Fellowship of the Table

A meal, however simple, is a moment of intersection. It is at once the most basic,
the most fundamental, of our life’s activities, maintaining the life of our bodies;
shared with others it can be an occasion of joy and communion, uniting people
deeply... Fasting and feasting are universal human responses, and any meal,
shared with love, can be an agapē.[i]

To Friend Elise Boulding, eating together was an important community-building practice, and a lot of research backs up her claim. Individuals who often eat with others feel happier and are more satisfied with life; they are more engaged with others and have a better support system. When groups of people regularly share meals they enjoy a sense of belonging, better communication, more productivity, and higher morale.

Even without the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, Friends practice the fellowship of the table. Potlucks, coffee hours, and Friendly 7s are, at their best, celebrations of hospitality, welcome, and commitment. Feasting together encourages deeper friendships and connections among meeting members and attenders who might not otherwise see each other often. Maybe we ought to consider feasting more seriously as a communal spiritual practice.

The Table. The Bible gives many examples of the fellowship of the table, from the weekly Sabbath feasts instituted in the book of Leviticus to the Passover meal celebrated in the Upper Room. Among Romans and Greeks, people also practiced their faith by feasting. A host, usually a wealthy man, or sometimes a wealthy woman, furnished bread, wine, olives, olive oil, figs, vegetables, and fish for a banquet. The meal was followed by a drinking party called a symposium (from syn- ‘together’ and pínō ‘to drink’).

During Jesus’s life and continuing after his death, his followers socialized at a banquet after work on Sunday evenings. The guests greeted one another with holy kisses and called each other brother and sister. They sat or reclined while the host offered a table grace over the food and broke the bread. Calling these meetings ‘love feasts’ or ‘agapē feasts’, proto-Christians experienced love and charity with one another in the presence of the Divine.[ii]

Early Christians thought that the Indwelling Christ was present within them at their banquet as the founder of their faith and their congregation. Historian Valeriy Alikin pointed out that the guests at the meal felt united with Christ through ingesting the bread and wine (1 Cor. 10:16). They believed Spirit to be active in them, giving them different spiritual gifts for the community (1 Cor. 12:6–11).[iii] Over the decades, the feast became an important bonding ritual for Christians: the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper.

After the banquet, the guests held a symposium in which they recited the words of Jesus, told stories about him, read letters from other congregations, and discussed theology, all in no specific order. By a few centuries later, the church had standardized the order of service, and the symposium evolved into the liturgical parts of the Catholic Mass[iv], the Protestant worship service, and of course, in stripped down form, Meeting for Worship. Early Friends believed that they were re-enacting this early form of worship through their ministry. Nowadays, the Quaker practice that most mimics early Christian agapē feasts is Friendly 7s (or 8s), when, after a potluck meal, Friends gather in worship-sharing.

In 1 Corinthians, the letter-writer Paul wanted to correct some abuses that sometimes occurred in early Christian gatherings. Some guests drank too much, and some ate so much that not enough food remained for others.[v] Paul advised the Corinthians to avoid excesses of eating and drinking during the feast so that they would be mentally, physically, and spiritually present for worship afterwards. That is the context for Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 10:31: Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything to the honor of God[vi]. This is a good suggestion for us today.

Agapē. Paul also wrote about the gifts of the Spirit that early Christians offered to their communities during the symposium, among them, teaching wisdom and knowledge, revelation, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, and discernment of spirits. Paul’s message from 1 Corinthians 13 1-13[vii] about humility and love is often read aloud at weddings, but it applies as much to our weekly worship as to our potlucks and coffee hours. May Friends make them all agapē feasts.

Though I speak in the tongues of people, or even of angels, yet have not love,
I have become mere echoing brass, or a clanging cymbal!

Even though I have the gift of preaching,

and fathom all hidden truths and all the depths of knowledge;

even though I have such faith as might move mountains, yet have not love,

I am nothing!

Even though I dole my substance to the poor,

even though I sacrifice my body in order to boast [about it],

yet have not love, it avails me nothing!

Love is long-suffering, and kind;

love is never envious, never boastful, never conceited, never behaves unbecomingly;

love is never self-seeking, never provoked, never reckons up her wrongs;
love never rejoices at evil, but rejoices in the triumph of truth;

love bears with all things, ever trustful, ever hopeful, ever patient.

Love never fails.

But whether it be the gift of preaching, it will be done with;

whether it be the gift of tongues, it will cease;

whether it be knowledge, it, too, will be done with.

For our knowledge is incomplete, and our preaching is incomplete,

but when the perfect has come, that which is incomplete will be done with.

When I was a child, I talked as a child, I felt as a child,

I reasoned as a child; now that I am an adult, I have done with childish ways.

As yet we see, in a mirror, dimly, but then--face-to-face!

As yet my knowledge is incomplete, but then I will know in full,

as I have been fully known.

Meanwhile faith, hope and love endure--these three,

but the greatest of these is love.

Barbara Birch is the author of Lectio Divina: Revelation and Prophecy from Quaker Quicks. She is facilitating a Woodbrooke course called Lectio Divina: Reading Rufus Jones With the Heart this autumn. She is a member of Strawberry Creek Meeting in Berkeley CA and a board member at Ben Lomond Quaker Center. Follow her on Instagram and Bluesky.

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[i] Boulding, E. (1976). From a Monastery Kitchen Harper & Row: New York 1976 with Brother Victor Antonio Avila and Sister Jeanne-Marie Pearse. Page 22.

[ii] Alikin, V. (2010) The Origin of The Weekly Gathering in the Early Church, The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering: Origin, Development and Content of the Christian Gathering in the First to Third Centuries, Boston : Brill, 2010.

[iii]Alikin, V. (2010) The Origin of The Weekly Gathering in the Early Church, The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering: Origin, Development and Content of the Christian Gathering in the First to Third Centuries, Boston : Brill, 2010. Page 63.

[iv] Alikin, V. (2010) Introduction, The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering: Origin, Development and Content of the Christian Gathering in the First to Third Centuries, Boston : Brill, 2010.

[v] Alikin, V. (2010) The Origin of The Weekly Gathering in the Early Church, The Earliest History of the Christian Gathering: Origin, Development and Content of the Christian Gathering in the First to Third Centuries, Boston : Brill, 2010. Page 31

[vi] Adapted from A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century by Hal Tausig, (ed.) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Boston, MA : 2013.

[vii] Adapted from A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century by Hal Tausig, (ed.) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Boston, MA : 2013.