Acts 242 Study

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Tag Archives: Lord’s Supper

Thou Preparest a Table Before Me in the Presence of Mine Enemies

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
    He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
    he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.
— Psalm 23

sulahIn our last post, we looked at the hospitality of the Middle East and the fellowship meal. For centuries, Bedouins have taken pride in sitting down at the family table with strangers and enjoying their company. There is also another ceremonial table meal that has been occurring in the Middle East since Bible times that has fascinating implications on the words we read in our English translations of the Text. This meal is called, “Sulha”, and is an Arabic word for a covenantal meal of reconciliation. The word,”sulh”, means ”peace”, or a literal act of settlement. Sulha is still practiced today in all the Middle Eastern countries and is considered an extension of the legal systems. In fact, it is still the main and official conflict resolution tool of all the Bedouin Tribes located in the Middle East. What is “Sulha”, how is it done, and what is it used for?

Sulha is a meal where you sit down at a table with you enemies and reconcile your differences. By using the cultural ideals of honor and shame, two parties with animosity between them eat together at a ceremonial meal to transition from revenge to forgiveness and reconciliation. Because of the strong family ties in this part of the country, disputes between individuals automatically become disputes between families and clans – often escalating to engulf an entire village. If you offend or harm the individual, you have done the same to the entire family and the problem festers and expands if not dealt with. Therefore, a Sulha is often called for to try and diffuse the situation. Are there some examples of a Sulha in scripture? One that is a good example is the story of Jacob and his father-in-law, Laban in Genesis 31. Jacob was tricked and lied to by his father-in-law, so Jacob took his two wives and flocks and left his father-in-law’s tents and went on his own. Laban was upset and went after Jacob and caught up to him ten days later. At first, it looked like violence might break out, but the two settled their differences by sitting down to a meal together. By eating together, Jacob and Laban were stating that their relationship had been restored. During the meal, they made a sacrifice to God which effectively stated God himself was a witness to the vows that they had made to each other. They were now at peace with God and each other. You can read the story of the meal in Genesis 31:51-55.

How does Sulha work? What are the steps that you take from revenge to forgiveness? The first step in the process has to be initiated by the offender and his family. The offender contacts a mediator from the area, usually a holy man (mukthar) or a pastor, and asks him to approach the victim’s family and offer restitution and seek a path to reconciliation. The mediator then goes to the victim’s house and invites them to take part in Sulha. The victim’s family, of course, has the right to say no, but it is considered very disrespectful to wait too long to respond. If the offer is accepted, then the Sulha meal takes place at the victim’s house with both the mediator and the offender in attendance. The offender, through the mediator has offered to pay some sort of restitution, called blood money. Both families wait for the patriarch of the victim’s family to make the decision of whether or not to accept the offer to reconcile. Cups of coffee are on the table, but no one makes a move until the patriarch decides. If he drinks from the cup of coffee, then he would be saying that he accepts the offer to of reconciliation. Then the patriarch would make a comment to the victim about forgiving him for the transgressions against his family and both families would shake hands. This agreement to “bury the hatchet” is binding on both families and is also considered a contract with God. From now on, “we will not speak of this again. We will acts as if we remember it no more”, would be the gist of the acceptance of the apology. There is lots of leverage for both families to abide by the patriarch’s decision. Honor and respect are very important in the tribal cultures and respect and social standing would be lost if anyone in the family went back on their word.

Think of this story in light of the 23rd Psalm. Preparing a table before me has got to be a Sulha! God invites our enemies in, we break bread together, and we are not enemies anymore. What about Revelations 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man will let me in, I will come in and eat with him and he with me”. That also sounds like a Sulha. Probably the greatest example is the Lord’s Supper. We are the offending party. God’s Son has died because of our sin. We have come to a meal with God to ask him to forgive us. He makes the first move by taking the bread and the cup and saying, “In the blood of Christ, your sins are forgiven and I’ll remember them no more. Then He invites us into His family, to be part of his house. In the Sulha meal there has to be a mediator between the offender and the victim and that mediator was Christ. What is the proof that Jesus requires to forgive our debts to Him? We are to forgive others (have Sulha with them), just as He did for us.

This is an amazing cultural story that makes the pages of the Bible come alive with imagery!

P.S. For an amazing story of a modern-day sullha, please read this story in its entirety.

The Banquet and the Older Son: Part 4 of a Study of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15

After the father meets and reconciles with his lost son, he orders a banquet to be held. He says in Luke 15:24, “Lets have a feast and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found”. In the father’s perception, his son was lost and dead at the edge of the village and he went out in a costly demonstration of love to find and save his son. This brings up an important question. Was the banquet held in honor of the prodigal or in honor of the father? We usually think that the banquet is to honor the son. However, is it a celebration of the prodigals successful efforts at reaching home on his own, or is it a celebration of the success of the father’s costly efforts to find and save his lost son? If you compare this celebration to the most important banquet in the gospels, the Last Supper, you see some amazing similarities and truths of the gospel message. A part of the meaning of the Last Supper meal is that we as redeemed sinners are offered continued table fellowship with Jesus. The Last Supper is a celebration of Jesus’ costly sacrifice to reconcile us to himself. Isn’t this banquet that the father gives for his son a foreshadowing of the Holy Communion, where we are invited as sinners to participate in that sacred meal? Jesus is obviously the hero of the Last Supper Banquet and the sinners are not the center of attention. All glory is reserved for the father. Jesus does not eat with sinners to celebrate their sin, but to celebrate his grace. This banquet, ordered by the father, is a celebration of the costly efforts and great sacrifice the father has made and sinners (the lost son and the older son) are invited to come.

The older son has a real problem with the idea of grace being given to the younger brother. He doesn’t think that there should be any reconciliation without compensation. Why didn’t he have to pay back all the money he lost before the father took him back? He wasn’t having to pay for his sins! Grace was offered and accepted without the requirements of the law having been met. Grace is not only amazing, but unbelievable! How can it be true? Don’t we get what we pay for?

The older son refuses to participate in the celebration and attacks both his father and brother in public. In doing so, he insults his father in front of all the guests. A western cultural equivalent would be to have a shouting match with your father at a wedding. Now, the older son has also severed his relationship with the father. What will the father do? Culture would expect that the father would explode and reprimand the older son for the dishonor that he has caused. However, again the father is willing to offer a costly demonstration of his unearned love. Only now it is offered to the law keeper instead of the law breaker! He leaves the banquet and entreats the older son and offers him the same costly undeserved love.

The parable has no ending in that we don’t know what the older son decides. Will the older son now enter the banquet and start acting like his father or will he refuse to accept his father’s offer of costly, unearned love? The reader is invited to provide the ending.

In our final segment we will try to summarize what we have learned and look at the theological themes that are present in this unbelievably complex and fascinating story.