Table Fellowship With Christ

I love spoons. Not only do they help mix your chocolate milk, but they are essential in one of my favorite games, which just happens to share their name. Spoons, if you are not familiar with the game, don’t worry, you will learn about it this morning. I decided it would be better to make a short video so you can watch while I explain. So here is your list of things you need to play spoons. 1. Some people. 2. Playing cards. 3. Spoons, preferably ones that you don’t mind if they get bent, and you’ll need one less spoon than you have people. You could play seated on the floor, but those of us who have had knee surgery prefer to play seated around a table. (Start Video)

Everyone is dealt four cards and the spoons are arranged in the middle of the table. The dealer begins looking at the remaining cards and passing along cards that don’t help him. Cards are passed around the table. The goal is to match four of a kind. When you do, you grab a spoon. Once the first spoon is grabbed, the remaining players also need to grab a spoon. Since there is one less spoon than players, the one without a spoon in the end receives a letter. And when you spell SPOONS, you are out of the game. It continues this way until you are down to two players and one spoon, and finally a winner.

The more you play spoons, the more you begin to realize what type of spoons player you are. I can break the game up into three different styles, polite (respetuoso), mild (mediano), and full-contact (contacto full). Polite is a rather lady-like way to play. There isn’t much yelling, everything is orderly and spoons are voluntarily handed over “because they touched it first.” Mild is the world I live in when playing with rookies, or with people I don’t know well. It is the way the majority of people play the game. There is plenty of raucous, it is loud and occasionally someone ends up on the floor after a spoon. Full-contact is where I want to take you this morning. Full-contact is not for everyone. It requires a relationship with the people you are playing with. You never, never, play full-contact with a stranger. Full-contact is kind of self explanatory. Spoons are regularly fought over for 30-60 seconds while others watch. Blood is occasionally released from the fingernail area. Diving across the table for the last spoon is a requirement. Full-contact means whatever it takes to end up with a spoon.

And this is how I was taught to play. I’m only two years into my spoons career, but I’m learning from the best, my wife’s relatives. Let me give you a disclaimer before I continue. They play the game to win, but always in good fun, and always with love. That being said let me give you the highlights of the last two years. Knuckles have been clawed by fingernails, hands have been bitten in order to release a spoon, elbows have been delivered, chairs overturned, molding has been broken off the wall, the table has collapsed as I lay on top of it, and one young lady somehow ended up being drug into the family room and flew over the couch before releasing her end of the spoon. Good times!

Last week Pastor Mark shared with us about a verse from the book of Revelations. And he helped us to look at it in a different way. Revelations 3:20....Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Apocalipsis 3:20...Mira que estoy a la puerta y llamo. Si alguno oye mi voz y abre la puerta, entraré, y cenaré con él, y él conmigo.

This verse has been used for many years as an invitation to the non-believer to accept Christ into their heart. And while it is true that Christ desires to enter into the heart of the non-believer, the context of those words were to the church. Christ is speaking his followers, to those who already know him. He is saying, I’m at your door, and I’m knocking. I want to come in and sit down with you. I want to pick up on this theme that Pastor Mark started for us last week and answer a couple questions. What does that mean that Christ wants to come in and eat with us? Why would he do that?

We are going to rewind today in the bible from the book of Revelations to the gospel of Luke. Luke is one of four writers who wrote about the life of Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and Luke (the first three we find in the bible) are called the synoptic gospels. Synoptic is just a less known word to say that these three books are similar; they tell mostly the same story. But here is something interesting you might or might not know this morning. Even though they are similar, each author puts his own emphasis into their respective book. Today, we are going to look a special emphasis that we find in the book of Luke. This is something that Luke thought was especially important and so he specifically focuses on a theme or idea called Table Fellowship. This was the act of Jesus sharing a meal with people.