A mentor of mine the Rev. George Bell shocked me once by saying, “The cross is not the central image of Christianity for me. The table is the central image for me.” I never thought about it. As we talked, the more it made sense. George was an amazing pastor who gathered folk and got them talking and then blessed whatever plans they had.

Jesus was always around the table. He made sure that the kingdom of God is for all: saints, strangers, those who persecute and betray you, those who are joyful and those who weep. Jesus broke a lot of rules about who was allowed at the table and who wasn’t. He disregarded or simply didn’t care about what his society said about who you could and could not eat with.

The first century Palestinian table of Jesus’ time had all sorts of rules about it. There would be no chairs, instead you would have couches or cushions. You would recline at the table, and there would be fruit, bread, and some sort of “soup” which is a catch-all category that covers stew to hummus. More of a communal bowl. The place of honor was on the left-hand side of the table as you faced it. On either side of that would be the next place of honor. The place of least honor would be all the way down at the far end, the right side of the table. Last week’s text had Jesus remarking over how people jockeyed for the place of honor. Jesus says, “Just go to the right. Head to the place of least honor.”

Tables still feature large in our day. I remember my grandparents’ kitchen table. A grey laminate table with aluminum on the edge. It was practical and small, for everyday use. Then there’s the dining room table. A simple oak table used for Christmas, Easter, and funeral meals. My mom’s table right in the kitchen. That was our all-purpose table. We gathered around it for everything. We each had our own space at the table, our favorite spots. And the arguments my sister and I would get into should one of us take the other’s spot! Watch out!

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. I’m sure you have a table in mind. You can see who sat where. Who was at the head. How the table was decorated. What food would be on it. Can you picture it? Do you see it?

Pastor Eugene Peterson, who was from a small town in Montana, found himself far from home and any tables he knew while he was living in suburban Maryland. His wife, Jan, was from Alabama, a Southern culture where neighbors knew one another’s names but also their relations and all the stories that went with them. He and his wife loved their new lives yet they found it a little off-putting in some ways. Peterson writes, “There is little anonymity in a small town. This is not always a good thing. But it is probably preferable to this cultivated isolationism that we were experiencing in our suburban non-neighborhood.”^[1]

He developed his role as a pastor. He would preach and teach and visit and marry and bury. He would write books about getting truth revealed in Jesus and the scriptures incarnated in our ordinary days. While he was doing all of that, Jan cultivated hospitality. This was a hospitality that goes beyond making up beds and preparing meals. It was beyond the secular notion of the “hospitality industry” which is hotels, resorts, and retirement centers. This was more than a private “having the Smiths over for dinner.”

What Jan did was plant a garden and invite other people to help. They became faith friends. Then they grew things and gave the food to the needy. Others caught wind and joined up and then joined the church. Each person who walked through the doors of their new church was given a cup of coffee and conversation. No interrogation. No conditions. Just a “welcome.”

Eugene Peterson names in his book “The Pastor” that we are facing an epidemic of inhospitality. We see an increase of mobility with a consequent loss of place, tradition, and the rapid proliferation of technology that replaces personal interrelations with machines and computers. Paired with an increasingly frenetic pace of life that leaves little margin for intimacy, grace, and forgiveness… that spells disaster.

We have automated kiosks in McDonalds. There are self-checkout lanes in our grocery stores and retail shops. We’re automating our factories. We seem to be attempting to remove people from our daily lives. We’re doing a pretty decent job of it. It’s almost like the French philosopher Jean Paul Satre’s line, “Hell is other people” has become our mission statement.

In the book Death by Suburb, David Goetz talks about how the front porch used to be the social media platform of its day. We don’t see many of those on new houses. Now we have back decks. We have garages where we pull right into and lower the door and we don’t have to be bothered. We have doorbells with cameras so we can check who’s there.

There was this great tweet recently: Serial Killers must be having a hard time. Did you know that my mom just ANSWERS when someone knocks on her door?!

Hell is other people. Or can be. Sometimes. When we’re not at our best. When we’re carrying grief. When things are weighing us down. I have my moments. This has been a hard summer.

My nephew was supposed to come visit for a few days, but his best friend died of cancer. My mom’s dog ran away and got hit by a car. My cousin died suddenly. Dave Weber’s death has us all feeling down. It’s been rough. Where is our hope? What can we do?

The author of the epistle letter to the Romans reminds us and invites us to do as Jesus did–“do not be overcome with evil but overcome evil with good.” In the words of Jesus, “take up your cross and follow me.” This requires that we follow God’s way in offering a good meal at God’s table for all of God’s guests. We’re called to be at the table as Christ was at the table. At the table with different faiths, different traditions, races, socio-economic statuses. Men and women and children. Single folk and married and divorced. All of the above, around the table. But how we gather is important. There’s this little story that I might have mentioned before, but it illustrates why the table is so important to our life of faith. The parable goes like this:

A woman dies. She walks up to St. Peter at the gates who looks at his book and says, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Jesus has prepared a place for you, come right this way.”

Yet the woman had the gift of hospitality and compassion. She wanted to see hell before she went to heaven. Who knows?! Maybe she could help.

St. Peter shrugs and says sure. He leads her to a room where everyone is around the table. There’s a big bowl of hot stew in the middle and the air smells of roasted meat, carrots and potatoes. Yet everyone is very skinny. They have 4-foot-long spoons that can reach into the communal bowl and get some food, but they can’t feed themselves. Everyone is miserable and fighting and mean.

Then St. Peter shows her the next room. It’s the same situation: the table, the stew in the middle, the 4-foot-long spoons. Yet in this room, everyone is happy and plump and talking.

The woman is shocked! “What’s the difference?!”

St. Peter turns to her and says, “Heaven and Hell offer the same circumstances and conditions. The critical difference is in the way the people treat each other. In hell, everyone tries to feed themselves. In heaven, people feed each other.”

The table and the cross are related. The cross is the self-sacrifice it takes for heaven to come into our midst. Jesus came to the table and ate with everyone and washed feet and told great stories. I think people still respond to those things. To eat. To serve. To hear and tell great stories.

Hell is other people. Yet so is heaven. The critical difference is the way we treat each other.

I’ve been impressed in the two years I’ve been in Medina. On many visits to folks in the hospital or in their home, it is not surprising to have one of you call or check in. We have run into one another in hospital hallways and retirement parking lots. Just this past Thursday, I was visiting Dorothy Rossman and in walks Syd Benson. There is a sense of community here. The question is, how can we expand it to others?

How can we say to those who have been hurt by the church and soured on religion to come to the table? How can we break into our culture’s isolationism and love of automation? We know the answer to that. We welcome. We love. And we serve. We do this to one another; we do this to our community.

This is not me telling you this. This has been your vision statement that drew me here. I’m just reminding you and encouraging you to keep doing these things! Keep welcoming! Keep serving! Keep loving! Let love be genuine, hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good… and come! Come to the table! Amen.

Works Cited

1 The Pastor. Page 188-189.