The encounters with Jesus on the road to Emmaus and then back in Jerusalem are about food. In the earlier moment, two disciples recognize Jesus in his breaking and offering of bread. When the barriers are down at the dinner table, they see the face of Christ on their traveling companion. Later, when Jesus appears to the larger group, he wishes them “Peace,” and asks if they have anything to eat. They offer him a piece of broiled fish. Throughout the gospels, Jesus does his most notable teaching and ministry around shared meals, with friends and not-so-friends. Eating is emblematic of our shared humanity regardless of age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, or politics, to name a few divisions. We all have to eat. When we share food, eat with one another, draw closer, we are saying, “I am alive, and I want you to live.”
God’s great gifts to us, in Jesus, are a deep, profound, healing peace, and the assurance that we will be fed in body and spirit. Our calling as church – an incarnation of God’s radical, inclusive love in the flesh – is to share that peace and that feeding with one another, and in the world where we find ourselves.
Peace and grace be with you,
Pastor Carol
