“At A table.”
Tonight, we are invited to sit at a table.
Not just any table, but the Table of the Lord. The Table of bread and wine, forgiveness and faith, humility and service. The table that was first set so many many years ago in a totally different time and situation and setting. But still, we are invited…. Again and again. And we need to come to that table.
Tonight, we are invited to sit at the table that was set so many years ago by a man who had some of his most memorable moments at tables. Not just memorable moments but lasting, yes everlasting moments. Moments that we still remember. Tables that we still remember and long to sit at.
At a Cana wedding, a family dinner with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, dinners with outcasts and uninvited, and tables with the disciples. And at the table of the last Supper.
The disciples did not know why, but the air in the house was thick. The days had swung from the miraculous Hosannas to the confrontational shouts, and they needed to take a few deep breaths just to process what they had seen, heard and felt.
Still, that night felt different. Jesus seemed more deliberate in his words. More intent. And intense.
It felt like the present moment and the possible future were colliding at that table. The air was thick with expectations, fear, faith, and most of all love.
We might remember other tables that we have sat at and dined at tonight.
Tonight we might remember the tables of our families and friends, where the sense of fellowship lifted the food; where the red wine resembled the very blood of passion and love and tasted like home; where every bite was delicious and delicate, and the essential soul food for us.
Like that marvelous table in Karen Blixen’s wonderful novel Babette’s Feast, where the elegant and wise General Loewenhielmʼs raises his glass and his booming voice to give one of the best speeches ever heard:
Mercy and truth, my friends, have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another. Man, my friends, is frail and foolish. We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and short-sightedness, we imagined divine grace to be finite. For this reason, we tremble. We tremble before making our choice in life, and after having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong. But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty. See! that which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. Ay, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly. For mercy and truth have met together and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another”
That was a speech given at a table where all was forgiven, everyone embraced, all was given, and everything was granted because mercy and truth, and righteousness met at that table and settled on each and every one.
That night the air was thick with wonder, love, and grace.
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Tonight we might also remember other tables that we have sat at and dined at.
The ones of families and friends, with all the broken relations, the shimmering soup of dislike and disappointment, the old secrets that are popping up just like the champagne cork, or the awkward silences or the poisonous words of disagreement. The tables where the air was thick with accusations, animosity, jealousy, anger, and even hatred.
The author Oscar Wilde once said: “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.”
To be honest, we hope and pray for that to be true, but we have all left tables where the animosity and anger were still present even after dessert and port vine!
The table that we heard about in the Gospel of John has all the drama of any table or any family.
Betrayal, disappointment, accusations, comparisons, neediness, sadness, and disloyalty.
Everything comes to the table when the 12 sits with Jesus.
But because Jesus not only sits at the table, but sets the table, - it certainly also has every component of compassion, commitment, humility, service, joy, faith, hope, and love. Because when Jesus sets the table righteousness and mercy meets.
The table that we heard about in the Gospel is where the disciples are gathered and some hard truths are revealed. A table where Jesus gives his last instructions to them: do this! Be like this! Live like this and love like this.
Share this meal as I share it with you.
Continue to share my life, my teachings, my death, my resurrection, my body, and my blood at the table.
Because even if God might seem inaccessible, fathomless, and incomprehensible, God is also:
God is also a man, whose name is Jesus, born in a middle eastern city, of a woman named Mary.
Firmly anchored in time and space, he walked the paths of Nazareth,
Ate plenty of roasted lambs and broke many baked pieces of bread, drank clear water and red wine, laughed warmly, and loved deeply.
God is also the man, whose name is Jesus, whom we meet tonight on the last day of his life. A day of fullness and food, table and taste, forgiveness and fear. A day of bread and wine, but also of water. A day of cleansing water.
God is also the man, who got dirty feet from walking the dusty roads and daring to step into people’s messy homes and lives.
God is also the man, who did not feel too good, or too godly to kneel and wash the feet of others.
God is at our table tonight.
And that table is always the table of connections, brokenness, and blessing. Sharing meals and sharing tables is one of the most uniquely human things we do. No other creature consumes its food at a table. And sharing tables with other people reminds us that there’s more to food than fuel. We do not eat only for sustenance.
As Christians, we are people who are blessed, broken, and given. This latter aspect reminds us that as God’s people, we are given to the world – called to be in the world and act in the world. Directly from our tables of unity, connection, forgiveness, and love – we are sent into the world.
We do not just gather at the table of our Lord to remember the past, we gather to take on tomorrow. For when we honor yesterday, we find tomorrow. And as the poet said:
“Come, look up with kindness yet. We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday but to take on tomorrow.
For wherever we come together, we will forever overcome.”