I was given a copy of this book (Thank you Keith) and have just opened the pages. It seems an original piece of work that firmly places the Christian meal in the context of the Imperial world of the first century and a subversive act of resistance.
I have only just started but a choice few paragraphs that Gayle and I read this morning are sufficient to get us ready for the day!
When the Lord’s Supper is placed within the historical context of a Jesus movement that nonviolently opposed the tyrannical practices of the empire, it becomes clear that it was an act of resistance and took on political significance. Believers not only gathered to eat and satisfy their appetites, they engaged in various kinds of anti-imperial symposium activities that included prophetic utterances, singing protest songs, and lifting a toast to a man whom Rome deemed worthy of a criminal’s death.
And so the text continues… Makes one hungry for a protest meal and a toast to our ‘criminal’ Lord.