THE LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT PHILADELPHIA

THE MISSIONAL MEAL: MAKING SPACE TO SHARE FOOD AND THE GOSPEL

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OFINTERSEMINARY SEMINAR

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BYKATHERINE STEINLYOCTOBER 4, 2014

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What is a missional meal? How might the meals of Christian

communities become a missional tool? In his article, “Hosts and

guests: hospitality as an emerging paradigm in mission,” Tobias

Brandner defines mission as “most simply speaking, the movement

of the gospel – of God’s grace and love – beyond walls of

separation and exclusion, whether ethnic, linguistic, national,

political, social, cultural, religious, or even ecclesial in

nature.”1 When speaking about meals, Sidney Mintz, anthropology

professor at Johns Hopkins University, says, “Interaction over

food is the single most important feature of socializing. The

food becomes the carriage that conveys feelings back and forth.”2

If meals play such an important role in human socialization, in

what ways could the eating and feeding of the Church be a social

and religious practice that share the gospel across the walls

that divide us? In this paper, I propose to view the way in which

biblical hospitality, especially as it is conveyed in the table

fellowship of Jesus and the early believers within Luke-Acts, and

1 T. Brandner, “Hosts and guests: hospitality as an emerging paradigm in mission,” International Review Of Mission, April 1, 2013; 102(396): 99. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed September 26, 2014).2 L. Shannon Jung, Sharing Food: Christian Practices for Enjoyment, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), 40.

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the sacrament of Eucharist can inform our practices of eating and

feeding in the Church. I will then describe three meal ministries

of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of American (ELCA) and explore

their missional character.

In the context of American culture, hospitality is often

understood as “the careful art of hosting,” which is extended

mostly to family, relatives, and colleagues on special

circumstances and with some formality.3 In the Bible, hospitality

is framed within the narrative of God’s people as strangers in a

foreign land. While in the wilderness, God commands Moses to

instruct Israel to “love the alien as yourself, for you were

aliens in the land of Egypt” (Lv 19:34).4 Hospitality is offered

to the stranger and is a response to God’s hospitable treatment

of God’s people. Without the hospitality of local people, a

stranger could not survive in the harsh environment in which

God’s people lived. In the Hebrew Bible, hospitality is not an

art but rather a necessity.

3 Robert J. Suderman, "Reflections on hospitality and the missional church," Vision (Winnipeg, Man.) 3, no. 1 (March 1, 2002): 45. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed September 26, 2014).4 Biblical Citations contained in this paper will be coming from the New RevisedStandard Version, see The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989).

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In the time that Jesus lived in the first century, rules of

hospitality were influenced by the infrastructure and patron-

client culture of the Roman Empire. With more safe and reliable

travel routes, new categories of hospitality came into being.

Hospitality was offered to public servants of the empire,

commercial traders, temple worshippers on pilgrimage, guests of

heroic or divine status, and friends and acquaintances. In Jesus’

time, the compulsion to provide hospitality was reframed by the

increase of travel and safe roads and a host might not

necessarily take in any wandering stranger who came to his or her

door.5

The process of hospitality was also informed by the honor

system of patron-client culture in the Roman Empire. In this

system, the maintenance and gain of honor was the ultimate goal.

An individual’s honor is one’s self-worth as well as the

affirmation of that worth by his or her group, and one person can

gain honor only at another person’s expense. The desire to

preserve one’s honor affected the machinations of providing

hospitality. A host would first evaluate the potential threat the

5 Martin William Mittelstadt, "Eat, drink, and be merry: a theology of hospitality in Luke-Acts," Word & World 34, no. 2 (March 1, 2014): 132-133. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed September 26, 2014).

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stranger posed to group security or purity before extending an

invitation. And only after making this evaluation, would the host

extend hospitality to the guest and make known commonly

understood obligations. Upon the guest’s departure, both parties

would understand that their interaction served to solidify future

relations. In Luke 14 (vv. 12-14), Jesus’ table talk with the

Pharisees illuminates some of these parameters: hosts are

naturally inclined to receive guests with equivalent or greater

honor, since they will benefit from the interaction. Overall,

hospitality was influenced by a culture of social advancement in

which one distances oneself from any person who poses a threat to

one’s honor, which in the Jewish culture would include those who

are ritually unclean, and embraces anyone who would add to one’s

honor.6

Within the Luke-Acts narrative, Jesus’ mission to break down

the barriers preventing all from receiving God’s grace and love

is carried out through table fellowship and kingdom eating at

meal events. Each meal not only provides space for teaching

moments but the meal itself is an expression of the gospel

6 J. Lyle Story, "One banquet with many courses (Luke 14:1-24)," Journal Of BiblicalAnd Pneumatological Research 4, (September 1, 2012): 82. ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost (accessed September 26, 2014).

