When I was growing up in an American Baptist church, we often had meals at the church. We called them “dish to pass meals.” I’ve head others refer to them as “covered dish meals” and “pot luck meals.” The idea seems to be the same. Everyone brings some food to share and people eat together. While I haven’t done much research to verify, personal conversations suggest to me that this is a common enough practice among various Christian churches that it could almost be universal. I also suspect (again, without research data) that it’s common in most religions. After all, religion has traditionally been about communal identity and bonding. What better way to bond than over the sharing of food.

One of the things that I appreciate about Paganism is that Paganism often recognizes the importance of these communal feasts, often raising them to the level of religious observance in their own right.¹ Often, the feast even becomes part of Pagan rites.

And again, this is where I look at the Heathen/Norse Pagan sumbel. While the rite itself may not involve feasting (though it involves a significant amount of drinking), feasts before or after the sumbel are pretty common. And the sumbel itself involves multiple rounds of drinking in community and making toasts and boasts as well as making oaths. And while much of this is done to honor the gods, ancestors, and wights, many have also commented on the community building and bonding aspect of the sumbel.

(This post is part of #ChaningPathsChallenge2024. For more information about the challenge and a list of topics, see Yvonne Aburrow’s post announcing it.)

Footnotes

1. I should note that I was raised Baptist and Baptists are notoriously anti-liturgy. So there may be more liturgical or liturgy-friendly churches who do see their feasts (by whatever name they call them) an act of religious observance too. I just personally switched to Paganism before I encountered that mindset. ↩︎