Eating with Jesus

Reflections on Divine Encounters at the Open Eucharistic Table

By: Robert D. Cornwall

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Paperback | 31 March 2025

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Paperback
156 Pages

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21.59 x 13.97 x 0.91

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You go to church on a Sunday morning. It’s Communion Sunday and when it comes time for Communion, the presider issues an invitation on behalf of Jesus because it’s Jesus’ table, not the church’s table. However, this invitation includes qualifiers. Are you baptized? Are you a member of the denomination? Do you affirm the church’s doctrinal statement? Have you repented of your sins? In other words, are you worthy? In Eating with Jesus, Robert Cornwall asks whether these fences around Christ’s table reflect Jesus' practice of table fellowship. If not, shouldn’t the fences be removed so that everyone is welcome at Christ’s table where followers of Jesus might be nourished for missional service in the world while "strangers" might experience God's love and grace at the same table? Through foundational essays and meditations on the stories of Jesus’ practice of table fellowship, Cornwall invites the reader to envision how a truly open eucharistic table, where the traditional fences are removed, might serve as a crossroads where divine encounters with Jesus can occur that make available God's grace to all who gather at the table through the ministrations of the Holy Spirit, wherever they may be on their spiritual journey.

Industry Reviews

“The Eucharistic table has been both a source of encouragement and a battleground leading to exclusion. Robert Cornwall explores the relevant issues and biblical passages to argue for an open table. Although some in the church erect fences to keep out the ‘unworthy,’ Cornwall removes barriers as an invitation of welcome and sign of unity.”
—Thomas Jay Oord, author of Open and Relational Theology

“Our ancestors in the faith, like most everyone in the Roman Empire, gathered nightly to do two things: enjoy a feast and enter into meaningful conversation. Robert Cornwall’s Eating with Jesus accomplishes something similar. After offering serious scholarly support for an open Communion table, the latter section serves up inspirational sermons from his own pastoral ministry. For dessert, several appendices offer liturgical nuggets for experiencing an open table. Here is a book to digest, with plenty of calories.”
—Mike Graves, author of Table Talk: Rethinking Communion and Community

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