Our common meals, which we share daily, are an important and joyful part of church community life. Each meal is a time of thanksgiving. We often invite visitors, neighbors, friends, and newcomers as guests to our table, whether in our family homes or communal dining hall; through practicing hospitality as commanded by Scripture, everyone is enriched. When eating together, we celebrate occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries, often with children’s performances, music, or other presentations. We observe the major holidays of the church calendar with special festivity: Advent and Christmas, Holy Week and Easter, Ascension Day and Pentecost.
Taken in a spirit of thanksgiving, every mealtime gains deep significance through Jesus’ example. He ate and drank with outcasts and sinners, fed the five thousand, and broke bread with his disciples as a sign of friendship. In Scripture he speaks of his wish to be with us in the same way: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”
In this way, our common meals can become consecrated festivals of community. They point to the goal of our hope: the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus spoke of this day as the wedding feast, one to which the whole world is invited. As described symbolically in the book of Revelation, this feast will be a vast gathering from every people and nation to celebrate the triumph of the love and justice of God: “Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunder peals, crying,