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message. These meal events exhibit features of a Hellenistic

banquet symposium in which the host, usually someone of wealth

and status, receives a chief guest and often others will

“intrude” upon the banquet and the conversation of host and

guest. A banquet symposium follows an expected sequence of events

in which an invitation is given to the chief guest, an incident

arises during the banquet to spark dispute, and the chief guest

offers wisdom in response to this incident. In many of the meals

in Luke-Acts, Jesus plays the role of chief guest and outcasts:

sinners, toll-collectors, and the religiously unclean, are often

intruders.7

The meals of Jesus with his opponents and followers build

upon eschatological hopes in Isaiah 25:6-8 in which a feast is a

prominent symbol: “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make

for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,

of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained

clear” (v. 6). The meal ministry of Jesus and his followers

anticipates and inaugurates this future feast by breaking down

7 John Paul Heil, The Meal Scenes in Luke-Acts: An Audience-Oriented Approach, (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999), 31.

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boundaries: engaging opponents and welcoming outcasts, so as to

make space for everyone at the table.8

In a series of three meals where Jesus is hosted by the

Pharisees, Jesus illustrates the nature of God’s kingdom by

forgiving and healing sinful and unclean intruders and by calling

his hosts to repentance. During Jesus’ first meal with a Pharisee

named Simon (Lk 7:36-50), a woman intrudes and Jesus praises her

hospitality as even more lavish than Simon’s and bestows

forgiveness on her in spite of her status as sinner. In Jesus’

second meal with Pharisees

(Lk 11:37-54), Jesus fails to engage in ritual washing and

responds to the Pharisees’ surprise by teaching them that

almsgiving is the new law of purity.9

In the final meal (Lk 14:1-24), Jesus tells three different

parables. The first is in response to the Pharisees’ surprise

when Jesus heals an intruder with dropsy in spite of the fact

that it is the Sabbath. The parable poses the question of one’s

response if a child or oxen were to fall into a well on Sabbath.

The second parable is in response to the Pharisees fighting for 8 Mittelstadt, “Eat, drink,” 138.9 Robert J. Karris, Eating Your Way Through Luke’s Gospel, (Collegeville, MN:

Liturgical Press, 2006), 44-48.

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honorable seats and illustrates that the best way is for guests

to take the least honorable seat at a banquet so that the master

may promote the guest to a more honorable seat. In the final

parable, a master hosts a banquet and when the people on his

first guest list offer absurd and insulting excuses,10 the master

responds with a call to invite all those who would not normally

receive an invitation: “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and

the lame” (v. 21). When the banquet hall is still not full, the

master compels the servant to bring in even more guests. Lyle

Story argues that each of these passages in this final meal with

the Pharisees illustrate the relationship of Jesus’ present meal

ministry to a future eschatological meal: “the eschatological

banquet is not simply a future apocalyptic event (Lk 14:15), but

is a meal with Jesus that has already begun—a meal that shatters

all previous boundaries.”11 In these series of meals, Jesus

breaks down social and religious boundaries by showing God’s love

for the sinful and unclean, who “break in” to the meals hosted by

the religious leaders of the community just as God’s kingdom

“breaks in” through Jesus’ forgiveness and healing of these

10 Story, "One banquet," 89. 11 Ibid., 91.

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intruders. At the same time, the meal itself becomes a symbol for

God’s desire to feed everyone – making a place for those who have

previously been banned from the table through radical

forgiveness.

