So much happens when we come to the table. Our children have done years of homework while having a snack and I prepared dinner. Puzzles have been completed at the table. Bills have been paid at the table. And of course, meals have been eaten at the table.
Maybe this is why the table has become such a vital place to gather.
Something happens at the table – conversations are lengthier and more meaningful. The days’ events are unfolded. Connections are made and relationships forged.
Thinking about all this brought thoughts of other conversations and tables …
Jesus encountered Matthew, a tax collector, one day and bid him to come and follow Him. Immediately Matthew got up and went with Jesus.
Arriving at a house, Jesus was seated at a table with His disciples. Also seated at that same table were many tax collectors and sinners.
Some Pharisees came and questioned how Jesus was able to sit and eat with them. Jesus’ reply is stunning:
“It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’
for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
(Matthew 9:12-13, NASB)
“We do well to consider substantially increasing our spiritual, evangelistic, and social outreach to minorities, the homeless, prostitutes, addicts and pushers, gays and lesbians, AIDS victims, and the like, as well as to the more hidden outcasts such as divorcees, single parents, the elderly, white-collar alcoholics, and so on. We must get to know them as intimately as Jesus did – only close and trusted friends shared table fellowship over meals. We dare not join with sinners in their sinning, but we may well have to go places with them and encounter the world’s wickedness in ways that the contemporary Pharisees in our churches will decry.”
(from The New American Commentary, Vol. 22, page 157)
Those words should comfort and encourage us all. Jesus calls to each one of us to come to His Table. He will not turn anyone away when we come in sincerity and repentance.
We can come to His Table and bring all our sins, our worries, our hurts, and our questions. May we not let anything hinder us from coming to Him for we can talk to Him about it all.
It is at Jesus’ table we are offered peace, forgiveness, and faith.
May we offer a place at our tables as well,
and in so doing, be a display of Jesus.
Reflection:
What keeps you from coming to Jesus’ table? Who can you invite to your table?
Image by Erick Palacio from Pixabay
It is at the table where soul-connections are made - where relationship waters the seed - with food as simple as grilled cheese or hotdogs. The table has the potential to be such a holy meeting place! Your post hits a topic dear to my heart.
ReplyDeleteIt is so true - the food becomes secondary to the relationships, conversations, and bonds which are forged. You are right, Maryleigh, "the table has the potential to be such a holy meeting place." May it be so of our tables.
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