Dining at Many Different Tables

We live in a culture of extreme contrasts. On one hand, many Americans go on holiday cruises to Bermuda and to Alaska. We expect to be well fed on cruises. We even anticipate that we shall gain a few pounds while we dine well at sumptuous tables. This stands in sharp contrast with those who do not have enough food, who know very little about nutrition, and who do not enjoy the conviviality of other people at the table of plenty. These people live with an ache. These people sweat their way through daily life. They wonder where they will get their next meal. We hear reports of homeless teenagers eating pizzas thrown into dumpsters and of older Americans foregoing a meal because they cannot afford food and medication at the same time.

Each culture and individual experience colors the expectations of those who come to the Lord's Table. People on a cruise know first hand what lavish generosity and extravagant largesse are like. They can even envision a magnanimous God. They take their rightful place at the homecoming banquet that the prodigal father throws for his wayward but repentant son. This sharply contrasts with those who sweat out where their next meal will come from, who feel hunger pangs and an involuntary fasting born out of poverty. It is hard to imagine abundance when scarcity, famine, and hard times gather at the kitchen door.

Spiritually many come to Christian worship with a profound hunger for the Lord and a deep thirst for meaning. They want a substantial morsel. This stands in sharp contrast with a mentality focused solely on personal nourishment. Some could be so concerned about getting a share in the meal, about satisfying personal need from the hand of a personal, saving Lord that they could miss larger horizons. God calls people to stretch beyond the walls of self-absorption. God beckons the individual to share patterns of ritual action that teach community and mutuality. So, too, God expands horizons and cultivates a taste for social justice as the church encounters the hungers of the world, the nation, and the neighborhood.

I am sure that you have heard of many people who receive invitations to festive meals. They look forward to the mouth-watering event. They go with the intention of pigging out. These are times of excess and fiesta. People at fiestas are in a very different place from those struggling everyday with food. Some people fret over diet plans or they seek to become slim fast.

Dining at the Lord's Table calls Christians to live with balance. On one level, people try to figure a middle road between excessive food and punishing fast, between personal satisfaction and communal concern, between individual need and mutual sharing. Living these contrasts with balance calls for a life of virtue. Virtue builds individual and corporate character. On one hand, each person learns to attend to the Spirit who shapes personal character. On the other hand, each community-at-prayer learns to attend to the Spirit who stretches the community to mutual sharing.

Sometimes individuals and communities are not yet free from personal worry and concern to stretch beyond narrow horizons. So the community prays: Lord, by your cross and resurrection, you have set us free. You are the savior of the world.