In his meal ministry, Jesus prepares his disciples to be

leaders in receiving and giving hospitality at the table,

demonstrating the importance of the reciprocal nature of

hospitality. In Luke 9, Jesus sends the Twelve with the mission

“to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal” (v. 2). He also

charges them to “take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor

bag, nor bread, nor money – not even an extra tunic” (v. 3). This

instruction stresses not only the urgency of the mission but also

the need for radical dependence on God that the needs of the

disciples will be provided through the hospitality of those who

receive them.12 Later in the same chapter, Jesus withdraws

privately with the Twelve, and they are interrupted by a crowd

who follows Jesus

(v. 11). At the end of the day after speaking with the crowd

about the kingdom and curing them of their diseases, the

disciples urge Jesus to send the crowd to eat, but Jesus 12 Heil, The Meal Scenes, 56.

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responds, “You give them something to eat” (v. 13). In his book,

The Meal Scenes in Luke-Acts, John Paul Heil draws a connection between

the hospitality that the disciples have recently received from

the people of the surrounding countryside while carrying out

their mission and the hospitality that Jesus now urges the

disciples to show the gathered crowd: the hospitality offered is

a response to hospitality previously received.13

With Jesus’ direction, the disciples direct the crowd to

recline in groups of fifty for intimate meal fellowship and then

pass out the few loaves and fishes, which Jesus has blessed and

broken. Miraculously, there is enough for everyone. Afterwards,

there are twelve leftover baskets, which have symbolic

significance:

This suggests to the audience that Jesus has empowered his twelve apostles to feed not only this particular crowd of people of Israel but future crowds as well. Indeed, Jesus has provided his twelve apostles with twelve baskets of abundant food, enough to feed the renewed twelve tribes of the people of Israel in the messianic kingdom of God, which Jesus and his twelve apostles are bringing about by teaching, healing, and hospitably feeding the people (9:1-2,6, 11).14

13 Ibid., 61.14 Ibid., 62-63.

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The messianic feast is already being inaugurated in this feeding

of the crowd and at the same time anticipates a greater feast. We

also see how hospitality for Jesus is reciprocal in nature.

During the missional meal, one practices both roles: as guest

vulnerable to the hospitality of one’s host and as host open to

the needs of one’s guest.

In Acts, the practices of accepting and receiving

hospitality continue in activities of the early leaders of the

Jesus movement. Acts 10 introduces the character Cornelius, who

while a Gentile is also “a devout man who feared God with all his

household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed

constantly to God” (v. 2). In a vision, Cornelius sees an angel

of God, who acknowledges Cornelius’ prayers and tells him to

“send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter” (v.

5). While Cornelius’ men approach Joppa, Peter goes to pray,

becomes hungry, and then falls into a trance while his food is

being prepared. Peter has a vision in which a voice insists that

he kill and eat animals that are considered profane or unclean by

Jewish dietary law. As the story continues, Cornelius’ men arrive

and deliver their master’s invitation. In response, Peter offers

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them hospitality and then travels with them, joined by other

Jewish believers. Upon arrival at Cornelius’ home, Cornelius

relates the message of his vision, and Peter responds with a

witness of the gospel story. When the Holy Spirit falls “upon all

who heard the word” (v. 44), Peter is compelled to baptize

Cornelius and his household and accept Cornelius’ hospitality.

The entire exchange cements the radical principles

established by Jesus during his meal ministry in Luke. Just as

Jesus challenged traditional religious boundaries by eating with

sinners and the unclean, Peter challenges traditional religious

boundaries by eating food traditionally considered profane or

unclean so as to break down boundaries between the Jewish and

Gentile communities. Peter’s hospitality interactions with

Cornelius and his household are a sign of transformation in

Peter’s relationship with them and facilitate his ability to

share the gospel with them: “Just as [Peter] does not distinguish

between clean and unclean animals, so Peter does not distinguish

himself as a Jew to be separate and superior to this Gentile.”15

In her book, Eat with Joy: Redeeming God’s Gift of Food, Rachel Marie Stone

15 Ibid., 252.

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underlines the shocking nature of Peter’s decision to follow the

call of the voice in his vision:

It’s about as shocking as it would be to see a vegan chef sitting down to eat chili dogs with Paula Deen, or, as Philip Yancey says, as radical as an alcohol-stocked bar descending into a gathering of Southern Baptists, with a voice from heaven saying, ‘Drink!’16

