Truth be told, I didn’t think much about Holy Communion (or, ‘Lord’s Supper’) for the first few decades of my Christian life. After all, this activity is just symbolic, right? I mean, who ponders street signs when driving? It’s the destination that keeps my attention! When I became Anglican all that changed (about Holy Communion, that is; street sign significance remained unchanged). I had to reckon with the meaning, learn to appreciate what is in and behind those elements on the Table, and discover their significance in receiving them. When teaching Anglican Confirmation classes, I took the time to explore some of the theology around the Table, which only served to enhance and enlarge my thinking (see Session 2 here for some content that I drafted).
When I saw an offer to read a pre-publication copy of Hannah Miller King‘s first book Feasting on Hope: How God Sets a Table in the Wilderness, I jumped at the opportunity. It helped me realize there is so much more to be observed and experienced in this act of worship. Drawing from the Table’s depths and mysteries, she offers a profoundly personal look at this very public activity known as the Eucharist. King filters her past experiences of pain and loss through the lens of Holy Communion, inviting readers to take an honest look at themselves and find hope in the ‘body’ and the ‘blood’. Her insights are not just refreshing; they’re renewing as she connects our humanity with the treasures of God’s gift to us in Christ crucified and risen. Coming to the Table will not be the same for me.
Whether a long-time participant in this act of worship, or a novice beginner looking for meaning and significance, I heartily recommend Feasting on Hope to everyone. What follows are some gleanings from select chapters that I found to be not only instructive but immensely helpful.
Chapter 1 asserts that hope is not devoid of real-life circumstances, which can often blow up our scripted lives. Instead, King invites us to enlarge our framework of hope by including a “theology of suffering” (p 12). She introduces the personal tragedy of losing her father to cancer, and she comes back to this crisis in every chapter, showing how it shaped her view of the Table. As we wrestle with God’s sovereignty over pain and suffering, it is at the Table where this larger framework of hope is constructed.
She insists that “even when God can’t be understood, he can be trusted” (p 11). As we feast at the Table, we are reminded that “in our great vulnerability, we hold in our hands a small, tangible reminder of the One who is in fact holding us until he comes” (p 18).
When tragedy strikes, we naturally hold on to the belief that God can heal. Yet, we also know that he often does not or will not heal. These two cognitions serve only to increase and intensify our grief and despair. Approaching the Table with open hands forces us to embrace our vulnerability and the mystery of faith as we offer ourselves to the One who offered himself.
My persistent belief that God can and will heal creation has amplified my grief over the things he hasn’t healed — my father, my family, my own lingering trauma-related dysfunction. But grief is not the enemy of joy. And in God’s economy, sometimes our gains and losses function in reverse order. When we learn to hold our desires with open hands and offer them back to God with raw trust, he can make them — and us — into something more than we could previously imagine. He can bring renewal out of defeat, life out of death. This is, in fact, the mystery of our faith. We preach resurrection. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. (p 18)
Rather than lean into one belief or the other (either God can heal or God won’t heal our mess), the Table teaches us to live into both with trust. Why? Because “in Christ, even the cup of suffering can become the cup of joy. Jesus rejected the false paradigm of either/or; he now invites us to share in his ministry of both/and. He calls us to lives of hopeful surrender that can become, in God’s hand, food for others.” (p 19) I could not help but recall that our faith matures when our eyes remain fixed on Jesus, who “endured the cross” while leaning into “the joy set before him” (Heb 12:2). Both/and.
Chapter 2 makes some astute observations about the imago Dei (the image of God within us) and its importance in shaping and forming our identity.
Reflecting on her experience of motherhood and the connection that is shared with her newborn, King writes,
We discover ourselves in and through the gaze of the other. This is not limited to childhood development. When my son was born, his gaze was as formative for me as mine was for him. Through relationship with him, I accessed more of myself. I became what he saw in me.
This becoming-through-relationship is part of what it means to be created in God’s image. We do not exist as autonomous individuals but as persons in relationship with other persons … We are made for — and even made by — connection with the other. (p 21)
She rightly points out that our connection with God is not “transactional.” The gospel story is sometimes reduced to a notion like, “Give Jesus your heart and he will give you a ticket to heaven” (p 23). But this will not do.
