Read About Friendship No. 2

Each week, the Read About Friendship series features a well-known author and his or her writings on friendship. Feel free to submit other quotes and info about these authors, or to suggest authors for future posts, in the comments section.

Brennan Manning On Friendship

In first-century Palestinian Judaism the class system was enforced rigorously. It was legally forbidden to mingle with sinners who were outside the law: table fellowship with beggars, tax collectors (traitors to the national cause because they were collecting taxes for Rome from their own people to get a kick-back from the take), and prostitutes was religiously, socially, and culturally taboo.

Sadly, the meaning of meal sharing is largely lost in the Christian community today.  In the Near East, to share a meal with someone is a guarantee of peace, trust, fraternity, and forgiveness:  the shared table symbolizes a shared life.  For an orthodox Jew to say, “I would like to have dinner with you,” is a metaphor implying “I would like to enter into friendship with you.”  Even today an American Jew will share a donut and a cup of coffee with you, but to extend a dinner invitation is ot say:  “Come to my mikdash me-at, the miniature sanctuary of my dining room table where we will celebrate the most sacred and beautiful experience that life affords–friendship.”  That is what Zacchaeus heard when Jesus called him down from the sycamore tree, and that is why Jesus’ practice of table fellowship caused hostile comment from the outset of His ministry.

It did not escape the Pharisees’ attention that Jesus meant to befriend the rabble. He was not only breaking the law, He was destroying the very structure of Jewish society. “They all complained when they saw what was happening. ‘He has gone to stay at a sinner’s house, they said (Luke 19:7). But Zachhaeus, not too hung up on respectability, was overwhelmed with joy.

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, 59-60

Read last week’s post on friendship featuring C.S. Lewis.