"Holy Dinner Parties" with Rev. Dr. Amy Slaughter Myers

St. Francis Spiritual Sustenance : August 24, 2022 =====================================

When you give a luncheon or dinner...(Luke 14:12)

The Gospel passage appointed for Sunday is from Luke's Gospel and it opens with the religious authorities watching Jesus very closely as he makes his way to eat a meal at someone's house. (Luke 14:1)

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus spends a lot of time eating and drinking with other people, performing miracles of provision of food and nourishment, and telling stories - parables - about dinner parties, luncheons, wedding banquets, about what's served and who's invited and where people sit or don't sit. Jesus tells two such stories in Luke 14 that we will hear on Sunday about hospitality, humility, justice, mercy, and sharing food with others.

Jesus is being critiqued constantly by the religious authorities about what he eats and when he eats and with whom he eats. The religious authorities are depicted as judgmental about Jesus' food choices and company choices.

It's hard to fault the religious authorities here. I admit that I am more judgmental than I would like to be about what other people eat and when and how they eat. Are you?

Do you notice when you are being judgmental about food choices of others? What do you think Jesus is trying to say to the religious authorities and to us about policing other people's eating practices and who they sit down to eat with?

What makes the dinner party or the luncheon or the wedding banquet or the shared meal holy - is it what we eat? How we eat it? When we eat it? Is it the dishes and utensils and candles we use? Are there "right" foods to eat and "wrong" foods to eat? Are there "right" people to eat with and "wrong" people to eat with?

I invite you to pray through these questions as you reflect on Sunday's gospel Luke 14: 1; 7-14.