This is a ritual meal, and in one sense we may say that this is all it is. The problem with the expression, though, is that such a statement would almost certainly be heard as a minimizing or reductionist statement. Those who want or need it to be more than such a “minimal meal” then resort to metaphysical speculations about what is really going on here on “the spiritual plane.” One group says that this is just a ritual, and the assumption that goes along with this kind of statement is that rituals are not important, that rituals by their very nature are empty and hollow. Another group, in order to resist this minimalization, invests this meal with all kinds of importance, imported from elsewhere. Both groups believe that ritual, considered as such, is not efficacious or potent. One group goes along with the demotion, and the other group fights it by calling in metaphysical mercenaries from other realms and kingdoms.
But this meal is a symbol that challenges and throws down all earthly symbols. It is a ritual that offers defiance to all idolatrous rituals. It is a sacrament that defines the world with Christ at the center, instead of Caesar, or Mammon, or Amusement, or Sex, or Power.
This sacrament, when rightly understood, and offered in evangelical faith, establishes a new city center. This is where and how the believing Church assumes the center. Believers come into a town, or village, or city, and they begin worshipping God the Father through Christ. When they do this as Christians, as citizens of the heavenly city, they are mounting a challenge to all the gods, to all the idols. If they do it in unbelief, as practitioners of a sect or mystery religion, they are trying to have it both ways. They want the food and nourishment offered by a personal Savior, Jesus, but they do not want to claim (in public at any rate) that King Jesus has established a royal feast, the new center of the new city. But we are not among those who shrink back. As we eat and drink in meekness, we inherit the earth.