The shock value of Peter’s decision is apparent by the reaction

of the other Jerusalem believers, who ask “Why did you go to

uncircumcised men and eat with them?” (Acts 11:2-3). The rebuke

of the other believers recalls for the reader the rebuke of the

Pharisees, who accused Jesus for eating with tax-collectors and

sinners (cf. Lk 5:30).17 Practicing hospitality is not easy, but

its effects are transformative. The food purity laws that had

separated Peter and Cornelius are gone, and the collapse of this

boundary makes way for the proclamation of the gospel, the

reception of the Holy Spirit, and acceptance of the Gentiles into

the Jesus movement. All of this is made possible by Peter being

willing to host a group of strange Gentile men and hear their

message, and then receive the hospitality of Cornelius, another

16 Rachel Marie Stone, Eat with Joy: Redeeming God’s Gift of Food, (Downer’s Grove, IL: Inner Varsity Press, 2013) Kindle, Ch 3 Par 14.17 Heil, The Meal Scenes,

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Gentile, and eat food traditionally considered “unacceptable” by

the religious standards of his community.

How can the radical meal hospitality offered by Jesus and

his followers in Luke-Acts inform our current context? In an

increasingly global world, welcoming the stranger – even someone

whom we might consider to be our enemy or opponent, is completely

relevant.18 The meal ministry portrayed in Luke-Acts facilitates

the breaking down of boundaries that would otherwise prevent free

movement of the gospel: “Luke demonstrates that the table creates

space for openness and vulnerability and postures us to be

recipients and agents of God’s renovation.”19

This orientation towards the other is a dynamic that also

plays itself out in the sacrament of Eucharist. If we are to

engage in missional meal ministry like Jesus and the early

leaders of the Church, the Eucharist should inform our practice.

Two frameworks are helpful. In the first framework, Eucharist is

understood as a master practice, which can inform ancillary

practices. Larry Rasmussen explains this concept whereby a master

practice such as baptism may inform ancillary practices such as

18 Brandner, “Hosts and guests,” 100.19 Mittelstadt, “Eat, drink,” 139.

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producing water bottles inscribed with a religious group’s

mission or logo.20 Here, the understanding of the life-giving

waters of baptism informs the understanding of the life-giving

water drunk from the water bottles. For a missional meal, the

understanding of the master practice of Eucharist as a meal where

Jesus is present and transforms participants through grace can

inform the understanding of an ancillary meal ministry.

Another way to understand how Eucharist can shape other

meals is by seeing Eucharist as centripetal and centrifugal. As

centripetal, “meal events linked to our congregational mission

are drawn toward the Eucharist for their fuller meaning and

power.”21 In his book, Soul Banquets: How Meals Become Mission in the Local

Congregation, John Koenig describes as an example a meal ministry

at St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City after the attack on the

Twin Towers on 9/11 in which the church offered meals to those at

Ground Zero and, after time, began to celebrate Eucharist during

the lunch hour.22 Likewise, the Eucharist is centrifugal as “a

transformative force that moves outward, beyond its usual

20 Jung, Sharing Food, 4. 21 John Koenig, Soul Banquets: How Meals Become Mission in the Local Congregation, (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2007), Kindle, Ch 5, “Imagining an Active Eucharist,” Paragraph 6. 22 Ibid., Ch 1, Paragraphs 5-6.

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location in a Sunday morning service, to change things—

specifically other meals.”23 Thus, the sacrament of Eucharist

informs other missional meals as a master practice informs

ancillary practices and as a centripetal and centrifugal force,

paradoxically drawing practices in to be informed by the

transformative grace present at the table and also sending out

the energy of transformative grace present at the table to inform

other meal practices.

How might “Eucharistic” eating and feeding contrast from

typical eating and feeding in today’s context? In his analysis of

“Eating Jesus,” in Food and Faith: a Theology of Eating, Norman Wirzba

focuses on Jesus’ speech in the Gospel of John when Jesus

identifies as “living bread” and tells the disciples, “Those who

eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (Jn

6:56).24 Unlike most food and drink, which is broken down by our

eating and drinking it, the flesh and blood of Jesus abides in us

and allows for a transformation: “The other, that is, Jesus

continues to live on in me not as de-formed matter but as food

23 Ibid., Ch 5, “Imagining an Active Eucharist,” Paragraph 7.24 Norman Wirzba, Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating, (Cambridge: University Press, 2011), 154-155.

