FROM THE PULPIT: Meals may make family out of strangers

My husband grew up as the son of a firefighter. Some of his fondest childhood memories took place at the fire station.

On the evenings that his dad was on duty, Jody's mom took the kids to eat at the firehouse with their father, often joining the families of other firefighters around the table over a plate of spaghetti or a bowl of chili. Subsequently, several of his father's co-workers became like uncles to him, since they spent so much time together.

Recently, a friend shared an article that told of a study that puts some science behind the anecdotal evidence my husband shares about these firehouse meals. Researchers from Cornell University conducted interviews and surveys of more than 50 firehouses, asking firefighters about their platoon performance and their group eating habits.

They found that the platoons that ate together most often had better job performance compared with those who dined solo. Eating together made a difference in how they worked together and solved problems together, providing a kind of "social glue" among the group.

The authors of this article wondered about the implications of this "eating together" philosophy upon other workplace settings, even advocating for company cafeterias and coffee bars that encourage camaraderie among co-workers.

I thought of our church's Wednesday night suppers: How does that shared meal impact how we relate to each other in the Bible study discussion or the congregational business meeting that follows?

Research of families shows how eating together as a family five or more times a week is strongly linked to lower incidences of teenage drug and alcohol use and to good qualities such as emotional stability, lower levels of family stress, and better relationships between parents and their children or teens.

Something important happens when we sit at the table together, when we pass the bread basket between us, when we find ourselves sharing our lives together as we tell our stories.

In these moments, this very simple, primal act has the potential to become holy.

Perhaps this is why Jesus spent his last hours on earth with his followers around a table. At his last supper, he took the very basic elements of bread and wine and shared them with his disciples, charging them to remember him when they gathered at table.

It is an act that the Christian tradition still carries on more than two millennia later. It is a "social glue" that forms our identity as a church and that holds us together in spite of other things that divide us.

Imagine what might happen if we as a society sat around the dinner table together more often. How would our workplace drama change if we sat down for lunch together once a week and really heard what was going on in the lives of our co-workers? What if we invited the neighbors we haven't officially met over for supper one night?

How might it make a difference if we even sought the opportunity to sit down for a meal with someone who was different from us -- a different race, religious tradition or culture -- so that we might get to know them a little better?

I wonder if we just might understand each other more. Perhaps we might even imagine ways to solve some problems together.

My husband still talks about those firehouse meals, some 30 years later, but I don't imagine it is because of the taste of the food. It's because of the family that was made there.

What a gift it was to him to make family out of strangers because they shared a place at the table together. May each of us know that gift as well.

The Rev. Julie Long is associate pastor and minister of children and families at First Baptist Church of Christ in Macon.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 9:23 PM with the headline "FROM THE PULPIT: Meals may make family out of strangers ."