The other day John Piper tweeted
Now, Piper tends to tweet regularly, everything from Bible verses to pithy comments and his tweets range from the profoundly encouraging to the provocatively controversial. In that respect, he’s pretty much like any of us. Some of his tweets can sound a bit grumpy from time to time. My take on that is that we can all say grumpy things and personally I’d be inclined to cut an older guy some slack when he says something that seems to be longing back for the good old days.
I’d characterise this particular tweet in the latter category. However, I noted a few things. First, out of everything talked about on Twitter that day and out of all the tweets Piper has posted in recented days, this seemed to be getting the most interaction. In fact, some people seemed quite exercised a about it with some strongly agreeing (I’ll come back to them shortly) and others taking serious offence. It seemed that the offence was not so much at the tweet itself but at their perception of Piper and his theology more generally. Some seemed quite keen to label John as a killjoy moralist which seems a little it at odds with the man we’ve come to know through books like Desiring God and The Pleasures of God. We do have to be careful that we don’t see things people say through a prism of the perception we’ve built up about them, especially when that perception might just be wrong.
However, I do want to think through the specific statement, especially in the light of some of the statements in support of it. One person asked people disagreeing with Piper whether or not they would drink coffee during a wedding ceremony to which I responded that I personally would love to see a wedding actually centred on the Wedding Breakfast with vows after the starter, a short talk between the main course and deserts then speeches followed by dancing. That person then switched tack, acknowledging that there may be place for food and coffee during a celebration but not when we are seeking to encounter the living God.
So, it is worth thinking that through. You see, there seem to be a few misunderstandings going on here. Even Piper’s use of the word sanctuary to describe a church’s main meeting room suggest that our church services are happen in special holy places at special holy times. God is no less present in my kitchen than he is in the church auditorium. I’m no less able to encounter him at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning than 10:30 on a Sunday morning. Now, this is important because, yes I agree with John Piper that there should be reverence in our worship of God and sometimes we might seem to lose that with a casual flippancy. He is our Lord and King. He is the awesome, infinite, eternal creator. I hope that we regularly have that in mind. However, we surely need to find ways to bring that reverence for God into the whole of life, not just Sundays and I’m not convinced that whether or not you are drinking coffee as the service starts in going to change that.
On a practical note, some of us meet in buildings with no special rooms. We hire schools and hotel rooms. We don’t have different places to serve refreshments. It all happens in the one place.
Returning to the bigger theme. It’s fascinating to consider how we think of our church gatherings. I was surprised at how many people seemed to see food and drink as out of place in a gathering of God’s people. After all, the early church seem to have mostly met at meals. Indeed, in terms of encountering God whilst eating, it seems to be that God himself chooses to encounter us at meal times. In the Old Testament, we have God sending food from heaven and water from a rock, which Paul insists is Christ himself. Jesus often encountered people over meals.[1] So, we’ve found over the years that there is in fact something special about worship and teaching in the context of food, such as at the Café style gatherings we’ve held over the years.
Of course, the ultimate evidence that God not only allows us to encounter him in the context of meals but chooses to meet us there himself and to feed us himself is communion. Maybe the problem is not so much that we are drinking too much coffee and eating too many biscuits at church as that we aren’t eating enough bread and drinking enough wine.
But here’s the point. It is possible to have a meal together in which the host is revered and respected. It is possible to enjoy food and drink when we gather as God’s people without losing anything from the gathering. In fact, I want to suggest that if it encourages a sense of this being a family meal with the king and if it reminds us that we have come not just for physical food but also the greater spiritual food then that’s a good thing.
[1] For more, see Tim Chester, A meal with Jesus and Michael Ovey, Feasts of Repentance.
Faithroots 
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