My dinner table is definitely not from one of those idyllic TV shows. My pre-teen has to be pried away from whatever he’s doing and comes to dinner grudgingly. My husband and I, tired from a long day, prepare the meal and plop down in our chairs. We are often not at our best, at least at the start of the meal.
This is supposed to be a foretaste of the feast in God’s Kingdom?
Perhaps I have been influenced by the Norman Rockwell paintings: bountiful meals shared by smiling faces, delighting in each other’s company. Come to think of it, dinner in my house is more like the meals recounted in the gospels. At the Last Supper, Jesus tells the disciples that someone has betrayed him. At Mary and Martha’s house, Jesus has to mediate between an angry Martha and Mary, who would rather sit and learn than help with hospitality.
During our nightly dinners, however, a transformation does occur. We eventually relax and reconnect with each other. Perhaps our dinners are, after all, a taste of the Kingdom to come, a meal where we come as we are, and where we can be transformed.
This message was adapted from “A Glimpse of the Feast” written by Debra K. Farrington that first appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.