Brennan Manning on Table Fellowship

From The Ragamuffin Gospel

"In the Near East, to share a meal with someone is a guarantee of peace, trust, fraternity, and forgiveness: the shared table symbolizes a shared life. For an orthodox Jew to say, 'I would like to have dinner with you,' is a metaphor implying 'I would like to enter into friendship with you.' Even today an American Jew will share a donut and a cup of coffee with you, but to extend a dinner invitation is to say: 'Come to my mikdash me-at, the miniature sanctuary of my dining room table where we will celebrate the most sacred and beautiful experience that life affords- friendship.' That is what Zacchaeus heard when Jesus called him down from the sycamore tree, and that is why Jesus' practice of table fellowship caused hostile comment from the outset of His ministry." Luke 19

"By accepting them as friends and equals Jesus had taken away their shame, humiliation, and guilt. By showing them that they mattered to him as people he gave them a sense of dignity and released them from their old captivity."

"Through table fellowship Jesus ritually acted out His insight into Abba's indiscriminate love- a love that causes His sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and His rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike (Matthew 5:45)"

Matthew 5:45- "that you may be children of your Father in Heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous."

"For 'experiencing God's love in Jesus Christ means experiencing that one has been unreservedly accepted, approved and infinitely loved, that one can and should accept oneself and one's neighbor. Salvation is joy in God which expresses itself in joy in a dn with one's neighbor."' Quote from Robert Kasper