Hispanic Heritage Month: My Abuela’s Mesa

Scripture – Acts 2:46 (NASB) 

Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.

Devotion 

Three thousand people were pierced to the heart after listening to Peter’s message about Jesus. What must we do? was the question they posed. After a wave of repentance, forgiveness, and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, they began to redraw the lines of their community. They did the most ordinary and mundane of things: they ate together.

My Abuela (grandmother) was my first theologian. She was a pillar in our Nicaraguan church and spiritual mother to children, grandchildren, and other people’s children, young and old. One thing she did well was cook black bean soup. At my abuela’s mesa (table) she labored over the soup prep and served it with love. Feeding bodies and feeding souls was both theological and social work for her. She fed her family and she fed people in times of crises after earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, or times of food insecurity. It was her work and it was her witness. She was not financially rich by any means, but her cooking was driven by an inner communal ethic to share much like I see in this communal story in Acts.

You never knew who was going to show up at our table, but often more guests arrived than who we were expecting. In our Nicaraguan consciousness, we have a way of life where you don’t turn guests away at the dinner hour. If there was not enough food, my Abuela simply whispered: “Echale más agua a la sopa” (add more water to the soup) to make it multiply!

This was a leadership lesson from my Abuela’s Mesa. I often heard her say this if she was feeding someone in need who knocked on our door begging for food: “Donde comen 2, comen 3”: where 2 people eat, 3 people can eat. It was a modern miracle like the fish and the loaves that lived in my abuela’s mesa. Her mesa was generous, filling, full, joyful, sacrificial sharing of her time and resources, however abundant or scarce. Food was a love language and food was a sign and wonder of God’s Spirit.

In this seemingly utopian community in Acts, I see God gathering a new familia around tables where everyone had bread and people belonged. This was a Spirit-spoken story where the Spirit is the Story-Maker and the people are the Story-Tellers. This is a boundary-breaking God bringing together those who otherwise would not have eaten together before. It was simple work. It was a scandalous table. It was work to set the table and share the table. This is a work of the Spirit to sit at Spirit-filled Mesas where the black bean soup is the aroma of Christ.

Reflect

What is your favorite meal and what memory do you have associated with it?

Tell that story.

Act

Invite someone to eat that you never have eaten with before (safely, socially distanced!). Ask them what their favorite childhood meal was and cook it for them. Share the table. Listen to their stories. 

Pray

God of the tables, the mystery of Christ is that the presence of Christ is at the Lord’s table—and so it is at our food tables if our eyes are open to see you. As you promise us your presence, may we have eyes to see your presence through the person eating across from us at our work tables or home tables. May our faith increase by the food that we eat together with others. May we be present to you, oh God, and may we be present to others at our unhurried and undistracted tables. May others be seen and known by you in how we are present to them. May we sit at tables to feed our bodies and feed our souls, and in so doing, may we see you in our common humanity. Amen.

Sign up to receive a Life for Leaders devotional each day in your inbox. It’s free to subscribe and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Commentary on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: The Economics of Radical Generosity (Acts 2:45; 4:34-35)