Orientation

In the 1st century, eating a meal was about more than simply swallowing food in order to meet the physical needs of your body. Eating was also a social act that conveyed important messages about your relationships and your position in society. One way to begin uncovering these larger social statements is to ask a series of simple questions while reading the stories of Jesus' meals.

• Who eats together at the same table in the same house?

• In what order do people sit around the table?

• What kind of food is served?

• How was the food prepared, and by whom?

• What topics of conversation are appropriate and inappropriate?

• What social conventions are being broken? Which are being re-enforced?

In 2:14-17, Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners in the home of Levi, himself a tax collector. Because tax collectors were free to charge whatever they could get away with, other people often perceived tax collectors to be rapacious and dishonest. Because tax collectors had frequent contact with Gentiles, "good" Jews considered Jewish tax collectors like Levi to be ritually impure. (For more on purity and impurity, see the session on "Jesus and Purity.") Respectable Jews such as the Pharisees would have generally avoided eating with tax collectors. But by associating with outcasts such as tax collectors and sinners, Jesus acts out the mercy that God offers to all people.

Jesus' table fellowship was a crucial, if subversive, component in his larger strategy to form a new, more egalitarian community that invites people of any social status. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the early church maintained much of the social diversity that Jesus inaugurated during his public ministry.

* You may access this scripture reading at any time by clicking on the "Scripture" tab above.