Dinner with Jesus

I was having a facebook conversation today with my good friend Jon about a series of sermon's I'm preparing. Here's the text of our conversation together.

R- I'm into summer mode here at work- working on a series of sermons right now- what do you think of this? I'm calling them "dinner with Jesus" and looking at the places where Jesus hung out with people for a meal. It's very interesting.

J- That sounds like a BRILLIANT idea. Food is VERY close to God as a word. They both end with 'OD' in case you hadn't spotted that.I wonder what the alternative would be today? In those day that's how you socialise, eating together, and to some extent we still do. Controversially, I reckon Jesus would be more likely, over here, to have afew beers with people down the pub......

R- I think you're right, especially when most of these meals are actually about crossing social and religious boundaries.

J- Totally. These days even just sittin next to someone can do all sorts of wonders. Gosh, it's easy to forget the impact Jesus has, isn't it, by just simple little things.Who we chose to spend our 'company' with, i would argue, is just as important outreach tool as knowing all the beatitudes!

R- I've been researching the story of Matthew/Levi's call and the way that Jesus is able to cut to the heart of matters by identifying his mission to those who know they are sick, not the self-satisfied ones who think they have it all together. It's a good reminder to me of where I've come.

There are also some really cool parts to this story. Like the fact that Levi left it all to follow Jesus. Or that he was probably the brother of another of Jesus' disciples, James son of Alphaeus so he most likely had heard of Jesus before this.