Pax Romana was hardly peaceful for the peasants subject to the rule of the Romans.  Massacres in Palestine under the Roman Empire were commonplace.  Jesus himself would be caught up in the violence, labeled a threat to peace, and executed. In the midst of this violence what did Jesus do?  He ate with people.  Jesus ate with ALL the wrong people.  Jesus ate with Jews and Romans, women and men, tax-collectors, prostitutes, little children, and samaritans.  Jesus ate with people he disagreed with.  Jesus dined with Roman soldiers and pharisees.  What would that look like today?  What would it look like for the House and Senate leadership to come together for a potluck?  What if in response to the attack in downtown Washington this week, the leadership of the LGBT Center of Washington and the Family Research Council sat down for dinner? This is why we come here each week.  At St. John's Church, we do not agree about everything.  We are from different parties, and backgrounds, and we just do not agree.  But we come, we gather around this table.  We received Jesus, and we practice his radical table fellowship each week.  To borrow a phrase from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, we participate in "solidarities not of our own choosing."  We come to break bread together, and to eat with people we don't agree with, that we might learn the grace, forgiveness, and peace of Christ. There is an old Cherokee legend about a Grandfather teaching his