Gathered to a Good Meal

"In Remembrance of Me" by Walter Rane

Nothing brings people together quite like good food. Food is a highlight of many of our activities, our holidays and our culture. We celebrate each other with birthday cake. Families come together to reflect on shared blessings over turkey and mashed potatoes. Church events are rarely held without homemade brownies or an ice cream sandwich. At professional conferences, much of the networking and business is conducted over a meal, drinks and hors d’oeuvres, or some hotel’s idea of cheesecake.

When we are sharing a meal with others, we cannot help but tap into a deeper source of connection. We all need food to live. Our bodies are made of the cells created from and nourished by the food we eat. Sharing our food is sharing our vulnerable humanity. It implies an equality, trust and cooperation that helps us feel closer to our families, our associates, or even those we may not have known when the meal began. Breaking bread with one other can soften our hearts and remind us of all we have in common. Oscar Wilde quipped that “after a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.”

The gathering of Israel is like a good meal. The Lord taught in a parable that “wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together; so likewise shall mine elect be gathered from the four quarters of the earth” (JS-M 1:27).

The elect of Israel will be gathered to the body of the church for the same reason as eagles gather for a meal: because there is meat for nourishment.

Speaking in 1938, President J. Reuben Clark, a counselor in the First Presidency at the time, spoke to Church educators about teaching the youth of the Church. His comments have many insights for parents and teachers, but the principles he taught apply to each of us and all of the elect of Israel. In that context of the broader elect the Lord has called us to gather, he said:

“The [elect] are hungry for things of the Spirit; they are eager to learn the gospel, and they want it straight, undiluted.

They want to know about the fundamentals [of the gospel]—about our beliefs; they want to gain testimonies of their truth…

[The elect] crave the faith their [friends or coworkers or family members] have; they want it in its simplicity and purity…

[The elect] already know that they must be honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and do good to all men… They should be encouraged in all proper ways to do these things which they know to be true…

[The elect] fully sense the hollowness of teaching which would make the gospel plan a mere system of ethics; they know that Christ’s teachings are in the highest degree ethical, but they also know they are more than this… They know that the gospel teachings touch not only this life but the life that is to come, with its salvation and exaltation as the final goal.

[The elect] hunger and thirst… for a testimony of the things of the Spirit and of the hereafter, and knowing that you cannot rationalize eternity, they seek faith and the knowledge which follows faith…

[They are] working on toward a maturity which they will… reach if you but feed them the right food” (James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. (1965-75), 6:44-58).

We live in a “wheat and tares” world. We are called to gather the elect into the barn—not for the barn’s sake, but rather so we may be “made perfect in one” and meet again at the Lord’s family dinner table. There it will not matter if one was a republican or a democrat; rich or poor; American, African or Asian; a sports fan or an artist or wrangler or a nerd. There we will be unified by our common, vulnerable humanity and grateful faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The elect will be gathered to the Church and its covenants, like we are gathered to a good meal, as we love those around us and share the meat of the pure and undiluted gospel with them. Jesus Christ is our Savior, our Creator, the Great Gatherer, and the gracious host of our great gospel feast.