Where did family dinner time go?

One of my favorite things to do when I’m with my extended family is enjoy a meal. I am thinking of those times when we sit at someone’s home, take time to share and listen to on another’s stories and enjoy being together. My son-in-law Kyle is an excellent cook and also enjoys cooking for the family. I love that about him. The menu is secondary. The important thing is making time to build relationships. If a family shares joke, or tells a story they are creating stronger connections away from the table. There are entire cable networks dedicated to cooking. I love that channel.

When I was growing up, in my little family of four, I think the primary love language for my family was food. It seems as if there was more time then for gathering together to enjoy one another and get pleasure from food. I believe eating together is healing and nurturing for both the soul and body. Even in today’s fast-paced world:

• If somebody gets hurt or sick,
• If somebody has an emergency or a crisis,
• If somebody has a significant loss, a job or a loved one,
• If somebody gets married (rehearsal dinner & reception)
• If somebody has a baby,
• If somebody gets buys a house cooking food, delivering food, and eating food is what we would do to make things better or celebrate.

There would be that famous smell of cooking in the house, and loved ones would just gather and talk, tell stories, laugh, and cry.

A great pastor, thinker, and writer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a book called “Life Together:”

"[People] should not eat the bread of sorrows; rather, 'eat thy bread with joy...'" (Ecclesiastes 9:7) "God cannot endure that unfestive, mirthless attitude of ours in which we eat our bread in sorrow, with pretentious, busy haste ...or even with shame. Through our daily meals [God] is calling us to rejoice, to keep holiday in the midst of our working day."

When Bonhoeffer wrote these words he was leading an underground seminary in Nazi Germany being persecuted by the people who would eventually kill him. He said, "Eat your bread with joy." Perhaps he was thinking back on safer, more precious times.

It is no secret that several research studies have discovered a link between regular family dinners with lowering a host of high risk teenage behaviors (smoking, binge drinking, marijuana use, violence, school problems, eating disorders and sexual activity). In one study of more than 5,000 Minnesota teens, researchers concluded that regular family dinners were associated with lower rates of depression and suicidal thoughts. Family dinners have been found to be a more powerful deterrent against high-risk teen behaviors than church attendance or good grades.

Dinner time is not a time for lectures or arguments. It is not a time for television watching or reading and typing on smart phones with social media contacts. It is a time for loving one another – simply, sincerely, deeply, as you would expect to be loved so you would love one another (1 John 4:7-8).

It's a funny thing about dinner time when I was growing up. We would always sit in the same place. Everybody had their own chair. My dad sat across from me. My mom sat to my left. My brother sat to my right, across from my mom. Everyone always in the same place. Maybe there is some deep human instinct in the soul tells us, "We need to have a place at the table." I want to have my chair. I want everybody in my family to have their chair, and I really love it when their chairs are filled.

During a week when I have been preparing a sermon about the Lord’s Supper table, I've been thinking a lot about how fast life goes and how quickly our lives appear and vanish, I was wondering, are you getting enough time around the table with the people who you love? I hope you are. It is so essential for you and your family.

Dr. Phil Sallee, Pastor
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