By Molly T. Marshall
I had opportunity to see the Body of Christ at its best these past weeks. A faithful member of my Sunday school class has been concluding his nearly three-year struggle with cancer. With grace and dignity, he has faced death with clear perspective and deep care for his family.
What do Baptists do well at times like these? We go into overdrive providing food. Perchance a potluck is a peculiar form of sacrament in our ecclesial family.
Tom Long has a wonderful book on funeral practices titled Accompany Them with Singing.
Singing is important, especially as we corporately express our faith as we entrust our beloved to the eternal care of God. Singing gathers up our expectation of singing a new song together when all are gathered in the world to come.
Providing food is no less significant. It tangibly expresses our desire to surround grieving family members with something practical. Hopefully, food also expresses our trust that a messianic banquet awaits those who love Jesus in life and death.
Working in the kitchen, setting tables, greeting guests, keeping tea glasses full, we were all trying to do something useful even as members of his class were stumbling over one another in our over-staffed efforts. Eating together is a holy practice, and this kind of meal reminds us of the thick, eucharistic relations within the congregation.
An old practice in the church is the celebration of Holy Communion as part of the funeral service. While few Baptists have followed this liturgical tradition, we do view the worship surrounding death as a summing up of life, which calls for thanksgiving, i.e. Eucharist.
Southern folk singer Kate Campbell has written the hilarious song “Funeral Food,” which details the good practice of church-going folk bringing their offerings of food for the funeral potluck/feast. Green-bean casserole, butter beans, chicken, pie, corn on the cob — an extravagance of options fill the table.
As the refrain goes, “We sure eat good when someone dies.” Mourning the deceased, the lyrics point out, includes the reality that her chocolate cake would be missing the next time the faithful gathered for such a meal.
Jesus was well known for his table manners; eating with notorious sinners, allowing persistent women to interrupt meals and inviting himself home with unlikely hosts scandalized many observers. Some of his best teaching occurred at these impromptu dinners, however, and the Gospels are full of ironic narratives.
Even after the resurrection, when we might imagine he was more concerned with heavenly things than food, we hear him asking: “Do you have anything to eat?” One colleague said Jesus reminded him of his teenage children, always in quest of food!
The encounter at Emmaus underscores the importance of shared meals as the unknowing disciples recognize him in the “breaking of the bread.” How often had they been at meals with Jesus where he took, blessed, broke and gave bread? It must have been a familiar practice for them, and the act kindled their awareness that he truly had risen.
Something about eating together, what theologians call commensality, opens us to one another. Sharing the table with others brings a flattening of hierarchy and privilege, displays our common humanity and acknowledges our embodied selves.
We do not live by bread alone, but bread surely helps us live. Yet, equally nourishing is the community that is formed around the shared table where passing the food is not too distant a cousin of passing the bread and cup at the table upstairs.
The best stories emerge as the meal unfolds. We remember other meals and those who have fed us with their presence. We tell our lives, and those with whom we eat help us understand them better.
At a funeral meal, we gather up all the fragments we can remember of the life of the one who precedes us in death. Somehow our memories make more whole our thankfulness for a life lived in our midst.
The Body of Christ is nourished when we accompany them with food.