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that in-forms and re-forms life from the inside.”25 In other

words, eucharistic eating is other-oriented. In this eating, we

are “dislocated and relocated outside of ourselves, called to a

more attentive, sympathetic, and caring embrace of the world.”26

Much like the eating that occurred in Jesus’ meal ministry in

Luke-Acts in which Jesus as guest sought to transform his hosts

through a call for repentance and Jesus as host sought to

transform his guests through overabundant forgiveness, healing,

and feeding, Eucharistic eating transforms participants by

calling them to accept the other within and embrace the other

without.

Wirzba contrasts Eucharistic eating with the consumeristic

eating that is prevalent in the culture of the United States.

Consumeristic eating is “dedicated to the consumer’s comfort,

convenience, and control,”27 whereas Eucharistic eating brings

the consumer outside of his or her comfort zone, challenges the

consumer to accept the other, and disrupts the consumer’s

illusions of his or her power. Eucharistic eating invites the

25 Ibid., 157.26 Ibid., 158.27 Ibid., 159.

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consumer to be empowered by receiving grace in communion with God

and in community with others.

I would now like to explore three different ministries of

the ELCA that model certain characteristics of a missional meal

ministry. The first two ministries, First Slice Pie Café, run by

Chef Mary Ellen Diaz, and Table Grace Café, headed by Chef Matt

Weber, are ministries that grew out of affiliations with and

flourish with the support of particular congregations. The final

ministry, St. Lydia’s Dinner Church, is in and of itself a

congregation whose worship is centered in a particular experience

of the Eucharist as a full meal. In my analysis, I will seek to

draw connections between each of these ministries and the theory

that I have established thus far. I will touch on how each of

these ministries displays the nature of the hospitable meals in

Luke-Acts whereby leaders and outcasts are welcome and invited to

be transformed and whereby Jesus and his believers reciprocate,

practicing roles of both guest and host. I will also seek to

highlight how each of these ministries is influenced by the

Eucharist as a master practice, as a sacrament with centripetal

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and centrifugal influence, and as grounded in other-oriented

eating and feeding.

The first meal ministry is First Slice Pie Café located in

Chicago, Illinois and headed by chef Mary Ellen Diaz. Diaz’s

inspiration for this particular ministry comes from several

sources. One part of her inspiration for a meal ministry was her

background as a chef, trained in France and with experience in

multi-starred restaurants and entertainment franchises. While

working in these settings, Diaz recalls that she was “always

giving away the last slice” but “didn’t think first about feeding

the poor.”28 One transformative step in her journey was serving

at a soup kitchen and seeing the reaction of those whom she

served: “It only took one night of making meals amazing for

people in need and seeing the smiles that made me realize I could

do something here.”29 Another part of her inspiration was

Ebenezer Luther Church, Chicago. Her initial connection with

Ebenezer was as a chef, cooking for gala events, but, over time,

28 Kathleen Kastilahn, “Serving the First Slice: Community Kitchen Finds New Way to Feed the Poor,” The Lutheran15, no. 10 (November 2011): 35.29 Judy Hevrdejs, “Remarkable Woman: Mary Ellen Diaz: First Slice founder turns Spanish cooking background and French culinary training into a way to help feed Chicago's hungry.” Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2012. Accessed October 1,2014. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-15/features/ct-tribu-remarkable-diaz-20120715_1_family-meals-arts-culinaires-first-slice.

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she began worshiping at the community and building

relationships.30 Her pastor, Paul Koch, was inspired by her

vision of a “community-sponsored kitchen,” in which subscribers

pay for three meals with three servings a week and their payments

help provide funds for a family in need to get the same meals

free, and he helped her recruit the first subscription and

scholarship members.31 Diaz’s involvement at Ebenezer – first at

the business level and then at the worship level – clearly

informed and provided impetus for her ministry.

First Slice Pie Café practices transformative and reciprocal

hospitality and engages in other-oriented, Eucharistic eating in

several ways. One way First Slice is oriented towards the other

is the attention that Diaz gave to the dynamics of her community.

