Think of your best memories: vacations, holidays, family gatherings, life-altering conversations, relations, joyful happenings. More likely than not, they involved food. Perhaps it was a picnic by the lake, or maybe one of the gatherings around the table at grandma’s house. Was it that delicious habit of sharing a cold watermelon on the front porch on a hot afternoon, or the barbeques at a favorite uncle’s back yard after a family game of football or volleyball?
Could it be that more barriers are broken down around the kitchen table than around the conference table? Could more church disagreements be mended if we still had more “all day singings with dinner on the grounds” and fewer finance committee meetings?
I’m with Leonard Sweet; let’s bring back the table. (From Tablet to Table—NavPress) I vote for returning the kitchen table to its rightful place as the center of our homes, and celebrating the place homecooked food plays--or could play--in a society more and more drawn to the ”virtual reality” of electronic games and less and less to the face-to-face reality of a lively discussion around the family or community table.
If we think back, most of our best memories are connected to some special recipe that no one could make like grandma or those barbequed meatballs “we always had at cook-outs by the creek.” How many relationships could be restored or initiated if we took the time to extend an invitation to “join us for supper” or “stop by for coffee.” Eating out for dinner (or running by the drive-up) may be good for a change or convenient on band or sports practice nights, but is not the same as “supper.” The words “dinner” and “supper” are not quite synonymous. Supper means everyone is home and around the table, passing around the green beans and mashed potatoes and all talking at once. Supper is love and acceptance and something to say.
Can any child or teen-ager resist sharing his or her day at school when the first thing to greet them when they bound through the door of the kitchen are hot chocolate chip cookies and a tall glass of cold milk? For me it was the conversations around our dining room table that made the world of opportunity open up to me and began my pursuit of God’s best for my life. For many of us it was “table talk” that drew us in or healed our hearts when we were the stranger or floundering for some reason.
It’s no accident that even when we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” the great Shepherd has promised to prepare a table before us--even in the presence of our enemies--and to spread for us, his bride, a great marriage supper when we finally get home. And, as my friend Bob Benson used to say, there will be only round tables in heaven; at round tables we can look into each other’s eyes, and we can always squeeze in a couple more chairs!
