Btw, would you say this kind of dynamic is actually embraced by any kind of church(es) today?
Unfortunately, in at least one way, this sort of dynamic was lost when certain bishops in the early church began forbidding
agape-meals. It seems that originally, the liturgy consisted of the Eucharistic formal service at the beginning, followed by a community meal (patterned after the Jewish Shabbat meal on Friday nights, where the formal, ritual consumption of bread and wine is followed by a more casual full meal). It's unclear if the
agape-meals were eaten immediately following the liturgical service or if they met again later in the day, although I suspect practices varied from region to region. Anyhow, that community meal seems to have been the chief symbolic act of giving back, first to Christians, and second to the wider community, which was followed throughout the week through acts of community service, especially in times of famine and plague (Wayne Meek's
The First Urban Christians and Rodney Stark's
Cities of God are probably the best readable accounts of early Christianity's growth through community service and charitable giving).
When these
agape-feasts following the Eucharistic liturgy seemed to grow out of hand into more bawdy feasting and became associated with more charismatic, anti-catholic sects within the wider Christianity community (like the Montanists), the official church leaders (the bishops) began to crack down on them. This was especially true in areas where the connection between the Eucharist and the
agape-meal was severed, as it was by Cyprian's time (mid-thirty century). They remained around in places prominent enough that they were condemned at the local Council of Laodicea (364), although they show up from time to time in later records.
The eastern Christian communities, Orthodox and Oriental, have retained some purely symbolic aspects of the
agape. After the bread and wine have been consumed in the Eucharist and the liturgy is over, the excess bread is distributed to the people as they leave church (called the Bread of Peace, or Pax Bread). In Ethiopian services I've attended, there is some feasting to which I- clearly not Ethiopian Orthodox- was invited following their Easter Monday services. I'm not an expert on contemporary practices, but I've heard that this may stand in direct continuity with those ancient practices of
agape going back to Jerusalem.
Monasteries that take in visitors are probably the best examples of this practice being carried out in the form of meals. At Mount Athos, for instance (a mountainous peninsula of northern Greece with a collection of twenty-some-odd monasteries representing churches across the Orthodox world, and one of the chief spiritual centers of Orthodoxy), visitors are invited to services in the morning and evening which are followed with breakfast and dinner during which Scripture is read. The meals are delicious and hearty but simple and the only cost is an administrative fee for admission to Athos (about twenty dollars for three days room and board).
The only revival I personally know of is that at Grace Lutheran Church in San Diego (LCMS) and an ELCA church I attended a few times in either Carlisle or Dillsburg PA. In the former, the parish regularly gathers its offering of food (usually in the form of sandwiches made earlier that morning by parishioners or the night before with bread that, unleavened, is also used for the Eucharist) and spends Sunday afternoon going into the lower income parts of San Diego to hold services where sandwiches and soup (not really suitable for offering in the middle of the service, you understand) are distributed. In Pennsylvania, the ELCA church did something similar at the conclusion of a canned food charity drive, where a symbolic number of the cans (there were many that couldn't fit) were placed in and around the chancel (that area where the altar stands) before they would be denoted.
Moravians (the Reformed Hussite denomination from Bohemia) and, following their lead, the Methodists head Love Feasts at which they studied the scriptures in small groups over a meal, and the Methodist practice has involved the small group Bible study now omnipresent in evangelical circles (as well as Lutherans, Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians- we all have the Methodists to thank for those). However, despite the name, I don't think there is any connection to either the Eucharist or to charitable giving or any historic connection to the ancient
agape-feasts, so it really doesn't count as an example (despite being a good practice).
I'm sure some Catholic parishes do similar things, since the Catholic Church is, besides the largest Christian denomination, also the largest charitable organization in the history of the world.
These, in my mind, are just first steps in the recovery of an authentic practice of the early church. The full connection between offering, Eucharistic, meal, and giving- the full four-fold pattern- isn't entirely evident in any of the contemporary examples I've given, however wonderfully generous they are. We're just beginning to see a scholarly appreciation of the role of this fourfold pattern in the rapid rise of Christianity, and I hope that that appreciation will lead churches to readopt the practice. I think it also helps cut across the formal/casual divine in the same way a Jewish Shabbat service does. It also offers time for questions on the liturgy that
just happened in a casual atmosphere that affirms both casual and formal forms of community bonding. I'd love to see a full, hearty meal accompanied by readings, teachings, and song follow every smells-and-bells high church liturgy.
) and after the Liturgy they are blessed and we all have a Feast together. And then, in our parish at least, we come back together on Pascha afternoon for Agape Vespers and a picnic.
