I’ll Make the Reservation

What is it, exactly, about sharing a meal with a friend, or someone new you want to get to know, that seems to foster a sense of closeness, and emotional intimacy?

There is the physical proximity of course. You may have to speak low or lean in to be heard, but the simple act of sitting down opposite someone and eating with them I have found, lowers the protective walls we all build around our hearts.  We know we are expected to engage and listen.  Trust is implied, as is vulnerability.

Our most delicate conversations are often around a table.  Maybe that’s why Jesus always fed His disciples physical food, before He approached spiritual matters.

He built trust, and intimacy, and His listeners could be authentic with Him.

But not everyone Jesus met actually wanted that intimacy.  

In this week’s passages, Matthew 11:18-19, we are told, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say ‘He has a demon’.  The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners”. 

There is no pleasing the Pharisees.

Dinner with Jesus was more popular with the outcasts than with the religious folk.  The Pharisees just didn’t want to eat with Jesus.

A recent meal I had with a new believer brought me back to long ago memories, when I was still a seeker.  I knew my friend was struggling with any Bible reading plan, so I relayed to her my own story of that. 

It’s not a story I tell often, but I knew she needed to hear it.  We were “at the table”, and vulnerable, so I told her.

Turn in your Bibles to page 85.

As a new Bible believer, many years ago, I wanted to know Christ.  I wanted to absorb everything I could learn.   I was filled with the joy of the Lord, but the knowledge of the Lord?  Not so much. I desperately needed spiritual food, and I knew it. 

I didn’t grow up reading the Bible. I did have a children’s Bible, filled with sweet stories, but I couldn’t have put together any cohesion or meaning to the overall Biblical story.  I didn’t even know that there actually was one.

So, when I began attending a Bible believing church, I was stumped when the pastor would say something like “open your Bibles to First Thessalonians”.  

What was that? More urgently, where was that?  The pastor had already begun his message!

Talk about new believer anxiety.  Believe me, you don’t want to be the one frantically turning pages, as you look for something you’ve never even heard of before.

Now, before you say, “why didn’t you use a Bible with tabs”, the answer is because I didn’t know they existed.  How would I have known that? 

Please.  I barely knew that the plan of salvation existed.

It seemed to me, because I also didn’t know various translations existed, that it would be a whole lot easier for the pastor to just say “turn in your Bibles to page 85”.  

So, I knew the longing of wanting to have a “meal with Jesus”, which is so exciting, but I also knew, shall we say, “church anxiety”, because sooner or later, we were going to have to actually open the Bible, and I would be randomly flipping pages.  I just hoped I wouldn’t be sitting next to a Pharisee.

In that season of my life, by God’s plan, I met more spiritually hungry people, just like me, than Pharisees. Over time, kind believers began teaching me. In God’s providence, I now actually teach Bible studies, which is such a God thing. He has given me a passion for Him, His Word, teaching it, and sharing His love.

I want to encourage you to study the Word daily, which is the best way to be fed spiritually.  Get a translation you can understand, and one that has tabs!  Don’t begin on page 85, but even if you do, know that God is with you. 

Find the believers who are hungry, just like you.  Invite them to the dinner table.  Make the reservation.

~ Originally from New York, Gerry Lutzel has been a NC resident since 2017 and currently teaches in the women’s Bible study. She also serves at Guest Services on Sunday mornings.