by Linda Daniels-Block

Padded folding chairs were a premium item in my family because we celebrated holidays with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins. One year, Mom got this great idea that we could get everybody around one table if we put the ping-pong table atop the pool table and used white sheets for tablecloths. That year, the kids sat with the adults. And though our chins bumped against the table as we ate, we were still all together at the meal.

I loved my cousins and hated it if they couldn’t be there. We laughed, ate too much, and tried to keep our chins up. Family stories were told, unchecked by any requirement of accuracy, and we screamed with laughter. I knew this year, at age 53, I had finally become a grown-up when we bought our second set of padded folding chairs. There will always be room at our table.

Jesus loved big meals, and he invited everyone to the table. In Luke 14, Jesus, a guest eating with Pharisees, tells a story about a man giving a banquet and inviting his chosen guests. When the food is ready, a servant is sent out to tell those the host invited to come and eat. When they all give reasons why they can’t come, the disappointed host sends the servant out again and again, to bring in the "poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame." The host decided to fill his table with strangers, angry that those he invited wouldn’t come.

This is one of our congregation family’s favorite stories — one we live every Sunday as we bless the bread and wine. We say, "Jesus is the host of our table and freely welcomes one and all." We remember that this is not our table, and that we, too, are all welcomed guests. We recall the communion of saints, remembering those who have died and the generations to come. Around this table — the Lord’s Table — space and time disappear.

We help new guests find their way through. Our assisting ministers carry bread and wine to those who have trouble walking or those who couldn’t attend the service for one reason or another. Our young people act as servers. We try, Sunday after Sunday, to remember whose table this is, and that, as Jesus talks about banquets and breaking bread, he is teaching us what God’s table looks like in God’s new reign — the Kingdom of God.

After the meal we look around and ask: Who is not at the table? Where are our community’s forgotten ones? Has anyone checked on them lately? Martin Luther said that evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

Because we are a God’s Table congregation, we want to have plenty of padded folding chairs and to make sure that every beggar knows where the bread is. We know our place: We are servers, bakers, bussers, dishwashers. We see in Luke 14 that the host has very strong feelings about having a full banquet, and we carry this invitation out to the people.

We know of the host’s ability to multiply food and wine, to miraculously make more than enough for all, so we work to become a center for this kind of mission. We collect food and baby items for a local mental health program to distribute to at–risk families. Social workers call in their needs, and we ask worshipers and neighbors to donate. We conduct community fundraisers for shelters and invite our worshipers to ask their companies to donate computers and other supplies for local non–profits. We have become known in our neighborhood as "that little church that does so much."

We have a table marked "God’s Table" in the Welcome Room, the narthex, with information about all the different ministries people can support. Parishioners pick up these sheets and carry them out to work, to neighbors, to garage sales.

As a God’s Table congregation, our statement is very simple: "We exist for the sake of others." The task is not how do we take better care of ourselves and become more secure. The task of a God’s Table congregation is to build one another up in the power of this amazing Gospel so that we can bring in other hurting beggars and get them to a place where the host can feed and heal them. We don’t have to go far to find forgotten ones. They are among us, people we love, concealing pain, waiting for someone to listen. We describe them as the ones not yet here.

What we have tried to do in these years of transformation is to get our priorities straight, to have our theology and mission grow out of the host’s desires and commands. We have learned that when we foolishly think that "this is my church," or that "this is our table," we get in God’s way. We start inviting only the ones we like, and the forgotten ones disappear. It is a long and often painful transformation to deeper discipleship, to learning to love being a server or a busser or an inviter for the host’s banquet. We find we quickly return to being self–absorbed if we are not frequently reminded, so we invite community workers to speak to us plainly about their desperate needs.

Mainly, we pray. We ask the Holy Spirit to lead us and show us where to go and where to not go. Years ago, when I was called to a leadership development position in the ELCA, I called one of my mentors. I asked her what was essential, and I will never forget her response: "Every morning I wake up and ask God what is it essential that I do today, and what is it absolutely essential that I not do today." What would change for you if you and your congregation prayed each day and asked God, "What is essentially important to the host of the banquet today? What is absolutely not important?"

Jesus’ stories and teachings about banquets in God’s new reign are typically Jesus, typically outrageous. Jesus always pushes our comfort boundaries. If we knew, coming to this banquet, how much Jesus would push those boundaries, would we have accepted the invitation to the table? Did we become self-absorbed, rather than Christ-absorbed? No person or congregation can simply be Christian and rest there. Sitting at the feast table, feeling stuffed ourselves, but failing to invite the "poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame" is sin — plain and simple.

Do you know someone you can invite to this meal? Someone you might have forgotten or someone you didn’t even realize was hungry? As a God’s Table congregation, energized by the Holy Spirit, we have decided to stand up and declare whose table this altar really is.