We’re all hungry. There’s an emptiness in us that makes us crave something. It gnaws at us, and as we all try to figure out what to fill it up with, we all keep looking for more and more. Because no matter what we try to fill that hunger with, nothing seems to help. We still walk away feeling hungry. Some have discovered that when they sit at Jesus’ table and focus on him, the hunger fades and at times completely disappears. Jesus nourishes the soul in a way nothing else does. He even points to a time when there will be no more hunger at all.
If you’re one of those who have eaten with Jesus, after you got over the surprise at finding you’re not hungry any more you notice that there are others seated at the same table all enjoying this feast. And at first it’s like, “This is the best meal I’ve ever shared with anyone!” It’s so tasty! Because this Jesus feast is so good, you start trying to help those who are already eating to enjoy it more. And then you see those who are going hungry, completely oblivious of the feast, and you start telling them about how good it is. You want them to enjoy it too.
There are others around the table that get passionate about wanting to do the same thing too. But they decide that to do it, they need to plan more activities and more events and they get lost in looking for whatever “more” they think will help that they forget to eat themselves or to help those who are eating already to enjoy the meal. Then others think they need to dress up this feast to look a lot like the food that doesn’t really fill anyone else up so that people might see that it’s good and want to be a part of the feast. But it starts to lose some of its flavor and appeal and isn’t as attractive. Some just eat enough at the feast to get enough to get by until they need a little refresh and don’t really care what happens to everyone else at the table. You’ve watched some get so upset about what the feast has become that they vow never to eat here again.
And when you finally look around and you see what’s happened to this amazing feast, your broken over it. You know this isn’t what the feast was supposed to look like. It was supposed to be a simple meal where everyone enjoys the food, passes it around to those who have little or none, and everyone just keeps passing it around. It’s good food and good company and an open invitation for anyone to come who is hungry. A foreshadowing of the eternal feast to come for all who place their faith in Jesus.
We all know someone who has been hurt by the church. I’ve been both the one who was hurt and the one who has hurt people. And man, I look at those times and grieve. This isn’t what this feast is supposed to look like. We all know that. We all know that the feast is going to be perfect and this is far from it. We’re imperfect people trying to mirror the perfect ending we’re destined for. It’ll never be perfect. But we don’t have to settle.
What if church focused more on the quality of the feast rather than the amount of people being fed? What if people decided that the feast Jesus is serving up is worth loving Him and each other even when it hurts. What if church was a community of people who loved sharing out of the abundance of the feast and committed to loving God, loving each other, and inviting others to the feast? Wouldn’t that be a light in a dark world that attracts unbelievers? Wouldn’t that be the salt of the world that makes everything else taste better?
A feast is meant to be enjoyed. This feast, the church, can still be enjoyed. Let us savor the bounty we have in Jesus acknowledging that we may have to rethink how we have been eating, and refocus on the one who serves us.