Eucharistic Meditation, September 5

1 Kings 4:21-24

As we saw in today?s sermon, the center of Solomon?s kingdom was the feast, the feast of joy. Solomon organized the kingdom, divided the kingdom into districts, selected men to manage and administer these regions. He had a cabinet, and there is no doubt that his kingdom was a model of efficiency, an efficiency that, by the Queen of Sheba?s testimony, was like a beautifully choreographed dance. All this was true. But the center of Solomon?s kingdom, and the point of all the arrangements and organization was still the feast, the feast of joy.

These few verses shed remarkable light on this fact in a number of ways. These verses begin and end with a description of the extent of Solomon?s kingdom, but in the middle is a description of the bread that Solomon laid on his table each day. That may seem random: What does Solomon?s rule over the nations have to do with the food on his table? There is a practical connection, since the nations that Solomon ruled provided some of the food that he ate. But there is also a theological and symbolic connection.

The list of food products at the center of these verses includes two forms of grain products, fine flour and meal, and seven sorts of animals: fat oxen, pasture-fed oxen, sheep, deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl. Importantly, Solomon?s table was filled not only with the domesticated animals that were the staples of Israel?s diet and their sacrificial system, but also wild animals, clean but undomesticated animals.

This gives us a clue to the link between Solomon?s dominion and Solomon?s table. According to the Torah, sacrificial animals represent Israel, and wild animals represent various sorts of Gentiles. Clean wild animals represent converted Gentiles, and so Solomon?s consumption of wild animals pictures his dominion. Just as Gentile nations have been incorporated into Solomon?s kingdom, made part of his political body, so the animals that represent Gentiles are incorporated into Solomon?s own body.

And in this too Solomon is a new Adam. Adam was given the world to rule, and he was given the world to eat, and the two are connected. It is quite biblical to say that the whole point of human life is to rule the world in order to turn it into ?food,?Eto transform creation to make it humanly consumable, to transform the world so that it brings delight and life to man, as he receives it all in thanksgiving to God.

And this is manifest here at the Lord?s table. The Lord?s table shows us the goal and direction of all human history. History is moving toward a feast, and one day all the labor and invention and cultural activity of every sort will come to its fulfillment in the marriage supper of the lamb. We already participate in that, and as we eat bread and drink wine at this table, we are anticipating the feast of joy that is the goal of all dominion and rule, the feast of joy that is given because a greater Adam and a greater Solomon has already subdued all things in heaven and earth to Himself.