It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is already staring us in the face! Our current message series, More Than Enough, was designed to help us prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving more meaningfully, but the time snuck up on me nonetheless! Before we get to the week of Thanksgiving, I hope you’ll consider a pre-game tailgate of sorts.
As we’ve seen with Jesus’s own ministry, mealtimes are incredibly important opportunities to welcome others to the table (Luke 5), hold each other accountable (Luke 7), celebrate God’s provision (Luke 9) and connect with the Savior who came for us (Luke 22). It’s no wonder, by the way, that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper- and breaking bread more generally – quickly became a hallmark of the early church’s shared life. Those meals brought them closer together and helped to fortify the community to withstand the challenges of the day and mold them into a community of celebration and worship. They couldn’t live without the tables around which they gathered!
So at the end of the day, I can’t shake the notion that the most important work Jesus did at the table was to form relationships with all kinds of people. He didn’t use any shortcuts to building community because there are no shortcuts to community building! In an over-scheduled age that chases greater efficiency for the sake of squeezing even more into our schedules, I want to encourage you to consider doing something that might appear to accomplish nothing: come to the church and share a meal with all kinds of people. It’s the kind of thing Jesus was fond of doing; it’s the kind of thing we need to be doing; it’s the kind of thing that we can’t stop doing because there are no shortcuts to building community, which is exactly what we need right now. Join us tomorrow night at the church for some good food and even better company. There isn’t a program or a lesson or takeaway; it will just be us, doing what Jesus taught his disciples to do. I hope to see you there!
