The habit of loving the feast
Photo by Heather Tobey
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread […]. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.” (Acts 2:42 and 46)
Food is a complex part of life. We love to eat—the taste, the smell, the texture, that satiating of hunger. We love to socialize around eating: celebrations and grievous occasions. We love to talk about eating: meal prepping, dreaming of the most delicious meals, discussing the typical dinner your mother or father put on the table. Food is a universal thing. It is a necessary sustainer of life. Eating is a natural habit of all human beings.
There is the saying “you are what you eat.” From a scientific point of view, this is technically true. The foods we eat build the nearly 200 billion cells our bodies produce each day. The 30 trillion cells in our bodies make up a holy temple, a magnificent vessel, a powerful prophet of Good News. They are constantly bearing the image of Christ. Our souls have been gifted masterpiece homes as a temporary dwelling place, and we often lack appreciation for the incredible work they do. To breathe, to sit down and to rise up, to blink, to scratch your nose without even consciously thinking about it, to run to scoop up the crying baby. We are truly incredible creations!
The foods we habitually eat either strengthen us or weaken us. They either promote life to the cells of our bodies or they promote death. Feasting on nourishing foods is an act of worship—an acknowledgement of the wonderful ways the Lord has made us and the earth from which our food comes. And he has made us all good.
My journey to comprehending the beauty and significance of the feast table has been a strenuous battle. I struggled with an eating disorder for most of my adolescence and into adulthood, so establishing the habit of breaking bread with the Saints and acknowledging the food set before me as fuel for the fight has been a literal fight for my life. Through that struggle, I’ve learned to respect the ways in which my body was crafted, and I’ve gained a deeper understanding of its role in the Kingdom battle: to be strong, equipped, sober, and ready.
We must deeply care for our soul’s earthly dwelling places as we participate in the Kingdom work of the Lord. When we enter into the habit of feeding our bodies with foods that nourish us while simultaneously communing with the Saints, we are holistically feeding our souls and bodies to be living, breathing, holy sacrifices. We are sustained both physically and spiritually that we may be sent out to live and work to the glory of Christ.
This is my conviction: we must enter into a habitual practice of nourishing our bodies and our souls by breaking bread at the feast table and sharing everything we have with “glad and generous hearts.”