Father Richard Rohr understands Jesus’ eating habits as a model for the kind of inclusive and open hospitality Christians might practice.
God’s major problem in liberating humanity has become apparent to me as I consider the undying recurrence of hatred of the other, century after century, in culture after culture and religion after religion.
Can you think of an era or nation or culture that did not oppose otherness? I doubt there has ever been such a sustained group. There have been enlightened individuals, thank God, but seldom established groups—not even in churches, I’m sorry to say. The Christian Eucharist was supposed to model equality and inclusivity, but we turned the holy meal into an exclusionary game, a religiously sanctioned declaration and division into groups of the worthy and the unworthy—as if any of us were worthy! [1]
Before Christianity developed the relatively safe ritual meal we call the Eucharist, Jesus’ most consistent social action was eating in new ways and with new people, encountering those who were oppressed or excluded from the system. It seems Jesus didn’t please anybody by breaking rules to make a bigger table. Notice how his contemporaries accused Jesus: one side criticized him for eating with tax collectors and sinners (see Matthew 9:10–11). The other side judged him for eating too much (Luke 7:34) or dining with the Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 7:36–50, 11:37–54, 14:1). Jesus ate with all sides. He ate with lepers (Mark 14:3), he received a woman with a poor reputation at a men’s dinner (Luke 7:36–39), and he even invited himself to a “sinner’s” house (Luke 19:1–10). How do we not see that? [2]
It seems we ordinary humans must have our “other”! It appears we don’t know who we are except by opposition and exclusion. “Where can my negative energy go?” is the enduring human question; it must be exported somewhere. Sadly, it never occurs to us that we are the negative energy, which then sees and contributes to that negative energy in others. The ego refuses to see this in itself. Recognizing this takes foundational conversion from the egoic self, and most have not undergone that transformation. We can only give away the goodness (or the sadness) that we ourselves have experienced and become.
Eucharist is meant to identify us in a positive, inclusionary way, but we are not yet well-practiced at this. We honestly don’t know how to do unity. Many today want to make the holy meal into a “prize for the perfect,” as Pope Francis observed. [3] Most Christians still do not know how to receive a positive identity from God—that we belong and are loved by our very nature! [4] The Eucharistic meal is meant to be a microcosmic event, summarizing at one table what is true in the whole macrocosm: we are one, we are equal in dignity, we all eat of the same divine food, and Jesus still and always “eats with sinners,” just as he did when on Earth. [5]
Meal-Based Social Action
Jesus didn’t please anybody, it seems. He was always breaking the rules and spreading out the table.
—Richard Rohr
Father Richard considers how Jesus’ eating habits challenged the religious and cultural norms of his time—and our own:
Jesus didn’t want his community to have a social ethic; he wanted it to be a social ethic. Their very way of relating was to be an affront to the system of dominance and power; it was to name reality in a new way. They were to live in a new symbolic universe. This radical idea is given in a simple clue found throughout the Christian Scriptures—one that biblical scholars overlooked until only recently: Jesus’ presence with others at table. That theme is so constant in the Christian Scriptures that scholars today see it as central to Jesus’ message. Jesus never appears to be pushing what we call social programs. He is much more radical. He calls us to a new social order in which we literally share table differently!
The mystery of sharing food and a common table takes place on different levels. First, there’s the unifying idea of sharing the same food. Then, there is the whole symbolism of the table itself: where we sit at the table and how the table is arranged. Together, the food and table become a symbol of how our social world is arranged. Once we rearrange life around the table we begin to change our notions of social life.
That, I believe, was Jesus’ most consistent social action: eating in new ways! In the midst of that eating, he announced the reign of God and talked in new ways. Usually, on his way in or out of a house, he encountered those who were oppressed and eliminated from the system. A great number of Jesus’ healings and exorcisms take place while he’s either entering a house to have a meal with someone or leaving a house just after having had a meal with someone. He redefines where power is on many different levels at the same time. Religious power is, for one thing, mostly exercised outside the Temple and synagogue.
