Meals in Luke's Gospel An Invitation To "Dine in The Kingdom."
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Date
2003
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
Meals are a common feature in Jesus teaching as presented by Luke. They
demand a response from those who partake in these meals. The response at times
may be bitter, but knowing the greater good, Jesus invites people to these meals.
They call for conversion and a turn towards something greater than mere eating.
Jesus in Luke's gospel uses meals to convey and show us the way to the kingdom of
God, a kingdom that is compared with a wedding feast.
This is an artistic creation of Jesus because meals speak to human persons in
a profound way and catch human attention more easily and allow us to reflect from
our ordinary things, something that will be of lasting benefits.
'Dining in the kingdom' may seem strange or inappropriate, because it looks
unrealistic from the point of view of the reality of hunger and poverty in most of our
societies today. We are not saying that people should go hungry in order to come to
the knowledge of the kingdom, but it is a chance to make a 'leap' to that level of
thinking. In the meals, Jesus declares his forgiveness to those who from a social
view point are considered out of the community, and also invites those 'righteous'
men to a change of attitude because they thought of themselves as having plenty to
eat and neglected those who went without food. Jesus transforms these moments to
the level of God's dealing with people and how we should treat each other as we
journey towards Him. We may say that all are in need of 'eating' at different levels. The main theme of meals in Luke's gospel deals with the attitude of both the host
and the guests during meals. The behaviour of each is in itself an invitation and a
challenge.
This essay is divided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with an
overview of the biblical understanding of meals. It looks at meals from the
Hellenistic point of view and their development into the Jewish culture, Old and
New Testament. Also we try to see how meals are in Luke's Gospel. In chapter two
we probe into the Lucan use of meals and how they lead us to the understanding of
the journey we are to undertake towards the great celebration in the kingdom of
God. Here a number of meals are highlighted to help us reflect on what they ask of
us and how they invite us to that great banquet. Coming to the third chapter the
interest is more towards a pastoral oriented understanding of meals; particularly
focusing on the African values related with meals and how an African Christian can
relate these traditional values to a greater appreciation of our celebration of
Eucharist. This part is a personal reflection. Hopefully this will provide a good
approach to the invitation 'to dine in the kingdom' with God. God has prepared the
meal already. He is there waiting for his people to come and join him in the
celebration.
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Keywords
Meals, Luke's Gospel, Dine in The Kingdom