I have been really focused on the idea of “the table” lately. Not so much because I just want to eat at one, although I do enjoy that. But mainly the idea of the table as an extension of the Church ministry; a picture that is very compelling to me, as well as being able to answer the questions, “Is everyone invited to the table, and does everyone have a seat at the table?”
This has prompted a November sermon series in the two churches I serve called, “At the Table” in which we are wrestling with these questions in our own context by looking at times in the Bible when Jesus sat down with people at a table to eat. There are many times in Scripture where we see the importance of sitting down together and sharing a meal. I believe that this can be a holy act, and the table can be so much more than just a wooden structure that holds our food. It can be a holy setting where God is indeed with those gathered together in eating, drinking, and conversation.
Luke 5:27-32 recounts Jesus calling Levi to “come, follow me.” And Levi does. He leaves his tax collector booth, his job, his way of life, and he takes off to follow this itinerant preacher as the newest disciple.
But we are also told that Levi does something else, he throws Jesus a party! And he invites all his friends. But since Levi was a tax collector, those are the only friends he has, and so he invites them to the party. All of this causes a stir for the religious leaders of the day, the Pharisees, and so they ask Jesus’ disciples a question.
“Why do you eat with and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
It’s a great question, and one that the disciples don’t even get a chance to answer because Jesus jumps in with the answer. And before we look at what Jesus said, I want us to think about our own tables for a minute. The literal tables where we eat with family and friends, as well as the metaphorical table of the church’s hospitality and invitational outreach. Do the people at our tables look just like us, think just like us, vote just like us, sin just like us, or do we have a variety of different people at the table?
I am convinced more every day, that Jesus is the table setter and that we are simply supposed to extend the invitation to others to come to a table that we have not prepared, that we have not set, and that we do not get to pick and choose who gets invited, or even how they respond.
I wonder if more people who disagreed about more things would sit down at a table and eat together, could they come together? I don’t mean would one person be able to change another person’s mind, I just mean would they be more likely to accept the differences that they encounter, and find more common similarities that they share. Could it be that what we have in common is more than what we differ on? I don’t want to oversimplify this, and I know that there are so many very important things that we disagree on, even in the Church. I am just wondering if maybe our role as the Church, the Body of Christ, is to be more of an inviter-to-the-table as opposed to a discerner-of-who-gets-to-eat.
I know that many of us, deep down inside, want to welcome all people to the table, especially the ones we deem as the “sinners”. After all, that is how Jesus responds to the Pharisees question. He in turn answers them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32).
But I also believe that only the Physician can provide the diagnosis. Last week I was talking to a 3rd grader who told me she had asthma. I asked if the doctor gave her an inhaler to use. “Oh, a doctor didn’t tell me I have asthma,” she answered, “I looked up my symptoms on the computer and I figured it out myself”.
Sometimes I think we treat other people the way that this little girl treated her symptoms. And the result is not good. It’s not up to us to diagnose others, only God can do that. We don’t have the right, or the spiritual diagnoses capabilities, to exclude others from the table because they sin differently than we do. And we don’t have the right, as the Church, to determine how long those sinners can come to the table before they change in the way in which we deem that they should.
We are just asked to share a table with others. To love them and accept them as children of God. If you disagree with me, I hope that sometime soon we can share a table together and talk, eat, and drink in holy conversation. May God bless your tables this week.
