Sunday Supper by Wil Triggs
My mom has been in heaven for a number of years now, but one television show that created buzz among her and her sisters was “Bluebloods” and its lead actor Tom Selleck. They remembered Selleck from another favorite show of theirs, “Magnum PI.” He had aged, as had they, and to them he looked better than ever. He plays Frank Reagan, the police commissioner in New York City. His father and several brothers are also police, his sister a lawyer. At least that was the cast when I used to watch it once in a while about ten or twelve years ago.
It was announced earlier this year that, after 14 seasons, Bluebloods would be coming to an end. By now, the Reagan children in the opening seasons would be adults. It’s a testament to my viewing habits that I didn’t even realize it was still on the air.
One of my aunts used to dress up and put on makeup to watch the show, like she was going out on a date. She always took seriously her relationship to attractive men in the media. I remember as a boy I liked to play her stereo. It was a big piece of wooden furniture with upholstered speakers on each end and a concealed turntable record player in the middle, all of it in mid-century modern walnut, a heavy piece of furniture for a living room.
She would often play Frank Sinatra records. I remember her once telling me that, as a young girl, she used to swoon when she would hear his voice. She never was loud about it, but she told me she could understand how those younger girls screamed when the Beatles first came to America. That’s how she felt about Frank. Swoon. My uncle didn’t seem to mind. It seemed like he always knew she was his one and only love.
For her, Tom Selleck was the television version of Frank Sinatra. And nothing was going to come between her and her Friday-night time with Tom.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about my mom and my aunts. They were good women. My mom and aunts lived long lives. They all married young, raised children, waved goodbye to them when they moved all over the country. Some of their kids died, some divorced, some kept giving them more grandchildren and then great-grandchildren. My dad and all my uncles died ahead of their wives. So, all the women moved to the same town out in the desert valley near one another. Each had their own place, but they did most everything together.
They couldn’t have Sunday dinner with their kids, but on Friday nights they could watch Tom/Frank enjoying that dinner with three generations of his family. This made for an element of tender viewing, feeding the longing each of them had for a full table. They could remember how it used to be. And when just one of us came to town, you could be sure we would see them all. They could imagine their kids still alive and geographically close enough to show up. And just the thought of it, even on a different level, encouraged them.
When something important happens, it seems so often that food is involved. And the benefits of family meals spill out to society at large.
In 2020, the Harvard Graduate School of Education interviewed Anne Fishel, director of the Family Dinner Project, who said, “There have been more than 20 years of dozens of studies that document that family dinners are great for the body, the physical health, the brains and academic performance, and the spirit or the mental health, and in terms nutrition, cardiovascular health is better in teens, there's lower fat and sugar and salt in home cooked meals even if you don't try that hard, there's more fruit, and fiber, and vegetables, and protein in home cooked meals, and lower calories. Kids who grow up having family dinners, when they're on their own tend to eat more healthily and to have lower rates of obesity. …Then the mental health benefits are just incredible. Regular family dinners are associated with lower rates of depression, and anxiety, and substance abuse, and eating disorders, and tobacco use, and early teenage pregnancy, and higher rates of resilience and higher self-esteem.”
That sounds a little too good to be true.
But if half that stuff is true about family meals, what about eating with Jesus? His first miracle was at a wedding feast. He ate with tax collectors, probably the least popular people around. There's the dinner at the home of Mary and Martha. When thousands were hungry, he didn't declare a group fast; he miraculously fed them. After the long hike on the road to Emmaus, they recognized him when he broke the bread.
What about heavenly family meals? What about the Lord’s Table? I’m not suggesting something magical or mystical. Quite the opposite. It’s as simple as bread and wine. Coming together with our church family around the table of Christ helps us to “remember the Lord’s death until he comes.” Remembering his death, celebrating the new life that comes only from that death, children gathering together for a meal before the father tells us some significant truths.
We aren’t alone.
We are intricately bound to one another, and so we eat and drink together.
We remember together. How can this be? Only in the remembrance, the memory, can we love as we ought. The memory is not grim, but joyful and victorious.
We proclaim the gospel--his death and resurrection--until he comes. Proclaim to the unlovely, the lonely, the clueless, to the people who know they don't know, to the people who think they know but don't. Proclaim to the Kindergarteners with our goldfish snacks. Proclaim to the Keenagers with meals made by loving hands. Proclaim with small-group dinner, morning coffees, lunchtime sandwiches shared. Proclaim with the Bread of Life at Cream of Wheaton. Proclaim with bbq at Summer Kickoff.
We look ahead to another meal, a different feast, when all will be changed and sadness turns to joy, death turns to life and dark to light. This feast spilling out in a new light across the whole world, this one world and the new one to come, and accomplishing anything, everything, beyond what we could ask or imagine. Think how great that's going to taste.