Break Bread Together

For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed potluck dinners at church. As a young boy, I found myself distracted during worship services on Sunday mornings when the smell of fresh-baked rolls, macaroni and cheese, and baked beans began to waft up from the church basement. I secretly envied the people who skipped the sermon to cut sections of white tablecloth from giant paper rolls and cover the long tables that held the food. As soon as the closing prayer was over, we would go downstairs to enjoy potato salad, green bean casseroles made with mushroom soup and canned fried onions, and baked ham covered with crushed pineapple.

I usually skipped the boring, healthier-looking items like tossed salads, plain sliced bread, and lime-green Jello-molds filled with chopped cabbage and carrots. Why bother with deviled eggs when you could load your paper plate with five different kinds of meatloaf and three varieties of lasagna? My favorite table was the one covered with homemade desserts. There were blackberry, cherry, apple, pumpkin, and chocolate cream pies. And there were cakes—German chocolate, angel food, and Vivian Shaffer's hickory nut cake made with nuts she and her husband Chester gathered on their farm.

During my ministry in New York, our church's fellowship dinners had an ethnic flavor. Italian baked ziti coexisted comfortably on the table next to Chinese egg rolls, Puerto Rican red beans, Filipino rice cakes, Greek salad, bagels from the kosher deli, and all-American hot dogs. Somehow the menu's flavors mingled together deliciously, as if to symbolize the unity God's people enjoyed despite our varied backgrounds.

In my current church, a group of senior adults invite me to join them for a potluck lunch on the fourth Wednesday of every month. These days I'm content with one small piece of meatloaf, and I don't skip the tossed salad anymore. But I still visit the dessert table to grab one of George and Barbara Huffman's homemade cream puffs covered with chocolate icing.

There's something special about eating together. Maybe even something spiritual. Jesus' first-century disciples devoted themselves to the bread and cup of the Lord's Supper. They also "broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts" (Acts 2:46). Mealtimes were more than a way to fill empty stomachs. They were important times of thanksgiving, information sharing, and community building.

In The Connecting Church (Zondervan, 2001), Randy Frazee points out, "By and large the concept of eating together has become foreign to the American culture. It is rare for the average American family to share two to three meals together during the week." When we don't take the time to eat, talk, listen, and unwind together, we're left feeling hungry for fellowship. That's why across America this week—and even on military bases in dangerous parts of the world—people will pause and gather around tables covered with delicious food to thank God for his blessings and appreciate their loved ones.

When my grandmother died last spring, my relatives gathered in Ohio for the funeral. Upon leaving the cemetery and returning to my parents' home, we found that some church friends had been there while we were gone. A long table was covered with platters of ham, green beans, deviled eggs, and desserts. Digging into the big bowl of macaroni and cheese, I recalled a prayer I learned as a little boy: "God is great, God is good. And we thank him for this food."