We often embrace these formulas in good faith, from a desire to honor God and to make sense of the world. But insofar as these maxims shape our motivations, they cheapen our obedience by tying it to desired outcomes. They teach us to treat God like a divine vending machine, inserting whatever religious currency is required to buy the blessings we seek. Unwittingly, we often reduce the Christian life to a series of spiritual negotiations. (p 23)
Instead, like a mother bonding with her newborn, we connect with God as a person, who in turn gives us our true identity as persons and, most importantly, as his child. Our heavenly Parent’s gaze into our souls ignites and animates the imago Dei within creating that bond of trust.
Personal intimacy with God is established by this connection, which results in our leaning on God in prayer for our deepest desires to be realized. Even when our desires are not granted, we learn that it is God, and not that which we desire, who is most worthy to pursue. Any loss we experience is a means to that end. Recalling the stalwart faith of her father, King writes:
As I’d watched my dad’s health decline over the last four years of his life, I watched his faith grow. His pursuit of God, initially catalyzed by crisis, eventually became an end in itself.
Even though God wasn’t answering his prayers in the way he wanted, my dad came to value prayer for other reasons. Somehow, even as his hope for healing waned, his hope in God deepened. After he’d been sick for a while, he wrote this prayer in his journal: ‘Lord, I seek intimacy with you over healing — over anything in this life. Please teach me…. Lord, I seek you because you are worthy of my seeking. I do not seek you because of what you can do for me.’ (p 25, emphasis original)
Thus, just as the gift of new life in Christ is not transactional, so too with prayer. It is a means of growing in intimacy with God, not for getting from God the thing we ask. Faith is not only “catalyzed by crisis,” it is manifest because of it. That is God’s way for uniting us with him. “Ultimately, our faith is not ordered toward the transaction of goods but toward the communion of persons” (p 26).
King wisely notes, however, that there is risk in intimacy. After all, intimacy requires transparency.
To seek God’s gaze toward us, to crave connection and encounter with him, exposes our great vulnerability. It puts us in league with my newborn son, helpless but desperate for another’s attention and attunement. In my desire to be seen and embraced by God, I feel safer trying to earn his affection through personal achievements or righteous living. I don’t want to risk rejection. (p 29)
Again, the Table is our teacher. Participating in the ‘body’ and the ‘blood’ reminds us that the risk is worth taking. It is by Holy Communion that our communion with God is felt and experienced.
At the Table I learned that in our vulnerability, God does not withhold himself or turn away. Instead, shockingly, he makes himself vulnerable in return. He says, ‘This is my body, given for you.’ His willingness to be wounded for our sake is what led him to live in a body in the first place. He became touchable, knowing that we would reject and kill him. And still, this crucified One offers himself. The giver has become the gift. (p 30)
Today’s culture makes a great deal of our bodies. On the one hand, media marketing insists we can become more beautiful or less heavy if we just purchase this or that product. On the other, we’re shamed into thinking (by peers and media marketing!) that we’re not good enough, tall enough, short enough, thin enough, friendly enough, et al. Chapter 3 challenges all this by elevating our material presence in this world. The Table, once again, is our tutor.
I began to understand that Jesus did not shed his blood merely to purify my ideas or to rescue my soul. He gave all of himself for all of me. It’s not “just my body” if Jesus died for it. My body is me, and I am precious to him. I am the place he longs to dwell. This means that the real me, the person Jesus came to save, is not somehow separate from the face I see in the mirror. (p 42)
The bread of the Table means that Jesus joins us in the material, tangible, touchable world. “When we break the bread, we remember that Jesus’ death was not only the purchase of our redemption. It was also a profound act of solidarity with us in our suffering. Our priest and mediator is also our companion in the pain” (p 44).
Not only does this impact my view of my body, but also “the way I engage the stories of other bodies.”
Instead of turning away from the physical suffering of others, Jesus’ own example compels us to stand with them in solidarity. His passion is the foundation for our compassion, our commitment to ‘suffer with’ those who experience bodily harm.”
We don’t need to fear the darkness of lament — our own, or anyone else’s — because Jesus sits beside us in it. He understands, not abstractly but concretely, all the complexity and pain of embodiment. He is God with us.” (p 45)
Grief involves loss, inhibits the experience of hope, and often becomes a ruthless debtor. Sometimes it can feel like a jealous lover, making us feel shame when we laugh or find joy in the smallest things. In grief sadness becomes the new norm. Chapter 4 confronts this reality head on.
Grief can have an expansive effect on our lives. Through loss, we learn to live more courageously because we know there are no guarantees. We’ve counted the cost of love, and we choose to pay it anyway. But at its worst, grief can crystalize around our hearts and prevent us from feeling the thrill of love at all. Suffering can make us strong, but it can also deaden us to joy. This is a double-edged sword: developing grit is a grace, but not if it comes at the expense of hope.
