A Place at the Table

Who has a place at the table?

If the meal is in your home or another private venue, the answer to that question is probably People I like, or at least people I’m happy to tolerate for a time. If, however, the meal is around the Lord’s Table on a Sunday morning, the answer to the question “Who has a place at the table?” is more likely At least a few folks with whom I’d rather not share a meal. We say all are welcome, and I think we mean it; nonetheless we enter into this assembly with people we may struggle to accept for one reason or another. It probably has something to do with their personality or their views or their attendance patterns. In any case, the servers just hand over the bread and wine with a smile, don’t they? It seems like an awful lot of grace for such a motley crew.

Incidentally, have you noticed that it’s easier to identify someone else’s flaws than your own? Have you noticed that the speck in your neighbor’s eye is more apparent than the plank in yours?[1] We’re adept at making judgments about people, often quite quickly, that drive a wedge between friend and stranger, insider and outsider, worthy and unworthy.

It’s a tale at least as old as the New Testament. “This fellow [Jesus] welcomes sinners and eats with them,” the Pharisees and scribes complain in today’s Gospel from Luke. As defenders of the status quo, they aim to discredit him. If proper standing in the community depends on what or whom we avoid, then Jesus forfeits his legitimacy by associating with undesirables. He can’t possibly be a holy man if he befriends the unholy.

Jesus responds to their critique by telling two stories– the twin parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Belonging in the communion of saints is not a matter of measuring up, as these little stories imply. Rather, belonging is the work of God, who, like a shepherd searching for a wayward animal or a housekeeper scouring every nook and cranny for a lost treasure, does not rest until each of God’s beloved is found. And when we are found, heaven rejoices.

It follows that Jesus’ fellowship with sinners and tax collectors makes perfect sense from a gospel perspective because it exemplifies “God’s powerful vision of the inclusive rather than exclusive new community [that is] breaking into the world….”[2] In the kingdom of God, worthiness by worldly standards is not a prerequisite for sharing a meal with the Lord, only hunger.

I’m reminded of a church in San Francisco that chose none other than the disapproving words in today’s Gospel for the engraving on their wooden communion table: “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” What a marvelous reversal, that what the world rejects, the host of this meal embraces. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” What a radical statement of invitation, insisting that everyone find a place of belonging at Christ’s table, regardless of merit.

Franciscan mystic Richard Rohr describes a massive 150-year-old cottonwood tree that stands on the grounds of the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico, where Rohr does his ministry in community:

New visitors [to the center] are drawn to [the tree] immediately, standing in its shade, looking upward into its mighty boughs. An arborist once told us that the tree might have a mutation that causes the huge trunks to make such circuitous turns and twists. One wonders how it stands so firmly, yet the cottonwood is easily the finest work of art that we have at the center, and its asymmetrical beauty makes it a perfect specimen for one of our organization’s core messages: Divine perfection is precisely the ability to include what seems like imperfection. Before we come inside to pray, work, or teach any theology, [the tree’s] giant presence has already spoken a silent sermon over us.[3]

“Divine perfection is precisely the ability to include what seems like imperfection.” Friends, we are all twisted branches, but we are rooted firmly in Christ the Vine.[4] In the community that gathers in his name, barriers between insider and outsider, deserving and undeserving, sinner and saint collapse. All that’s left is the joy of sharing a meal. If we once were lost, now we are all found together at the Lord’s Table. And, our unity by God’s grace is truly a cause for celebration, both in heaven and on Earth.

[1] Luke 6:41.

[2] members.sundaysandseasons.com/Home/TextsAndResources#resources.

[3] The Universal Christ, 55-6.

[4] John 15:5.