Breaking Bread with Our Enemies

I hope everyone has had a good summer. I took a long break in August, but now I’m refreshed and ready for a new year of newsletters. Hard to believe it was a year ago I sent out my first one! My readership has grown so much since then. If you’d like to read older newsletters, you can find them on my blog: Archived Newsletters.

In the time of Christ, meals meant more than simply filling one’s stomach. Sharing a meal was sharing peace. In the ancient world, tables were like altars; sitting at a table with someone was akin to entering into a covenant with them. It also meant you were safe if dining with an enemy. Even in Bedouin culture today (which preserves many Near Eastern customs), if they offer you bread and salt, you are under their protection as long as that food is in your stomach—even if you are their enemy.

Soon after Jesus called Matthew to be his disciple, Matthew hosted a great banquet in his home (Matthew 9:10). He filled the house with other tax collectors and outcasts, and Jesus ate with them. The Pharisees were scandalized: Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Jesus replied, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

Many stories of Jesus take place around a meal. From that banquet, to the feeding of the five thousand, to that final night in the upper room—the table was never just a table. It was a place of covenant making and reconciliation.

The Last Supper was a Passover meal, meant to remember God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt. But this meal also looked forward. When Jesus broke the bread and shared the cup, as recorded in Luke 22:19–20, He said:

“This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.”

In that moment, the Passover became not just a remembrance of the past, but a covenantal promise of the future.

We have a banquet to look forward to with Christ—the wedding supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9)—when Christ will gather His people. Many Christians, including those in the LDS faith, see this banquet as marking Christ’s triumphant return, the Second Coming, when He will once again “dwell with His people” (Revelation 21:3).

Have you ever stopped to consider who will be at that table? The disciples were often surprised by whom Jesus welcomed during His ministry: children, lepers, tax collectors, women, outsiders. The Pharisees grumbled, “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2).

Who might be sitting next to you? Will it be the person who hurt you, the one you find difficult, or the one you swore you’d never forgive? If meals are covenants—truces with enemies, reconciliations—then preparing for the feast with Christ may begin by preparing our hearts to accept the other dinner guests. We can do this today. We can choose to break bread even with those we’d rather avoid.

In times of grief and division, Christ’s call to break bread together is no longer just a biblical image; it becomes a radical act of faith. The table becomes a place of peace, not because we erase our differences, but because we dare to face them together under His grace.

One day, we will sit down at the table of the Lord, the true and final feast, where God Himself will dwell with His people. Every meal we share in His name is a small rehearsal of that day—a chance to practice breaking bread with our enemies and finding peace in Christ alone.

Wishing you a great Sabbath,

Heather Ruth Pack

Join the Conversation

For the members of the Times of Faith Facebook Discussion group. Here is this month's prompt.

Have you ever had to share a meal with someone you considered to be an enemy? What insights did you gain from that experience?

Share Your Thoughts

We would love to have you join our discussion group. To get approved to join, click the button below.

Join Now

Want to read previous newsletters?

Welcome to our new subscribers. We are glad you are here. Previous newsletters are available online.

Read Past Newsletters

What I'm Currently Studying

When I get the chance, I like to see what books are for sale at libraries. That's how I found this one for $1 at the Manhattan Beach Public Library. It's proving to be a great resource while I'm writing my Jehovah and Women in the Old Testament course.

Torah of the Mothers: Contemporary Jewish Women Read Classical Jewish Texts