In my life, this has been subtle. Most days I am grateful for the anvil of adversity — God has used it to shape me into something sturdy. But sometimes I become aware of my covert expectation that adversity is all there is. Having experienced hard seasons, I sometimes struggle to believe that there is also good in store for me.
Tragedy is more plausible than happiness. I no longer cling to sadness consciously, but I often expect it by default. (p 48)
Since grief is a “double-edged sword,” it cuts in two ways. Let the reader understand.
The deep irony in this for me was that while I was busy doubting God and trying to solve life for myself, God was busy providing countless opportunities, connections, scholarships — and yes, also loans and jobs — that in retrospect I had to acknowledge as gifts of grace. Even the nonreligious recognize there is more at work in the world than our efforts … My faith deepened when I learned to see God not only as the source of unanswered prayers in my life, but also as the source of my life’s many gifts. In his sovereignty, God allows us to experience hardship. But in his generosity, he also gives measureless blessings. What we might want to attribute to good luck or hard work remains covered in God’s fingerprints. (p 50)
When the sword of adversity slices in the direction of heaven, we are empowered to “live prophetically” as we look back to our past and see the goodness of God. This vista swings the doors of hope wide open!
When I examine my life through this lens, I realize that his goodness shines brighter, and is more pervasive, than any tragedy. Its ubiquity is the very reason we don’t tend to see it: Every breath, every birdcall, every blade of grass is a gift. God’s kindness is the connective tissue of reality. It holds all things together, buoying each no of our lives in the overarching yes of love. This does not diminish the realities of suffering and loss, but it embeds them in a larger portrait of grace. And it teaches us to live prophetically, clinging to joy even when it is temporarily obscured by grief. (p 50, emphasis original)
Children, in fact, teach us this much, says King.
As I study the shameless joy of children, I sometimes envy them. I assume that stoicism is an inevitable aspect of maturity; that what I must have known intuitively as a kid is lost forever, and rightly so. We grow up and realize that the world is not a playground. People aren’t always nice, and the good guys don’t always win. Relationships can be irreparably broken. Poverty and racism persist. With adult eyes we think we see the unvarnished truth.
But there’s a reason Jesus told his disciples that if they want to enter the Kingdom, they need to become like children. Because God’s new world operates differently than ours does. It requires us to unlearn what we think we know, so that we can apprehend what is now true in light of Jesus: The dead are raised. The lame walk. The blind see. Wars cease, captives go free. My kids have no trouble believing this stuff. Every night at bedtime, my six-year-old prays that he’ll be able to fly tomorrow. Though I always add to his prayer a special request for protection from false starts, there is something of resurrection in his quest. He understands that, with God, nothing is impossible. And though his prayer remains unanswered, he seems undeterred in his hope that one day, he might fly. (pp 54-55)
Illustrating the vital importance of community in relation to the Table is the topic of Chapter 5. It is the Table that binds us together as siblings; family marked out by God for eternity together.
When the church is functioning the way God intended, it is tacitly ‘familying’ those in its orbit.
Most of these things happen under such ordinary auspices we barely notice it. It is the quiet miracle of life together. As miracles go, it would be easy to explain these things away, to attribute them to generic altruism or moral obligation — but its power lies in the fact that it does not originate with us. The miracle of the church is that because of Jesus, strangers are born again as siblings. Through participation in him, we now have the exact same blood as each other. For “the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?” (pp 61-62)
A proper view of family is urged, however. Given an unduly strong emphasis on biological family, King issues a sober and relevant caution: it is the Body of Christ that is the preeminent model.
The primacy of the church in a Christian’s life does not imply that biological ties are unimportant or that they can be abandoned due to preference. Those who have neglected their children or spouses in the name of “the church” are accountable for their failure to love the first congregation God has given them.
But the God and Father of all does teach us to look beyond the natural bonds of kinship and realize that broken or not, our little families cannot adequately contain his love. We need the larger family of faith to help us understand the mystery of our inheritance, our identity as those born “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh … but of God.”
In other words, the church is not just the failsafe for families who fall short of the ideal. The church is the ideal. (p 65, emphasis original)
For more on the communal aspect of the Table, see my essay, “The Holy Eucharist: A Meditation“.
Chapter 7 reveals that the heavy burden we carry when trying to meet the needs of others can turn out to be a tactic for feeding our own needs. She counters by showing that the Table is sufficient to satisfy our hunger and thirst in all things. I found her honesty here to be piercing.
