Bonhoeffer: A Meal Together is a Holiday
In Bonhoeffer's classic book on Christian community called Life Together he asserts that fellowship around the table has a festive quality. Not only is it important for the Christian to see the table as a metaphor for restored relationships, a tangible means of experiencing the ministry of reconciliation, we are also to see the table as a kind of holiday. An ordinary meal together is an opportunity to celebrate life as a gift from God.
He writes, “Our life is not only travail and labor, it is also refreshment and joy in the goodness of God. We labor, but God nourishes and sustains us. And this is a reason for celebrating.”
This is a reason for celebrating. And don’t we need a reason to celebrate this season? Many people that I’ve talked with feel beat up and run down. Whether it's the nauseating political cycle, the constant uncertainty of our economy, or the social deprivation this pandemic has caused, we all need a holiday. And what Bonhoeffer is arguing here is that you don’t have to fly down to Cancun to get some rest. With a little intentionality and a heart posture of thankfulness, the ordinary evening meal can become a kind of sacred daily celebration.
He roots this idea in the Word. Man should not “eat the bread of anxious toil” (Ps 127:4); instead we are to eat our bread with joy, drink our wine with a merry heart (Ecc 9:7). “For man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun” (Ecc 8:15).
Bonhoeffer also says, “God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste, or even with shame. Through our daily meals He is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day.”
It’s clear that Bonhoeffer considered the joy of common meal time with great seriousness. He is not advocating for vanity, excess, or a showy fussiness. I promise you the rest of his writing is pretty stoically German, lacking any real ornamentation. So why is he so adamant about seeing meal time as a festival? It’s because every meal time we enter into the liturgy of grace and forgiveness. With our daily bread we are reminded that God gives his children good gifts, and we are reminded that we enjoy these gifts as unworthy servants. Enjoying our food together makes tangible the enjoyment of God together. His presence meets us in this ordinary ritual.
As many of you understand, life is full of toil and trouble. But for many of you you also rush on through supper and miss an opportunity for a bit of rest. This is one thing the Hobbits understood well. Pippin would be shocked with our fast food culture, and that we don’t eat more than one breakfast. Ok, maybe not eating enough meals isn’t a problem many of us have. But I suspect that if you are like me, it’s the quality of the meals together, not the quantity. So let’s take Bonhoeffer's point to heart. As the world toils anxiously and endlessly, let it be the Christian community that models rest at the table. And may that be a testimony of our Lord’s work on the cross that brought us to His table of eternal life.