If you do a Google image search for Jesus, you have to scroll a long way before you see a portrayal of him as someone other than a white-skinned, brown-haired, bearded man dressed in flowing robes. We’ve come to see some striking corrections to those pervasive images in the last couple of decades (try another search, this time for “Jesus Mafa” to see some powerful imaginings), but Bell challenges us to expand our vision of Jesus a bit further. Why, he asks, is Jesus always skinny? Bell offers 23 different examples of stories where Jesus ate, and another collection of sayings that revolve around food. He also shows us why the arguments for a ‘skinny Jesus’ don’t hold a lot of water. What’s truly powerful about this chapter, though, are the six “Reasons for eating” that Bell offers—reasons we see in the stories of Jesus and reasons that we can relate to in our own lives.
Reflection Questions/Activities:
- Which of Bell’s six “Reasons for Eating” (pages 101—110) leapt out at you? Did any of them cause you to rethink what it means to sit down to a meal? Do any of the stories of Jesus eating feel different to you now, and why?
- Reread psalm 23, and focus on verse 5 and following. How does it feel to hear it again in light of Bell’s insistence that ours “is a God who models hospitality in order that those made in God’s image might do likewise… how we welcome people, how we affirm people, how we enable sociability and sharing, and also whether what we eat is wholesome.” (105)
- How might these stories, and the six reasons for eating, affect the practice of hospitality in your home, in your work, in your church?
- What is your mental picture of Jesus? If you spend some time with different portrayals of him, does it affect how your mental picture is formed? (The next time you visit our Cathedral, make some time to go up into the sanctuary and look at Jesus in the stained glass on the southern stained glass.)
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