I trick myself into thinking I can be the provision others need. I attempt to be smart enough, compelling enough, compassionate enough to satisfy their hunger. In doing this, however, I realize that I am actually looking to them for provision — hoping to feed my fragile ego through a feeling of sufficiency …. But at the Lord’s Table, I remember that my hunger to be seen and to be fed has already been provided for. I don’t need to be enough in myself, because he is enough for us all. (p 96, emphasis original)
King reminds us that we don’t need to find our fulfillment in our usefulness to others. It is at the Table, that Christ satisfies all our needs and desires.
Chapter 8 encourages ‘eucharistic living’ through giving in relationships.
As we live into the relational roles that we choose (or ones that choose us) we become a source of nourishment for others (think parenting). In poetic reciprocity, those we nourish become our nourishment. Our generosity returns to us because “whoever refreshes others will be refreshed” (Prov 11:25). As both recipients of and resources for God’s grace, we become ‘conduits of grace’. King reflects,
Most of us are still working on our own recovery, seeking our own nourishment. We assume we don’t have anything to give until we are fully satiated. There is wisdom in discerning our capacity to give and pacing our participation with others while we heal. But to a degree, our healing also comes through the exercise of self-giving, because only then do we recover our purpose as conduits of grace and not merely recipients. (p 105)
It truly is “more blessed to give than to receive” because as we pour out ourselves for the sake of others, we receive blessing in return. The Table shows us that in God’s provision for us, he makes us a provision for others.
As Christians, we never seek to replicate or replace Jesus’ sufficient gift. But we are called to be conformed to it. In his letter to the Romans, Paul urges us to present our bodies as ‘living sacrifices.’ Our self-donation can’t forgive someone’s sins or satisfy their spiritual hunger; but it can become the means through which God manifests his life to them. We offer ourselves to the Father, and then he makes us an offering for others. In this way, our lives become eucharistic — signs of God’s presence and provision in the world. (p 107, emphasis original)
Sacrifice is what we’re called to in the eucharistic life. We may not be granted a view of the results of our sacrifice to God (Rom 12:1), but we can be assured that our offering is used by God to fuel the fires of mission in others.
And, as the Table reminds us over and over again, we are broken in our bodies, just as Christ’s body is broken for us. The Table shows us that the road to genuine eucharistic living is paved with transparency (King calls this “generous vulnerability”). By portraying ourselves as broken human beings in need of grace, then “our imperfections aren’t a barrier to ministry; they are a pathway” (p 109).
The scars of sacrifice that remain (physical or otherwise) are not a liability; they are the place from which our greatest power comes for ministry (2 Cor 12:9; Gal 6:17). In fact, signs from our injuries are designed to bring us closer to Christ and to others. “Their lingering ache teaches me to live in closer proximity to the Healer, and it gives me greater tenderness toward the wounds of others. In this way, my ongoing experience of need is simultaneously the greatest gift I have to give” (p 110. On our dependency see especially Christa McKirland’s God’s Provision, Humanity’s Need: The Gift of Our Dependence and my remarks here).
Chapter 9 addresses the challenges of courage and the risks it involves.
Returning to the notion of a transactional spirituality, she highlights concerns of a cultural and uniquely American version of Christianity.
American evangelicals have our own version of ‘happily-ever-after’ thinking. We assume that because Jesus was raised from the dead, love always wins. When people encounter this love, they will be healed and made whole. We tend to believe that because the gospel is true, it ‘works’ in people’s lives. As evidence for this belief, Christians often emphasize stories of redemption. We love testimonies about the addict who finds sobriety, the adopted child who embraces a new home, the broken marriage that is restored.
These stories are worth emphasizing, of course. They illustrate God’s resurrection power and remind us of what is possible. But in our religious optimism, we sometimes pressurize these stories into an artificial simplicity. We presume that God’s grace, rightly applied, always produces these kinds of results — that if we just love people enough, we will have something to show for it. (p 115)
In contrast to our optimistic, pressurized, optimized, and customized narrative, the courage of Jesus and the risk he took was driven by love “on the night he was betrayed.” The Table shows us this much. In fact, we do well to remember that
Our hero’s life did not end in vindication and victory but in betrayal and abandonment. Jesus was the perfect expression of God’s love in the world, and the only result he had to show for it was his own blood on the ground. I’d never thought deeply about the fact that on their last night together, Jesus served the Passover meal to his friends knowing that they would all turn away from him. He said to Judas, ‘This is my body, given for you,’ knowing he would sell him to his murderers. He washed Peter’s feet, knowing Peter would deny him.
