Tables
Who can resist a beautifully illustrated cookbook or a flat of freshly picked ripe raspberries or a fabulous display of garden produce at a farmer’s market in the peak of summer? Food is so much more than daily sustenance and tables are so much more than places to gather for eating together.
It isn’t just the beauty of a well-tended table, carefully set with cloth and candle, flower and fruit. Neither is it only the creative satisfaction and culinary delight over preparing beautiful food to grace the table. Nor is it entirely the rich collection of memories shaped and shared around the many tables of our lives. It’s all these things and so much more.
Our first table was a wedding gift. To that table, we brought memories of life together around earlier tables in our lives—farm tables laden with food at harvest time; an old and weathered picnic table where we cracked crab and feasted on fish on the island where I grew up; kitchen tables, coffee tables, communion tables.
Around these many tables, we heard family stories and re-lived family memories. Sometimes there were heated debates and arguments. Always there were prayers of thanks and acknowledgement that the food, the bonds of belonging, and the rituals were gifts from a generous and gracious God. We knew the table to be sacred space, holy ground, a benediction. We knew that food and drink were not only for us but to be shared and celebrated with friends, with strangers, with outsiders, and most of all with those who were hungry. Along the way, we learned that we ourselves were to be food and drink for one another.
Food and feasting are major biblical themes and the table is about holy hospitality. It’s a welcome place, a threshold inviting us to be part of something larger than ourselves. In the tents of our Old Testament ancestors, guests at the table were safe from the attack of enemies—”You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Hospitality meant being welcomed and protected by a loving God.
God spreads a banquet at the many tables of our lives. God invites us to welcome one another, to be God’s hands, to be little Christs, to bear one another’s burdens. Our tables should be places for welcoming strangers, outsiders, people with whom we might disagree, those who may make us uncomfortable or be very different from familiar friends and family. In this way, our tables reflect God’s table, a place of welcome for all. At God’s table and at our tables, we share a common longing for meaning and for leading lives that matter. These are tables where the face of God is revealed to us, where no one is excluded, where all are forgiven, fed, and welcomed. These are the tables where we experience the mystery of the source of life.
The tables of our lives come in all shapes and sizes and they convey so much more than fine food, important conversations, places for gathering. Tables are for making time for one another, for being present, for paying attention. God is here! God meets us at these sacred tables—inviting us to be food and drink for one another, inviting us to welcome the stranger and feed the hungry, welcoming us to be part of the body of Christ. Holy hospitality is God’s gift, the welcome table we’re all invited to share. Taste and see the goodness of God!
Taken from Benedictions. Copyright 2016 by Julie K. Aageson. All rights reserved. Used with permission of the author.