Summary: I wonder how many of you sat down to a meal this week--had dinner with a close friend or a family member. Like a real dinner--not in front of the television. I wonder how many of you had three meals or more this week with a close friend or a family member where a smart phone was not present at the table. I ask, because having dinner as a family used to be a common occurrence, and that has changed in our fast paced, grab and go culture. There are some of you today who will remember growing up and having dinner as a family every night of the week. You may remember that dinner could not be served until everyone was at the table--and the phone hung on a wall, and if it rang during dinner--you ignored it--you did not answer it. Things have changed now; it's so uncommon to sit down to a meal as a family that researchers have done studies on the benefits of the practice--trying to beckon us back to a common table to share our lives every day! It's hard to find the time to sit down as a family with our busy schedules, meetings, soccer practices, guitar lessons, tutoring sessions, to name just a few. So what do these words from Jesus say to us in a culture when finding time around table seems fleeting--almost foreign? Author and pastor Tony Campolo tells a story of an experience at dinner in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, some years ago. "He was checking on mission programs that his organization carries out day in and day out in Haiti. He wanted to see how the workers were surviving emotionally and spiritually. At the end of a long day, he was tired and "peopled out," so it was with great relief that he sat down to eat a good dinner at a French restaurant in the heart of Port-au-Prince. He was seated next to the window so he could enjoy watching the activity on the street outside.