It’s necessary to calculate very carefully what was lost and what was gained as Christianity developed. The church moved from Jesus’ real meal with open table fellowship to its continuance in the relatively safe ritual meal that became the Christian Eucharist. Unfortunately, the meal itself came to redefine social reality in a negative way, in terms of worthiness and unworthiness.
That is almost exactly the opposite of Jesus’ intention. To this day, we use Eucharist to define membership in terms of worthy and unworthy. Even if we deny that is our intention, it’s clearly the practical message people hear. Isn’t it strange that sins of marriage and sexuality are the primary ones we use to exclude people from the table, when other sins like greed and hatefulness that cause more public damage are never considered?
From Chuck DeGroat.
Here is an abridged section of Ch. 3 of Healing What’s Within.
Storm and Fog
Some of us live in what I call Storm. From a nervous system perspective, this is a state of hyperarousal — our sympathetic system activated to survive a perceived threat. Blood pressure rises, heart rate spikes, adrenaline pumps. We go into fight (enemy mode, demanding, defensive), flight (anxious, vigilant), fawn (appeasing, compliant), or find (searching for rescue). These responses are designed for short-term survival — to get our immediate needs met. But for many, this Storm becomes a long-term reality. We adapt to it. We suffer in it. Alone.
Others get caught in what I call Fog — a state of hypoarousal. Here, we feel depleted, shut down, disconnected. This is the domain of the dorsal vagal system. Where Storm mobilizes us to act in self-protection, Fog immobilizes us through disconnection. In freeze, we’re stuck between the urge to act and the instinct to protect. In fold, our system numbs out to survive — heart rate drops, muscles relax, awareness blurs. We may feel ashamed, helpless, even forgetful of what overwhelmed us. It can feel like depression. Or complete shutdown. We may adapt to life here, too.
Feels Like Home
To navigate the dysregulating impact of Storm and Fog, we also need to know what it feels like to be Home — the internal space of safety, clarity, and connection.
After moving into a new house with Sara, I remember a lazy Sunday afternoon, lying in bed, watching leaves fall. A whisper rose from within: Home. It took weeks to get there, to settle. But my body recognized it.
Home is where your nervous system breathes.
It’s not just comfort — it’s coherence. Psychiatrist Daniel Siegel calls this the Window of Tolerance: the internal space where you can feel your emotions in a right-sized way and respond from presence. The wider your window, the more able you are to stay grounded amid life’s chaos.
We are meant to live here, hidden with Christ (Col. 3:3), rooted in love (Eph. 3:17). This is our truest place. Home begins in Eden, and its memory lingers in us. As Frederick Buechner writes, “At the innermost heart… there is peace… Eden is there. Home is there.”
When we’re pulled from Home into Storm or Fog, God’s first question still comes: Where are you? (Gen. 3:9). And like the father in Jesus’ parable, God runs to greet us (Luke 15:20). Even when we drift, we’re not untethered. Nothing can separate us from this love (Rom. 8:39). As Martin Laird puts it, “God is our homeland. And the homing instinct of the human being is homed on God.”
To live from Home is to live from your center. As Teresa of Avila asks, “What could be worse than not being at home in our own house?” And you can cultivate a sense of Home, physiologically and spiritually. Practices of nervous system regulation can cultivate an enduring sense of Home, even as you occasionally feel pulled to-and-fro. Even the simple act of placing your hand on your chest and breathing can whisper to your body, “It’s ok. I’m here.”
Pay attention to what it feels like in your body to be present and at peace — grounded, open, connected. I know I’m there when I’m breathing, when I’m not rushing, when I feel like myself… and even like myself.
You might pause right now and reflect:
- When do I feel most at Home?
- Where, with whom, under what conditions?
- And when do I feel far from Home — reactive, avoidant, ashamed, disconnected, numb?
- How can I continue to cultivate a sense of Home?
Storm and Fog will visit — that’s part of being human. But Home is always there, waiting, at the center of your being, beside a window of grace.
