THE SACRED FELLOWSHIP MEAL

The Table
Written By Daniel Lancaster

When the Center of the Church was a Dinner Table

Jesus never went to church. Neither did His disciples. Jesus and the early Jewish believers worshipped in synagogues where they joined the prayer services, heard the scriptures read aloud, and participated in the synagogue discourses in keeping with the custom of the Jewish people.[1] When in Jerusalem, they gathered daily in the temple courts at the times of prayer and sacrifice[2] and participated in the worship of the God of Israel along with the rest of the people of Israel.[3] They did not build churches, they did not raise steeples, they did not start a new religion. 

So what did “the church” look like, in practical terms? What set apart the Jewish disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem to distinguish them from the rest of the Jewish people?  “The Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved”.[4] What made “their number” distinct enough from the rest of the people that they might be recognized as a social unit that could be joined? It wasn’t the venue. They assembled in the Temple. It wasn’t their unique spirit-filled worship services; the worship services were liturgical functions led by the Levitical class. The thing that set the earliest church apart from the rest of the Jewish people was their table. They hosted meals for an exclusive table fellowship.

The book of Acts explains that the early Jewish believers distinguished themselves by “continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer”.[5] This description implies an exclusive table fellowship. If you wanted to share the table with them, you needed to become a member of their club.

In the context of late Second Temple Judaism, the word “fellowship” (koinonia, κοινωνία) translates the Hebrew term chavurah (חֲבוּרָה), a term sometimes used to refer to a table fellowship participating in a sacred meal.

Fellowship = kononia = chavurah = exclusive table fellowship
participating in a sacred meal.

The word chavurah is from a verbal root (חבר) meaning “to join” or “to befriend.” In Second Temple Judaism, it’s also the term used to describe the members of a table fellowship participating in a Passover sacrifice or other sacred foods obtained from the altar such as the peace offerings and thanksgiving offerings. That’s what people went to the Temple to do. Those eating the meat of the sacrificed animal and the bread offerings that accompanied it shared in the spiritual benefits of the sacrifice. They ate from “the food of your God” at the “table of the LORD,” sharing a meal with the Almighty, so to speak.[6] “Look at the nation Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers (koinonos, κοινωνός) in the altar?”[7]

Sacred meals organized as exclusive table fellowships. No one in a state of ritual impurity could participate in such a meal until undergoing a ritual purification.[8] Moreover, participants in a Passover lamb needed to pre-register for the chavurah prior to the sacrifice of the lamb so that the sacrifice could be carried out on their behalf.[9] The same rule may have applied to other peace offerings.

The term chavurah was also in use among the Pharisees to describe their unique table fellowships. The Pharisees were called Pharisees because they elevated common meals to the level of sanctity ordinarily reserved for the sacred foods of the Temple meals. To participate in such an exclusive society, a person needed to agree to eat all meals in a state of ritual purity as if eating from the sacred portions of the holy altar in the Temple. The food served needed to meet similarly high standards: prepared in a state of complete ritual purity and from produce scrupulously tithed.[10] The Pharisees applied this high standard even to their common foods, and that’s why they required a handwashing before eating bread.[11] If you wanted to eat with the Pharisees, you needed to be a fellow chaver, i.e. a member of the chavurah.

The sect of the Essenes also made the sacred meal the center of their community. They conducted an exclusive table fellowship in a state of heightened ritual purity. Since Essenes were a protest movement against the priesthood in Jerusalem, they did not have access to the Temple. Their sacred meals became substitutes for the sacrificial meals served from the altar in the Temple. Only fellow Essenes could eat from the table.

When Jesus and the twelve gathered in the upper room for the Passover Seder, they formed a sacred fellowship (chavurah) with participation in a common Passover sacrifice. Jesus instructed them to henceforth conduct such meals in remembrance of his impending suffering and martyrdom and to, moreover, invoke that memory to petition God for the coming kingdom when they could eat and drink again in His father’s kingdom.[12]

This explains what set the early Jewish believers apart as a recognizable sect that could be joined. While engaging in sacred meals according to the custom of the Temple, they formed an exclusive table fellowship around participation in the Master. They probably utilized the Temple’s dining halls as well as private homes in Jerusalem. While “breaking bread” with the “fellowship” around the sacred table, one could hear “the apostles teaching” and participate in “the prayers”.[13] The meals took place “day by day … in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart”.[14]

Anyone who wanted to join them at the table needed to first join the chavurah by declaring allegiance in Jesus the Messiah. Non-believers could not participate at the table because it was viewed as a participation in the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus: “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing (koinonia) in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing (koinonia) in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread”.[15]

The meals were not sacramental. That’s a theological development of the later church. Nor was the menu limited to bread and wine. Instead, the early believers served full festive meals with songs and hymns and psalms and prayers and teachings. Without doubt, the meals incorporated sacred foods and portions from the temple. The early believers invested the meals with symbolism about the death, resurrection, and coming of the Messiah as instructed to do so in remembrance of him. Their fellowship meals anticipated the future kingdom when they would sit at the table of Abraham and eat bread in the kingdom of heaven with the Messiah.

They didn’t build churches. They didn’t raise steeples. They set the table. Whether in the public Temple dining halls or in private Jerusalem homes, the earliest believers came together around the table. As a result, “the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved”.[16]

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. If the “church” is a body, how can we practice being this body outside of the physical building?
2. Do you think it is a coincidence that Jesus so often meets people in intimate settings, like a shared meal around a table, rather than from a pulpit?
3. Why do you think that the earliest believers act of gathering around the table, fellowshipping and sharing the scriptures, led to the Lord adding to their numbers every day? How can you use their example in your every day life?

 

 
Daniel Lancaster
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PAUL’S ANGUISH & THE HEART OF GOD • PART 1