Suppertime
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Lauri Anne Jacobs
“When I was a boy, in the days of childhood, I used to play till evening shadows come. Then winding down an old familiar pathway I heard my mother call at set of sun. Come home, come home it’s suppertime. The shadows lengthen fast, come home, come home it’s supper time. We’re going home at last.”
That is the verse and chorus from the old southern gospel song Suppertime. That seems to be a good old tradition that is fading away, just like many of our old-fashioned family things we did growing up.
Supper was always the meal where everyone gathered as a family and sat down together to eat. When I was growing up, we sat down as a family every single night for supper. My brother, sister, and I had to take turns doing the dishes. We would beg Mama and Daddy to cook hamburgers on whoever’s turn it was to wash the dishes because that meant less dishes. They did not pay us naughty kids any attention. It was the start that put good work ethic and discipline in us. We did not like it, but we knew we had better get it done or we would face the unwanted consequences. With the nuclear family unit being destroyed, families do not gather for supper and children are not disciplined or made to do chores.
With the society living fast-paced lives, supper is no longer a family gathering. It is grabbed and eaten on the run, and mainly in cars. Kids are fed from food in a wrapper and never taught to wash a dish. Just as the gathering of the evening meal is fading, the term supper is fading too. In the south it has always been called breakfast, dinner, and supper. With the infiltration of city folk, it is now being called breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I always remind people that it was called the Lord’s supper, not the Lord’s dinner, and if it was good enough for the Lord, it is good enough for you!
In the Bible, we read of people gathering for the evening meal. It was a time of hospitality and fellowship. The Passover meal and the Last Supper or the Lord’s Supper are two examples. The wedding feast was a parable of an evening meal Jesus used to describe his relationship with the church. The further society drifts away from God, the more these valued traditions fade into the background. Let us not forget how important gathering together for suppertime is. It is the time in the evening to come together as a family unit and see how everyone’s day went, and so on. It keeps the family bonded. It is easy to drift apart when there is no time to bond. The Devil loves to tear families apart, so something as simple as gathering together for suppertime and bonding can keep him from getting a foothold.
