Table Fellowship, pt. 5

We made the point in this series that Christianity was born @ a table, and that as a table fellowship, Christianity feasts upon the table of the Eucharist and the table of holy scripture.

But there is more.

Back in the day we evangelical protestants were taught the idea that truth resided only in propositional expressions directly from the bible (Dave Tomlinson), but today post-evangelicals have discovered that truth comes to us through scripture yes, but also through the entire canon of Christian expression -- e.g. the creeds, the traditions.

But there is still more.

Truth also comes through hearing your story and telling my story, saying, "this is what happened to me." This means that I am confronted with the experiential moment of the one facing me as she relates her moment (s) with the God who is there. And, it is all these stories that comprise our story, the community's story, which is part of the expression of truth -- the kerygma -- about the God who is personal but who is not personality. It is in these stories -- our story -- that we feast on the reality of the ever-present God.

Love Your Enemies

must see viewing:

Table Fellowship, pt. 4

When we think of Christianity as being born @ a Table, then we automatically think of the liturgical meal where we feed on the presence of the living Christ -- the LORD'S supper, communion. The idea here is the sacramental communion of the community, where the outward sign (the bread and the cup) signifies the inward reality of grace shared. However, as I have been arguing in this series there is more to the table idea than the LORD'S table.

 I have tried to say that even as the community assembles it does so around the presence of the living Christ who is there and who is not silent. It is there that the forever-family feasts, rests and prepares for mission-journey.

One additional place where the table is evident then, is the moment when the community feasts on the living word of God. The reading (and preaching) of the holy scriptures allows a sacramental moment for the family; it allows the assembly to feast on God's presence in a new way for we find in God's word the living reality of the living God.

How? How is God's presence found in the black words on white paper? God chose to initiate the scriptures, his reality carrying along the original authors, and God has also chosen to inhabit the sounding of those pages, bringing the community to life and to breath with the reading of those ancient words.

for more on this series go here:
Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology
The Pastor: A Spirituality

Table Fellowship, pt. 3

View this piece of video from The Work of the People that captures so very well the ideas behind table fellowship. Aaron Strumpel does the music

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• Preparing for Eucharist (beliefnet.com)

Table Fellowship, pt. 2

Let's continue with Gordon Lathrop's idea that Christianity came into existence at a table. In fact, it is his assertion that, "it was at table that those earliest assemblies seem to have come to understand and trust that now the crucified and dead Jesus was alive."

What does it mean that Christianity is a meal fellowship? Of course, in view is the Eucharist, the thanksgiving. It is at this moment of the liturgy when we find the heart of the Gospel. As we enact this ritual, we reenact the broken body and the shed blood, and we "proclaim the LORD'S death until he comes."

But as important as this is there is still more. Think of the Thanksgiving holiday, for example, the day in the year when families gather to eat and fellowship. Think of the ideal, quiet moment just before eating when we are summoned to silence by the presence of the food and each other. This hush comes even before the prayer.

In Christianity there is this deep communal aspect of the table gathering, as we share the Word and the Cup together. For, in eating the bread and drinking the cup, in feasting on the Word of the LORD, and in sharing the food of the Kingdom -- whether real food or spiritual -- with the poor, we are revealing the deepest truth of all. We are His body.

Table Fellowship

Liturgical Theologian Gordon Lathrop reminds us that Christianity came into existence as a "meal fellowship." That is, Christianity is not just an idea, or a list of convictions. Rightly understood, it is a specific kind of meeting where a called out people share a meal -- a meal around God's word, a meal around God's communion elements, and a meal we share with the hungry.

This coincides with some of the same ideas that have captured me of late. Church must not, must never, be reduced to an attraction, one more marketed item in the smorgasbord of life events which we can take or leave whenever we wish. No! For, without this meeting, without this meal, there is no Christianity.

This was driven home for me the other day when I learned one of my favorite credentialed theologians to read no longer believes it is necessary to attend church. There would have been a day when this would have been no big deal to me, but today I have to ask do I want to hear the pronouncements of a Christian theologian who cares not for the meeting and the meal? Do I want to think the thoughts after one who is disciplined by academia but not the congregation?

For whom is this author writing if not the church who consumes his books? Why go on the speaking circuit and command Christian dollars if you decide not to be in the trenches as part of the solution, especially in this time during the death of Christendom. It is easy now to cut and run and to do so under the banner of avant-garde ministry, but is this faithfulness?

As I say, for those of us who will switch off the lights in the last church building, it seems a little disingenuous to suck at the teat of Christendom while cutting it's throat.

Good News

How we deal with success may say more about us than how we deal with failure and loss, but it is failure and loss that seem so often to be our companion, failure and loss is the human condition.

What makes the Gospel such good news, then, is the fact that the Gospel begins with reality -- our cognitive homelessness (Peter Berger) and our failure to live by the intentions of the God who is there, and who is personal, but who is not personality. In the Gospel we are presented with a new working premise for life. Or, said differently, what Jesus offers us, supremely, is a new life and a new way to live, even in the face of continuing loss and failure. Or, said still another way, within the proclamation of the Gospel are the seeds of happiness. Happiness not as pleasure realized, but happiness as cognitive fulfillment, fulfillment by finding our place in the universe. This is the power of the Gospel -- to know we still belong even though we have lost and failed.