How can we experience a deeper sense of Christian identity as we sit around tables?
One of the most important aspects of table fellowship is identity. Generally speaking, who you eat with says something about who you are. Our identity is intertwined with the people we eat with. For this reason, Jesus constantly got in trouble with the Pharisees. They could not understand why Jesus, a devout rabbi, would be willing to eat with “tax-collectors and ‘sinners’” (Luke 5:30). The Pharisees misunderstood Jesus’ intentions. Jesus did not eat with sinners in order to condone their behavior but rather to call them to repentance (Luke 5:32). Jesus ate with sinners with the hope that they would be responsive to his healing presence: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Luke 5:31).
As Christians, we sit at Christ’s table. He graciously welcomes us in spite of the sin that infects our lives. He eats with us in order to encourage us to be responsive to his healing touch. Jesus does not eat with sinners in order to promote their rebellion; he eats with them to promote their repentance. By sitting around Christ’s table, our identity as sinners is trumped by our identity as “in Christ ones.” Simply put, we are Christians. May God grant us grace as we live out our identity as those who sit at the table of the Lord.
2 comments:
Your thoughts make me realize - outside of the Christ/sinner scenario you so well illustrate - that sometimes in living out my Christianity I am to be the doctor to others, and other times I need to be healed, maybe at my own table, and maybe at a friend's home. Also, I can't help in repenting that I spend so little time around the table with Christians, and very importantly, with non-believers. Am I surrounding myself with only those who make me confortable? Have I judged others and seen all people who are not exactly like me as "un-clean"? I repent.
We are both the sick sinners and the great physician's representatives. As Luther said, "simultaneously sinner and saint" - so we can say "simultaneously sick and healthy."
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