Matt Croasmun / Nourishing Mutual Encounter: Food, Meals, and the Hunger for Home in the Gospel of Luke

Food and meals are hidden in plain sight throughout the Bible, providing a background context for Christian spirituality and flourishing. Matt Croasmun joins me on the podcast today to talk about his new book co-authored with Miroslav Volf, The Hunger for Home: Food and Meals in the Gospel of Luke. For them, a meal is a site of nourishing mutual encounter. It's this definition of a meal that makes that riddle work I think. It's also incredibly illuminating (and even delightfully surprising, really) to consider how that nourishing mutual encounter—a meal—provide a context that spans thousands of years and the whole of human history from creation to fall to redemption. It can all be understood as a site of nourishing mutual encounter with God, family, neighbor, world—everything. From the fruitful multiplying of living creatures to the forbidden fruit—from the passover seder, manna from heaven, water from the rocks, and feasts in the fields—to the Lord's table prepared before our enemies, turning water into wine, multiplying loaves and fish—from the Last Supper before the Crucifixion, and the final wedding supper of the Lamb. It's all a meal that we hunger for always; it's a meal that wherever we are, we're still home.

This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.

About

Matt Croasmun (PhD, Yale University) is Associate Research Scholar at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. He is the co-author, with Miroslav Volf, of For the Life of the World and The Hunger for Home and directs the Yale Life Worth Living Initiative. Follow him on Twitter @MattCroasmun.

Show Notes

• Buy the book: The Hunger for Home: Food and Meals in the Gospel of Luke (Enter 17FALL22 for 20% off + Free Shipping)
• What is home?
• What is hunger?
• Jesus fasting in the wilderness: "One does not live by bread alone..."
• The human needs bread that is not only bread.
• Word and world is one thing. Allow your bread to become an encounter with the creator of all good things.
• Life, staying sustained, and feasting
• Material life, sustained by the life of the Lord
• False choice: word or bread. It's actually one thing, issuing from the mouth of the Lord.
• Sinners at the Table: "The only kind of meals are meals among sinners."
• "Sinners all."
• Jesus dines with sinners because he's a doctor who comes to heal sinners. We dine with sinners because we're all patients of that doctor.
• Rich and Poor at the Table
• The eschatological feast
• The Rich Man and Lazarus
• The Unjust Steward (or, The Dishonest Manager)
• "We're looking for homes to be invited into. And it may be the poor who have these homes."
• Mutuality
• Leveraging houses and the wealth they represent for entry into homes.
• The Last Supper / Eucharist
• "Made known in the breaking of bread"
• The Road to Emmaus: "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."
• Jesus as the ultimate Bible Study Leader: "The best bible study ever."
• The eucharist is making sense later.
• Recognition: It wasn't the bible study with Jesus on the road. It was the meal.
• Norman Wirzba, Food & Faith
• "Made known in the breaking of bread"

Production Notes

• This podcast featured Matt Croasmun
• Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
• Hosted by Evan Rosa
• Special thanks to David Aycock and Baylor University Press
• A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
• Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give