The Café is located in an area where people of multiple

backgrounds and social classes coexist, providing potential

ground for a meal ministry to break down boundaries and create

connections through food.32 First Slice also practices reciprocal

hospitality by connecting subscribing and scholarship members not

only in the business dynamics but in the physical preparation of

30 Kastilahn, “Serving the First Slice,” 35. 31 Ibid.32 Ibid.

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the food. In the kitchen, community and church members,

subscribers and scholarship members work side by side to prepare

the food for the week. For Diaz, this is one of the most

important aspects of First Slice: that people work together and

“cook with their hearts.”33 While food donations are occasionally

received, Diaz says that the mission of the organization is best

fulfilled when volunteers cook the food: “We feel much more

driven if our mission is based on us sort of rolling up our

sleeves and cooking for every dollar.”34 More recently, Diaz has

also added a small job training program in which the cooking

experience provides volunteers with work skills.35 Like Jesus

with the disciples in the feeding of the crowd, she empowers

those who have received her hospitality to offer hospitality to

others. The eating itself is also a chance to feel connected to

the other: “You can come in and have good food, and other people

can have good food too.”36 When Sharon Koch, subscriber and

volunteer at First slice, saw a young mother and child in the

neighborhood with a First Slice tote, it was a symbol for her of

33 Ibid.34 Hevrdejs, “Remarkable Woman.”35 Ibid.36 Ibid.

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boundaries being broken: “I felt connected, the tote is the

signal. We know First Slice connects church members and the

community.”37 In all of these ways, First Slice Pie Café is an

embodiment of a missional meal ministry.

Another meal ministry is Table Grace Café in Omaha Nebraska

founded by Matt and Simone Weber. Both Matt and Simone are active

in the Nebraska’s Evangelical Lutheran Church Community: Matt

worked at Carol Joy Holling Camp in Ashland, Nebraska, which is

part of Nebraska Lutheran Outdoor Ministries, and Simone works as

the director of music ministry at First Lutheran Church, Omaha.38

Like Diaz, the inspiration for Table Grace started in the church

setting. Initially, the Webers started by “offering personal chef

services for single parents in their church”39 but were

dissatisfied with the sustainability of the model from a business

perspective. After deciding to further the ministry by starting a

registered 501 © (3) nonprofit organization, Matt Weber paid

particular attention to the neighborhood in which it was to be

located, deciding on a spot downtown close to a bus stop transfer37 Kastilahn, “Serving the First Slice,” 35.38 Emily Brocker, “Cultivators: Table Grace Café,” Edible Omaha (May 16, 2012),Accessed October 3, 2014. http://edibleomaha.com/online-magazine/spring-2012/cultivators-table-grace-cafe/.39 Ibid.

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station, the homeless population, and a number of businesses.

Table Grace operates without a register and relies on patrons

with financial means to donate as much or more than the worth of

their meal so that others with less financial means can receive a

free meal. In 2012, the business was serving forty people a day

and in need of more paying customers, so that Table Grace could

serve 60 people a day.40

The organization practices reciprocal and transformative

hospitality and other-oriented Eucharistic eating in a number of

ways. One way the organization practices reciprocal hospitality

is in the diverse body of volunteer workers who help to manage

the restaurant. People from varying backgrounds work side by

side: those who pay for their meals and those who receive free

meals. Hank Shiffbauer, 75, a retiree helps to deliver the

produce and meat donated by a grocery store and feels that the

ministry gives him purpose: “I thank God that I can still walk

around and do things like this.”41 Shiffbauer works side by side

with a Sean Blake, who used to be homeless and now plays in the

40 Ibid.41 Tim Palleson, “Table Grace: In Omaha, a Lutheran-run restaurant feeds the soul.” The Lutheran 24, no. 10 (October 2011): 37.

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band at First Lutheran Church.42 This relationship shows not the

breaking down of boundaries but Blake’s playing in the First’s

band shows the centripetal and centrifugal forces of Eucharist at

play: just as the Webers’ experience at First sent them out to

start this ministry, the experience of the ministry has drawn

people like Blake into First.

A two week restaurant internship program is one way that

this meal ministry practices reciprocal and transformative

hospitality allowing volunteers to develop job skills and receive

guidance from Matt Weber in writing their resume and job hunting.

Weber hopes to develop good relationships with other Omaha

organizations that will provide stable jobs for interns.43 In

this way, like Diaz, Weber empowers recipients of his hospitality

to be hospitable to others. Those who have participated in an

internship also feel that the experience has transformed them.

