...welcome, every single one

All who hunger, never strangers, seeker, be a welcome guest.

Come from restlessness and roaming. Here in joy, we keep the feast.

We who once were lost and scattered in communion’s love have stood.

Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.

---Sylvia Dunstan, 1990

Sylvia Dunstan, the writer of the hymn text for today’s meditation, spent the major portion of her cancer-shortened ministry as a prison chaplain. All along, until her death at 38, she wrote hymns of profound wisdom, celebrating the mystery of God and the welcome of God’s love. In this text, it seems evident that Dunstan’s decade in ministry to those imprisoned has informed her sense of the isolation and rootlessness experienced by so many on the fringes of society. Hungry, strangers, restless, roaming, lost, scattered (and in other verses wandering, empty, lonely, longing). Some in this population have alienated themselves from the mainstream of society, and others have been cast out by the mainstream. Obviously, Dunstan’s heart was for the castoff and cast out; there is pretty good evidence that God’s heart is, too.

If I’m honest today, the words Dunstan chose to relate the alienation from the ‘center’ are feelings I have felt from time to time. How about you? Who hasn’t wandered, felt empty, restless, lonely? Who hasn’t longed for…well, for something more than this?

Here, Dunstan says, here is the table, and we, all of us, all of them, are welcome. Every single one. And there is grace, starting now, overflowing and lasting forever. Enough for all of us, all of them. Everyone together.

Taste and see.

...beloved, and loving

All who hunger, sing together; Jesus Christ is living bread.

Come from loneliness and longing. Here, in peace, we have been led.

Blest are those who from this table live their days in gratitude.

Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.

---Sylvia Dunstan, 1990

Communion. Union. Community. From the Latin communio, ‘sharing in common’. This word, communion, speaks to the deep loneliness and longing for fellowship settled in the souls of so many of us, waking faint stirrings of…hope, maybe? There are so many periods of isolation and sequestration in this busy, noisy life---many of them in the midst of the noise and busy-ness of everyday life. So many days which stretch from end to end with no real human interaction breaking through workaday, rote communication, or days of solitary pursuits.

Into this lonesome landscape shines the chance to gather at the table of our Brother Jesus, eating and drinking of love and sacrifice, telling each other the stories that bind us to Christ and to each other. The table draws us---not strangers but family, not hurried and harried but grateful and blessing, not fearful of rejection but cherished and welcoming. This table calls us empty, and we feed each other. This table draws us, and sends us. This table makes of us beloved, and loving.

Oh, taste and see…

...come to the table

When we are walking, doubtful and dreading, 
blinded by sadness, slowness of heart,

yet Christ walks with us ever awaiting our invitation: 

stay, do not part.

---Susan Palo Cherwien, 1996

This lovely modern hymn, by contemporary poet Susan Palo Cherwien, is a meditation on the story usually called ‘The Road to Emmaus’. I kind of think it should be called ‘The House at the End of the Road to Emmaus’. Because friends, all the real fabulous-ness, all the wonder, all the eye-opening connection happened at the kitchen table in a little house at 223 Emmaus Way right about supper time. The travelers walked with the mysterious stranger all day, discussing current events and even Bible knowledge; but it wasn’t until pulling up chairs around a table laden with a thrown-together, just-got-home-from-vacation, raid-the-fridge-for-leftovers, broke-down feast that bridges began to be built between hearts.

Now, some of you who follow me on Instagram or Facebook know that I kinda like food (ok, I love it), and I especially love being able to share something lovely with other folks. I have two hashtags that I commonly use when posting about food: #cometothetable and #alwaysroomforonemore. These spell out my personal kitchen ethos. Good, good things happen around the table, when we drop our guard to pick up forks and mugs. Spending unhurried time together sharing a common meal lends itself to sharing our inner selves. Sometimes, just sometimes, our private fears and hopes and dreams become common bonds. And around this kind of table, friends, there is always room for one more. The welcome is warm, and the provision is plenty.

Around the table in the house at the end of the road to Emmaus, lingering over a last mug of chai and the heel of a loaf, their eyes were opened, and the travelers recognized Jesus.

Come to the table. Linger. With your eyes and heart open, you never know who you may see.

...I confess. And I believe.

God, let us be a bridge of care connecting people everywhere.

Help us confront all fear and hate and lust for power that separate.

When chasms widen, storms arise, O Holy Spirit, make us wise.

Let our resolve, like steel, be strong to stand with those who suffer wrong.

---Ruth Duck, 1991

I confess today. I have been small, and I have limited my idea of God to smallness. I have hated those who were other, and feared those I hated…or did it work the other way around? I don’t want power in my own hands, that is too heavy a thing; I just want things to work the right way, my way. I confess this yearning for a finger in the pot.

My God, I pray for the things that separate me from serving and standing resolutely with those who suffer to yield to wisdom from you. I pray for the fears and doubts that keep me shackled when I should be about kingdom business to yield to the floods of your hope and healing love.

And I believe. I believe that at your table, transformation is an everyday miracle, and grace is served at every meal. We may come to the table as strangers, lonely and weak and worn, but we leave as friends, strengthened for the challenges of building family and standing with each other.

I confess. And I believe.

...the table for everyday saints

Here we nurture and encourage as we share this common meal,

While we foster deep communion and our inner selves reveal.

---Larry E. Schultz, 2004

The starting blocks. The finish line. The beginning and the end. In the life of faith, communion serves both as birthing moment and gathering-in, as jumping-off and destination.

When our faith is new, and we are building our muscles of believing and living the life of love to which we have been called, the table provides communal strength and model for our growth. The saints with whom we share the love feast are there to hold our hands during our first tentative steps, to dust us off and brush away our tears after our falls and false starts. As our faith matures, as hopefully it will, we combine drawing strength from the communion of saints with offering our own to those who walk beside and  follow after us --- encouraging, guiding, offering grace, nurturing growth --- always finishing the course where it began, at the table of love.

For this table, for this feast, to nourish us as it could, for its communion to be true and deep, each place must be set as a safe place for the nakedness of honesty to rest, a place where we dare to reveal who we really are to each other. Where we seek to know each other in all our complexity. We must trust each other that much around the table…and being known, and knowing, must matter that much.

That table, everyday saints. Start to finish. Your place is saved. Come home.