Whom Would You Choose to Have Dinner With?

If you could choose to have a meal or even a coffee time or a glass of wine with anyone of your choice in all of history, who would it be? Whom would you like to have a conversation with, to ask questions of, to share experiences with? Yes, anyone! Who would be your choice? I suggest that this might be an interesting question to ask the next time you are in a group of interested friends. Or just take a moment to write down your own choices right now.

One choice for me would be my father. Not just to be able to say how grateful I am for the loving home of my growing up and for the gift of my life. But I have so many questions to ask? What was it like to leave home in England at 21 to come to America? What were your hopes and dreams? What was it like to meet my mother in Oregon? Tell me about being a minister experiencing the depression of the 1930s. What were your greatest satisfactions, disappointments? So many questions about our family and his feelings about life.

But I think the one person I would be most fascinated to meet would be James, Jesus’ brother. We know that Jesus grew up in a family of brothers and sisters. We also know that James became an important leader of the Jewish group in Jerusalem that were the first to experience the God presence after the death of his brother – that is known as Jesus’ resurrection. What was that transforming experience like? Tell me about Peter. Tell me about Jesus ministry as we call it, with followers we know as Disciples. Who were they and how many? How did the meals together become what we now know as the Eucharist? What was it like growing up with your brother? Tell me about your father and mother. May I take a selfie?

These are fun “what ifs.” What’s more important is that my own father is still a very real part of me. His presence is within me and always will be. And so too is Jesus presence within me, that God presence that was in Jesus so fully that those first Christians could only describe it as seeing God and Jesus as one.

Loren Bullock
January 29, 2015