Food and belonging

A couple of times over the last week or so different people have made comments to me about how eating together helps to grow community. Even just thinking about it, it seems bizarre that the simple act of sitting down and eating can do so much to bring people together. In The Search to Belong, Joe Myers talks alot about creating healthy environments in which people can begin to belong - and maybe this is where we can learn from the model of eating together.

(I don't normally like numbers and points and things but it's probably the best way to make this nearly readable)

1. Resources are shared or created by or for the community
In order to eat, someone has to bring and share, or the community has to collectively make food to eat. There's a sense of investment in the group, and of ownership - this is our group, we belong together.

2. You can choose when to commit to sharing yourself with others
The outside focus on eating means that you can feel comfortable either to chat or to sit in silence - people can participate at the level where they are at. You can choose to just sit and listen if that's what you are comfortable with.

3. The environment is reasonably non-threatening
There is no initiation you need to go through, no needing to know when to stand up and when to sit down, no strange rituals to remember.

4. The community is most efficient when we serve each other
In order to be most efficient we need to serve each, sharing out food, clearing up. We learn quickly that interdependance enables us to be stronger together.

I'm sure there's more you can draw out of this. I wonder whether Jesus was thinking about the role of eating together when he commanded his disciples to share a meal in rememberance of him, or if it was on the minds of the apostles when they began to be church by sharing food in the temple courts?