It’s likely all of us have memories of a table.
Some table that we sat at for a while, perhaps that we sat at for years. Can you imagine it? Can you remember such a table in your life? Here, today, now, we’re invited to take a step farther, and reflect on what might be that greatest table? The table at which we are all invited to sit. What is that table for us? For you?
For me first it is that old picnic table. But, now, a couple of years have passed, and really, it is becoming the cherry table in our dining room. It didn’t work so well when it was really shiny and new. But, now it has gotten a few nicks in it and one very long scratch of mysterious origin. And somehow those signs of use are beginning to make it ours. Or, perhaps we’re beginning to belong to it. I think there’s a hint of something in noticing that, and how it needs to be a specific table.
So, while we can imagine a great table out in the heavens somewhere, a table that belongs to all, and from which no one is turned away, the truth appears to be a little bit closer to home. If we want to find that greatest table, we don’t need to send a rocket ship to the stars. Rather, we just need to go to our own homes. Or, even, to the tables set up in our parlors for the Friday evening potlucks, or, the tables set up for our Thanksgiving dinner here.
For me the lesson here, the take away, is that the actual real table that we go to, whether it a grand and expensive thing, whether it be a picnic table, whether it be a folding table in one of the church’s parlors, that table is the greatest table.
It partakes in the same mystery that manifests as our liberal faith. You know how each of us, as we are, are unique and precious beyond words. But, and, at the same time we share in this life completely, totally, without reservation. We are all connected, we are all relatives.
And we are all gathered around a table. It is that table where the one and the many, where our uniqueness and our shared existence come together. And it is found in any table, at any table where we laugh or cry or share ourselves and maybe a bite of something particularly yummy. Me, I’m so looking forward to that cranberry sauce out of the can, where just before it is served you can see the little rings from when the jell set in the can. Its an art to get that out without wrecking it. I’m sure we all have something special at that table.
Here’s the take away, or a part of it. This whole thing taken together, the whole project, all the images are meant to point to one thing. Love. This table is about love. And, how no one is turned away within the bonds of love.
That easy. That hard.
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