serious rules that also are in play too often. How about “we don’t eat with those people”. Social and economic barriers exist at tables in just about every society. Ever been at a table and wished you could leave? Or been at a table and it was obvious you didn’t belong? The irony is that food has a way of breaking down those barriers and that is certainly how it functions in the Bible.

Food fosters good feelings and good relationships. Food creates safe places and food is a catalyst at creating community. Food also breaks down walls. And that’s a good thing. It’s a lesson that is hard learned for us. We often think that one must have community first and then you eat together, when in fact, it is the act of eating together that produces community. And not only does it produce community, it grows community.

This is what we’re looking at today in our Bible talk. We’ve been in the book of Acts as we begin a new chapter of the Table here in San Benito. We’ve talked about how our meeting space is a tool to be used for ministry as we optimize our space in order to maximize the Gospel outreach. But there’s one other feature about our new digs here that we haven’t really touched on even though last week we saw its potential. The fellowship hall.

What Makes a Church?

Along the way, we have to return to a common question we ask ourselves here at The Table from time to time to keep our identity in front of us. The question is this: What is it that makes a church, the church? Historically, the most common and well-known answer is one found in older confession…

church/(chûrch): a church is where the Word is faithfully preached and the Sacraments are rightly administered.

This is a helpful starting point. Certainly, this is what we aim to do here at the Table… we preach the Word because it is here Christ meets us. And we administer the Table because it is here that Christ feeds us.

But presumed in this formal definition of "church" is that this is a gathering of people around the Word and sacraments. A gathering of people who are connected to Jesus connecting other people to Jesus. Both here in our services and beyond our gathering. "Church" is not a building… it is people.

The beginnings of church

And it has been this way since the beginning of the church community in the book of Acts. And that’s where our story of community begins. The book of Acts begins with Jesus’s last words to the 12 guys who had been with him for 3 years. They watched him do all sorts of miracles, heard all of his teachings, watched all the showdowns with the religious leaders, then were on hand as he was arrested and crucified as a common criminal. They were then among the 500 witnesses who saw Jesus alive after he rose from the dead. And about 40 days or so after his resurrection, he gives them some instructions and a promise… that they would tell his story all over the world. They see Jesus leave the earth and go into his glory in heaven.

One week later, the Holy Spirit descends in tongues of fire and Peter preaches a sermon to thousands who are gathered at the temple in Jerusalem. That sermon is recorded in the book of Acts chapter 2… he tells the crowd a story about God making promises in the Old Testament to send Israel a savior… a Messiah… a ruler who would bring about the salvation of the nation and set up a rule on earth. Israel had been waiting for this Promised Champion for a couple of thousand of years… going all the way back to Abraham and Moses and Joshua and David. And Peter says in just the past few years, God finally sent the champion. And instead of embracing the champion who was promised, Israel killed him. Crucified him. They crucified the very guy who had been promised for thousands of years.

This crowd is absolutely stunned that they didn’t recognize Jesus for who he was and is… the Promised One of the Old Testament. The One who came to save them from their sins. They didn’t believe Jesus then. But they do now. They are mortified. “What do we do?” Peter tells them to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

And that’s exactly what happens.

Acts 2:41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them.

3000 people are connected to Jesus through baptism that day. And this is the beginning of what we know to be the church… the community of believers. For the past 2000 years, people have been connected to Jesus the same way… over and over and over and over… accepting in faith the Good News that Jesus has died for their sins and being baptized.

But the story doesn’t end there. The natural question that arises from this story or any other story like it is this… now what? Once Jesus saves us from our sin, what’s next? Our Bible lesson from Acts is the answer to that question.

Acts 2:42 Those who accepted Peter’s message and were baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Whatever you think you know about church, whatever I think I know about church, right here is what those who know Jesus do. Four things that characterized these 3000 plus in Acts, and what characterizes us here at the Table:

Devoted themselves to the Word.

Devoted themselves to the Gathering.

Devoted themselves to the Lord’s Supper.

Devoted themselves to Prayer.

We’re given a couple of additional details that flesh out this devotion in verse 45 and 46:

Acts 2:45-46 They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts.

So we add two more to the list:

Devoted themselves to the Word.

Devoted themselves to the Gathering.

Devoted themselves to the Lord’s Supper.

Devoted themselves to Prayer.

Sharing possessions

Eating Food Together

This is what the church does when it is brought together in community. But don’t miss the beginning. It all begins with the Word. The Word is what creates the community. The Word becomes the center of the community. And this community devotes itself to and centers its life on the Word, gathering together, communion, and prayer. The community is generous. The community eats together. And it’s this last one we’re interested in this morning.