Teena Herrod, who is recovering from alcoholism and was homeless,

was able to successfully get a job as a hotel caterer after

working at Table Grace.44 After suffering significant loss as a

result of her alcoholism, the experience at Table Grace

42 Ibid.43 Brocker, “Cultivators.”44 Palleson, “Table Grace,” 37.

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represented a new beginning: “Matt helped me with my self-

esteem.”45 Reflecting on this aspect of Table Grace, Weber says,

“I’m not just feeding people with food. I’m feeding them in other

ways.”46 Eating and feeding others at Table Grace enables people

to be transformed by their experience of Weber’s meal hospitality

and his encouragement of others to practice meal hospitality.

A final meal ministry is St. Lydia’s in New York City led by

Pastor Emily Scott. This meal ministry is slightly different from

the others in that St. Lydia’s is an actual congregation and the

meal that it holds is a celebration of the Eucharist. When

describing the inspiration for St. Lydia’s, Scott recalls

realizing that many young New Yorkers, despite having a desire to

be connected with a church, were having difficulty making the

connection: “I started to think, ‘There’s a hunger; there’s a

need that’s not being met. What would a church for these people

look like?’”47 Scott credits the idea of St. Lydia’s to the Holy

Spirit: “The idea of a church that was centered around the early

church practice of having a meal together as Eucharist just kind 45 Ibid.46 Ibid.47 Ansley Roan, “Dinner – and the Gospel – is served at St. Lydia’s.” Faith and Leadership. October 9, 2012. Accessed September 26, 2014. http://www.faithandleadership.com/features/articles/dinner-and-the-gospel-served-st-lydias.

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of fell out of the sky.”48 The name, St. Lydia’s, reflects the

mission of the church, since St. Lydia is known in Acts for

providing hospitality in a city known for inhospitality (16:14-

15). Culturally, New York City is known for being a city in which

people rarely interact face to face over a meal, so the meal at

St. Lydia’s provides time and space for people to engage in a

countercultural and missional practice. The mission of the church

itself is grounded in principles of connection and community:

“Telling Our Story. Sharing the Meal. Working Together.”49

The transformation that takes place in the St. Lydia’s meal

is a transformation of feeling connected and engaged in a culture

of isolation. Rachel Pollack, the part-time community

coordinator, explains her role in the church’s mission, “I have a

kind of ‘mother hen’ personality at church, because sometimes

people need to be pushed and prodded to break free of inhibitions

and habits of isolation that keep us from connecting.”50 A

worshipper, Mabel Bermejo, who is Catholic, also highlights how

St. Lydia’s encourages participants to engage with each other:

“It’s not passive; it’s very active. It’s not like you’re sitting

48 Ibid.49 Ibid.50 Ibid.

Steinly 27

on a back pew. Everyone has a place at the table.”51 The

Eucharist meal at St. Lydia’s provides space for people to

connect with each other and with God.

Like the disciples who formed the crowd into intimate groups

of fifty while feeding the crowd in Luke, Scott hopes to grow the

ministry in a way that preserves the intimacy of the present

congregation, keeping worship numbers to thirty-five to forty

people and offering multiple worship times during the week as the

congregation grows. She also has a vision that would fulfill the

concept of the centrifugal forces of Eucharist – extending the

transformative hospitality of the meal outwards into the

community – by starting an intentional community for homeless

youth and providing space for New York City artists. Overall,

Scott feels that what takes place at St. Lydia’s embodies the

story of the travelers on their way to Emmaus, who recognized

Jesus in the breaking of the bread: “God’s always going to be

bigger than what we write down, but just keep coming back to the

table. That’s going to keep forming you.”52

51 Ibid.52 Ibid.

Steinly 28

In conclusion, I hope that this paper has shown the

potential of the meal experience being a missional opportunity. I

have illustrated how the table fellowship of Jesus can be a

model, inspiring us to make transformative space for opponents

and outcasts and to practice reciprocal hospitality that empowers

all to be both host and guest in the meal. I have also emphasized

the importance of the Eucharist as being a master practice and as

having centripetal and centrifugal influences on other Christian

meals and as providing a model for a transformative meal that

orients the consumer towards the other. I then offered three

illustrations of potentially missional meals from the ministries

of the ELCA: First Slice Pie Café, Grace Table Café, and St.

Lydia’s Dinner Church. I hope that these theories and practices

here illustrated in this paper will inspire others to practice

missional eating and feeding as way of breaking down boundaries

and making space for the transformational message of God’s love

and grace in Jesus Christ.

Steinly 29

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