For Jesus, love was never about returns or results. It was a gift that he gave even though he knew it would be misunderstood and rejected. His obedience and his confidence did not hinge on others’ responses. He knew who he was and what he had come to do. He gave this gift unto death. (p 117)
She continues:
“I still need to be reminded that Jesus’ love for humanity was met with betrayal and abandonment — because it protects me from idealizing the life he calls me to live. In my optimism, I want to believe that if I love others like Jesus loves them, they will come to love him — and me — in return. If I parent my children well enough, they will grow up to follow Jesus and thank me for being such a great mom. If I authentically care for members of my congregation, they will find their way to spiritual maturity and health and be faithful leaders in the church. IfI represent my faith with intelligence and respect, my ideological neighbors will be won over, or at least they will think well of me.
But this is not how it worked for Jesus. (p 119)
Even though our present (or past) may be punctuated by the reality of loss, pain, and suffering, Chapter 10 beautifully reminds us of what is to come.
God has always promised a place for his people — but even now, we are still waiting to take hold of it. We are still waiting for him to renew time and space with his healing touch. Our true resting place can’t be found by chasing the horizon or by cherishing the past; it can only be found in the One who holds these things together. He is the only home we really have. One day he will return to us, bringing our memories and dreams with him. In his presence, everything we’ve lost will be healed and whole and alive. And everything we never had to begin with but knew we needed — a better country — will be ours to inhabit without fear. We won’t be exiles there. He is preparing for us a city. When we see it, the sign will finally read: ‘WELCOME HOME.’ On that day, there won’t be any more goodbyes. (p 134)
Meanwhile, “for now, the Christian life is like living out of a suitcase” (p 134) and we’re encouraged to seek balance on the scale of our affections for this world.
In many ways, it is the original human challenge: to wholeheartedly love the world God gave us without making it an idol. When our first parents decided they needed the fruit of the tree more than they needed the closeness of God, they failed to rightly order their priorities. When we elevate any of God’s gifts — blessings like a spouse, a child, a hometown, a career — to a place of primacy in our lives, we are seeking a city without foundations.
These things can never bear the weight of our well-being.
In reaction to this, sometimes we err in the other direction. We practice such a thorough detachment from the material world that we fall short of loving the very things God has called us to love. We refuse to open our hearts to the beauty around us, believing instead that we must save ourselves for a far-off ‘heavenly home.’ (p 135)
Most importantly, the Table places us perfectly at center on the fulcrum between this world and the next. The Table gives us a view of both sides while nourishing us forward toward the grand finale.
The Eucharist reminds us that God’s provision here and now isn’t a finish line; it’s the sustenance to keep putting one foot in front of the other on the trail that he has blazed.
But that sustenance is more than mere utility. It also comforts us with a taste of our ultimate home. Our celebrations around the Lord’s Table whet our appetite for the final feast that Jesus is preparing upon his return. (p 136)
Why practice the Table regularly? What reason is there to repeat the same activity in worship, week after week? In the Epilogue our author shows that all other practices built into our lives, all other liturgies (habits) we engage, fall short of what the Table uniquely offers through remediation.
No matter how long we’ve been following Jesus, we still need practice recognizing and reordering our appetites. We need to be reminded that there is another, better provision than the ones we’ve tasted for so long.
At the Lord’s Supper, we rehearse the truth about ourselves and our God. He alone can satisfy the world’s deep ache. He is the Bread of Life. This might be one reason Jesus gave us a practice to repeat: We don’t get baptized every week, but we do come to the Table again and again — because the repetition helps to retrain our palates. It teaches us, over time, to get in touch with our deep hunger and to recognize that nothing else can fill it. (pp 141-142)
Feasting on Hope: How God Sets a Table in the Wilderness is truly a gift! Through her own personal reflections and life story, Hannah King has prepared for us a feast of insights. She shows how the Table, the ‘body’ and the ‘blood’, beautifully and fully satisfies our deepest longings. Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is showing the solid assurance that God meets us at the Table, is present in our brokenness, and supplies nourishment for leaning forward in ‘prophetic living.’ The Table truly is our teacher showing us the way ‘further up and further in’ to the fullness of life everlasting. Feasting on Hope is now my highest recommendation for anyone coming to the Table. Let us keep the Feast!