One of my favorite bloggers, Michael Metzger nailed it recently in his post about the modern concept of the weekend. As is typical for Michael, his philosophy and historical research are deep and calls the reader to a stunning insight…in the 20th century, we made a transition from a society centered around the communal call to the Lord’s Table to a society centered around the false luxury of the weekend.
Michael writes about the now lost call to gather this way:
The Early Church met daily to share communion. For 2,000 years, various faith traditions, all predating modernity (Eastern Orthodox, Middle Eastern, Catholic) have held that The Lord’s Table is the moment in time that best prepares the church for the future wedding banquet. Taking communion develops an appetite for the banquet feast.
For modern Christians, this unfamiliar. They figure if they read the Bible, join a fellowship group and hit church every so often, they are maturing. To some degree they are, but Jesus seems to suggest it’s not enough. In Matthew 22, he tells a chilling story of a person who is unprepared for the banquet. “Friend, how dare you come in here looking like that!” The man is speechless. He’s tied up and thrown out.
How we got there is the similar and sad historical view of our country in the 20th century, perhaps best described as a journey into gluttony…a gluttony for ease, for possessions, for stimulus and yes, a gluttony for food. Once, we were a people centered in the easy flow of the community, both on a daily basis and an annual basis. The people gathered regularly at familiar places in the day, enjoying the relaxing flow of the hours, certainly also filled with the hard work in the fields or in the early factories. At the same time, the year had a flow that societies celebrated in a myriad of ways, yet regular and satisfying to the people of the area.
In the centuries of the first millennium, this idea of annual gathering was sometimes called Ember Days. The word “ember” refers not to coals or fire, but is a corruption of the Latin quattor tempora (four seasons) or the Old English ymbren (periodic or recurring). Thus, as the four seasons made their regular journey through the year, the people recognized the easy celebration of life. Some societies created two and three day celebrations over those time, allowing for a specific time to reset and replenish the soul in response to the dawning of a new season.
In the 20th century, however, this flow of life, both daily and annual, began a churn from which we have not yet emerged. Metzger notes that this idea of “the weekend” emerges in this time due to two other developments in the early 20th century: travel and organized sports. He writes:
Travel, from the English travail meaning a journey fraught with danger, was not an industry prior to the 1920s. It was dangerous. Robbers roamed the crude roadways. With the advent of the automobile and decent roads, travel became an institution.The same is true of organized sports. People always played, but sports became an institution in the 1920s. Michigan Stadium was built in 1927 with 72,000 seats and a plan to expand to 150,000. Today, the weekend is wall-to-wall sports.
With the confluence of these three came a culture called modernity. Cultures are the air we breathe. We get used to them. We don’t smell any odors. T.S. Eliot did, however. Eliot warned against modernity, particularly in the Four Quartets (1945). A daily participant in Anglican communion, he saw how the Lord’s table prepares us for the wedding banquet. We give him our “firstfruits” by participating in the Lord’s Table on Sunday morning and throughout the week. Over time, we begin to master “take and eat,” but it takes a long time. The 10,000 Hour Rule would say 10,000 communions. If true, modernity makes 10,000 hours of “take and eat” almost impossible.
As we head towards Thanksgiving, it is easy to see in how our culture has drifted from thankful worship around the Table. What was once a three-month season of reflection around three core ideas—life/death, thanks, salvation–has become a twisted 12 week frenzy of commercialism. By most industry accounts, Americans will spend billions on Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas…billions that most will freely admit that they don’t have. The gluttony of candy and costumes, turkey and football, and trees and gifts will somehow not satiate.
In the meanwhile, the call to the Table of the Lord, the only meal that satisfies, the only gift that fulfills, the only life that sustains eternal, goes largely unheeded. Just as He has for years, the Lord stands and beckons, but not for you to come and gorge nor race in pursuit of things that few recipients actually need. No, He calls you to come and rest. To come and sit and simply breath. To sit and be.
This week, rather than embracing the frenetic pace of social media, TV and shopping, rather than the gorging of food, take time for Thankful Worship. Come to the Master’s Table for rest.