Dinner Parties

Strange Religion by Nijay K. Gupta, is an excellent book, well documented and insightful. It gives you a glimpse of how unique and strange our Christian faith was (and is), as it influenced Roman and Jewish culture. Although not specifically about house church, I would highly recommend this work. I’ll post two excerpts; this is the first one concerning eating together.

A common tradition in Roman society was holding dinner parties, based on the Greek symposium, which brought together not only family but also neighbors and various friends and associates. While this event involved food and drink, it would be a mistake to consider eating to be the focus. Rather, it was a social event that reflected the host’s social values and reminded those present (and absent) where they sat on the spectrum of importance. Warren Carter explains that these meals “underlined social stratification. Guests were seated according to different quantities and qualities of food in different quality tableware.” The ancient philosopher Plutarch explains that the goal of investing in one of these often lavish dinner parties is not just to eat and drink but to be seen eating and drinking with certain people.

In the house’s triclinium (dining room), the most privileged guests would recline closest to the food. Less important guests would be seated further away, and women and children, if present, would be positioned even further from the food. Plutarch describes these house-party banquets as “a spectacle and a show,” with more important guests being given closer viewing of the entertainment (like singers, musicians, and dancers), proximity to the delicious smells, and service that would ensure the food was still warm. Sometimes the privileges were so formalized that certain special seats were permanently reserved for guests of honor. While this tiered experience was most overt and noticeable among the elite,” it was also the norm among commoners. This reflects the essence of Romanness, a constant reinforcement of social values in Roman culture: social life was set up as a pyramid of power. There were a precious few “haves” and a lot of “have-nots,” and there was no use in pretending that everyone was equal.

Jesus did things quite differently and paved the way for a new social ethos, which could and had to be demonstrated at the dinner table. In fact, it was a common criticism of Jesus by his contemporaries that he openly shared the social table with “tax collectors and sinners” (Matt. 9:11; Mark 2:16; see also Luke 15:2). Luke tells the story of Jesus offending a Pharisee who hosts him for dinner. A stranger, a woman, makes her way into the house and washes Jesus’s feet with her tears and covers them in expensive ointment. With even a basic understanding of Roman dinner etiquette, it is clear that this woman breaks major social boundaries. Not only does Jesus ignore this infringement, but he commends her for her love and care for him. And then Jesus turns the tables on Simon, his host: “I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment” (Luke 7:44-47). When I heard this story as a teenager, I just assumed that Simon, in his excitement about having Jesus over, forgot these hospitality gestures. But the more I learn about how these dinners sent signals of status and importance, I can’t help but think Simon was purposefully putting Jesus in his place as an inferior. Jesus cuts through the social games and says in effect, “This woman wants to be a caring host, but you (Simon) want to be an important host.”

The point Jesus is making to Simon the Pharisee is reinforced in Jesus’s parable of the dinner party. A certain man, Jesus teaches, plans a big party and invites his friends and associates. A slave goes out with personal invitations. One by one, each guest makes some excuse for why they can’t be there. Let’s say he invites eight couples, and each one thinks they are too good for this man; they want to remind him he is not that important to them. So, what does he do? He tells his slave to forget the invitations and go out to the streets and bring in the poor, the blind, and the lame-the people at the very bottom of society. And rather than host just a dozen of his supposed friends, he tells his slave to fill up his whole house with anyone and everyone who wants to taste his fine cuisine (Luke 14:15-24).

It’s hard for us to appreciate just how unusual a decision this would be. In order to “translate” Jesus’s parable into Western society, we might think of it as a fancy fundraiser dinner event. You make lots of preparations, decorate the house, make elaborate and expensive invitations, and then you invite all your friends and associates. And imagine that every single one of them sends you the signal that they are too busy and important to come to your little gathering. So what do you do then? You take all those fancy cupcakes and the chocolate-fondue fountain and the cedar-plank salmon and the champagne, and you go out into the streets and hand these delicacies to any stranger nearby, including a child riding a tricycle, some homeless people, and an immigrant street vendor. What an odd thing to do, right?

Jesus’s parable is a response to his anger at how guests at a dinner he is attending fought over the seats of honor (Luke 14:7). He turns this occasion into a teaching moment, saying in essence, “Don’t push and shove your way into the spotlight, but choose the lowest place, because God’s kingdom works differently than mortal kingdoms, ‘For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted’” (14:10-11).

But old habits die hard, and we find in some Christian churches of the first century that Jesus’s message was difficult to swallow. We find a clear case in the Corinthian church. Paul chastises them for turning the sacred Lord’s Supper meal into a competitive dinner party: “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” (1 Cor. 11:20-22).

Paul warns them that they must learn how to discern “the body,” the church as a living organism that must live in unity rather than rivalry (1 Cor. 11:29). “So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation” (11:33-34). It is no coincidence that he calls them “brothers and sisters” here. Paul is reinforcing the family identity of this community. Family shares. Family participates for the sake of the whole.

The Corinthian church is evidence that not all churches lived out Jesus’s vision of status indifference. Not all churches let their new family identity take root. But the ideal was that those who willingly entered this community would join a special household of God. This would be unlike any other kind of household they knew. No one was of more importance or lesser importance in this family. Because of the invitation of Jesus the Son, each participant was simply “brother” or “sister.” That cast a bold vision that would have been powerfully compelling, especially to “the least of these” (Matt. 25:40).

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