Since True Life launched in March of 2013, bagels and coffee has been a staple of our Sunday gathering. We have a whole team devoted to making sure we have it.

But I think it's easy to take the bagels and coffee for granted. I think it's easy to treat them as common-place. As mere niceities. Or even worse, I think it's easy for them to become distractions to worship (anyone else ever spill coffee during the service and then scurry frantically to clean it up before it spills down the rows in front of you?).

I may be over-generalizing, but there seems to be for many a false dichotomy between "socializing and eating" vs. "reverently singing and reflecting". And one must choose between the two. Either get into the auditorium and get your heart right for the service, or hang out and socialize and relax.

But what if we saw the bagels and coffee for what it should be?

COMMANDS ABOUT FOOD

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, eating was a sacred thing.

Eating was part of the commanded sacrificial system, with part of the fellowship offering being eaten in communion and thanksgiving to God (Leviticus 7:11-34).

Israel was commanded to leave the gleanings of the fields for the strangers and foreigners (Leviticus 23:22).

Jesus was criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners because it was a sign of his acceptance of them (Mark 2:13-17, Luke 19:1-10).

The final discourse took place over the Passover meal. Jesus renewed the meaning of it by telling us to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of his body and blood given for us. Eating and drinking is how we are explicitly told to remember his death.

In Acts 2 and 4, where Luke describes what the early church looked like, there is prayer, fellowship, sharing of resources, the apostles' teaching.....and eating together.

One of the first things Jesus did after his resurrection with his disciples was to eat broiled fish with them (Luke 24:40-43), proving that his body was really a body. 

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul addresses some abuses at the Lord's table (some folks were getting drunk on the wine, and the rich were eating all the food before the poor peasant workers could get there). Paul doesn't tell them to just get rid of the food and drink; he addresses the abuses of it so that they would approach the food and drink with the right hearts.

The point is, eating can be -- and should be -- worship. "Weather you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).

WHAT IF....

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to say that eating bagels and coffee is commanded of us every time we gather, or that it is something we must do week in and week out.

But just like we are to prepare our hearts to sing praises to God; just like we are to prepare our hearts to hear God's word; just like we are to prepare our hearts to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn -- what if we also prepared our hearts for the bagels and coffee?

What if we saw it as part of our corporate worship gathering? What if eating and drinking stirred your heart to give thanks to God through the singing (after all, he is the one who made food with flavors and coffee beans with caffeine)?

Now this might mean different things for different people.

If you're someone who tends to roll in at 10:30, then spend 15 minutes cream-cheesing your bagel and sweetening your coffee before finally meandering in to the auditorium only to watch the band with a mouth full like it's a movie theater -- well, maybe for you this means you show up earlier, at 10. And you take your time at the tables, looking to see if perhaps God has an ordained conversation for you to engage in. Perhaps the bagel can remind you of Jesus' words, "Man does not live by bread alone" and it can foster a more receptive heart to the teaching from God's Word. And then, because you got there early, you can head in at 10:30 and use that caffeine to praise God, instead of having your mouth too full to do so. And if needed, maybe you eat breakfast before coming so that you are not running out half-way through the service because those first two bagels didn't do it for you.

But on the other side - if you're someone who tends to zip right past the table area to get into the auditorium, deeming the hospitality area not spiritual enough....well, maybe you could consider stopping off there for a moment. Maybe you could look for a new person and actually "welcome the stranger" over a bagel. Maybe you could take the time to listen to the highs and lows of someone's week, and then later, while singing about our awesome God, you can pray for that person instead of just focusing on your own life. Maybe you could remember that when Jesus told us to "do this in remembrance of me" he was talking more about a meal with others face-to-face than he was about a thumb-sized cracker and a half-sip of juice.

What if the bagels and coffee were not common-place elements to our time together?

What if they were sacred?

What if you prepared your heart for the bagels and coffee?