When we are connected to Jesus, Jesus places us in a community, a community in which we continue to tell our story through the Word and through communion. In this community, we encourage each other and talk to God together through prayer. It is in this community we get to know Jesus better, a place where we find continually find grace and life and forgiveness of sins. A place of hope and rest.

Hospitality at the center of “church”

The entire life of the church is bound up with hospitality. Taking care of the stranger. Taking care of each other. Creating commonality in community. And it’s not an accident that there is a phrase repeated twice to give us the rhythm of what is happening in community, but it’s a phrase centered on one thing: food:

Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread

Acts 2:46 Every day they broke bread from house to house.

That first sentence is talking about the Lord’s Table. Eating and drinking the Lord’s Supper was part of the larger feast. It’s all in the context of hospitality. Making all feel welcome. All things in common meant they held the Word in common, they shared the Lord’s Table in common, they ate their meals together in common.

The Lord’s Table shapes all of the meal-making here at The Table. We’re not used to thinking this way about our food or about sitting down to eat a meal together. This meal that provides us life, salvation, and forgiveness gives energy and life to all of the other meals we eat together.

The second phrase is about common meals together. Like our potlucks. Like our men’s BBQs.

Food at the center of mission

What we know about the first 100 years of the church is this: they met in houses. And they shared meals. And in those meals, they administered the Lord’s Table. The Lord’s Table was part of the meal. It wasn’t until the 2nd and 3rd centuries that people began gathering in church buildings and the Lord’s Table became isolated away from the common meals.

I’m not saying we should go back to that. We do share a common theme with those early churches not meeting in their own buildings. But we do need to see that food was a big part of the church life. And the common meal was an outgrowth of sharing communion together. Life together means eating together. This is important because we need to see what happens when the Lords’ Table is giving rise to the common sharing of a meal:

Acts 2:47 Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

 Every day they gathered. Every day they shared a meal, a part of which was the Lord’s Table. Every day, the Lord added to their number. The rapid expansion of the church was fueled by hospitality. By the church being a safe place. Welcoming people in the gathering and in the meals. A community that prizes hospitality is a community where Jesus is adding and growing through Word and Sacrament.

This is not an accident. Church historians and Christian anthropologists have noted this over and over. Santos Yao, Filipino church planter and missiologist says this:

The church that eats together, grows together - Santos Yao (Dismantling Social Barriers Through Table Fellowship)

I have witnessed this multiple times. Very small community groups that have not been eating together begin making it a priority to eat regularly together and that very small community in no short order is no longer small, but very, very big. It’s not an accident that the growth began when the meals began.

We’ve been given a fellowship hall to grow Christ’s kingdom through food. What happens is that food and the act of eating together is community building… bridging cultural and philosophical divides. You see this all over the Bible, especially the biographies of Jesus. Jesus is seemingly always eating. It’s almost like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John want us to see the significance of it. Those meals have all sorts of people enjoying food together… people from all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicities and economic levels… none of it mattered. The meals equalized all the different social constructs that we make.

That’s what’s happening in Acts 2. The church comes together, no matter the ethnicity and economic background and they are breaking bread together.. both the Lord’s Table and the common meals. That’s the potential of the fellowship hall and our meals.

I don’t know what you think “church” is. I often say, “church” is not a building. The church is where the Word is preached and the Sacraments provided. And what does that look like? It looks like Acts 2. The “church” is a community of people who come together to do these things… listen to learn from and received from the Word preached, receive life and forgiveness in communion, prayer with each other and serve others together. Eating meals together. It’s all here. If we, as The Table are going to be what Jesus designed us to be here in San Benito, we will a community of meal-making, where enemies become friends, and strangers become family.

Let’s Pray

The Table

From the very beginning of the church, central to its life was the Table. Twice in our passage, “breaking of bread” is mentioned. It becomes quite clear that the Table and communion is central to the identity of the gathering. In those days, there was no such thing as “membership” per se… you knew who was part of the community by who was at the Table. And in those days, more often than not, they weren’t simply putting together a table of wine and bread. No… they ate full-course meals and during the meals would celebrate communion with the bread and the wine. Over the course of 2000 years, the rest of the feast went missing and now we simply have the bread and the wine. Regardless of how it comes to us, what we do know is that the Table was the centerpiece of the community. It is where the family gathers to feed from Jesus himself, taking a cue from that very first night when Jesus told his 12 followers to continue to eat the bread and drink the wine in his name for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.