An Extravagantly Laid Table

 And the table / will be wide. / And the welcome / will be wide.
And the arms / will open wide / to gather us in. / And our hearts
will open wide / to receive. / And we will come / as children who trust
there is enough. / And we will come / unhindered and free. / And our aching
will be met / with bread. / And our sorrow / will be met
with wine. / And we will open our hands / to the feast / without shame.
And we will turn / toward each other / without fear. / And we will give up
our appetite / for despair. / And we will taste / and know
of delight. / And we will become bread / for a hungering world.
And we will become drink / for those who thirst. / And the blessed
will become the blessing. / And everywhere / will be the feast.
        —“And the Table Will Be Wide” by Jan Richardson

 Here we are—once again—entering Holy Week—a week of big, intense, powerful, and possibly overwhelming emotions that run the spectrum from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.  It might be helpful to think of this week like the arc of a dance or the movement of a symphony.  It sweeps in with potent and forceful “Hosannas!” welcoming Jesus triumphantly into Jerusalem.  It follows Jesus boldly to that Last Supper and asks defensively, “Surely not I, Lord?!”  And it ushers in tsunami waves of love and longing as we hear Jesus hold out the bread and say, “Take, eat; this is my body.”  But that love quickly transforms into heartbreak and heartache with every demonstration of grief, sorrow, betrayal, and denial that follows:  Please, “Let this cup pass from me!”  “I do not know the man!”  “Crucify him!”  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  “It is finished.” . . .  

But even when the end seems close enough that we might touch it, it moves, shifts, transforms.  For the crucifixion is—by no means—the end of the story.  “He is not here.  He has been raised!”  And here, we witness the miracle of miracles—the undying, everlasting, unquenchable, boundless love of God.  And this love cannot be killed.  It cannot be shut up in a tomb.  It will not limit its reach or welcome.

Cornell West has said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”  David Whyte argues that “Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive.”  And while I do not disagree with either of them, I believe that an extravagantly wide-open table is what love looks like to God.

So, as we travel through this Love symphony this week, I invite you to consider how you might become bread for a hungering world—how you might hold out the cup of welcome—and how you might create and share the gifts of an extravagantly laid table.  


See you in (zoom) church,  
Christy
 

At the Gates of Hope

 Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower;
nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through);
nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right,”
but a different, sometimes lonely place, the place of truth-telling,
about your own soul first of all and its condition,
the place of resistance and defiance,
the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be,
as it might be, as it will be;
the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle—
and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing,
asking people what they see.
        —“Hope” by Victoria Safford

What is the mission of our church during this extended time of pandemic and physical separation?  Quite simply, as Victoria Stafford tells us, “our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope.”  What is the hope you see—the hope you long for?  The season of Lent is a perfect time to give yourself permission and space to hope.  To hope without expectation of the outcome.  But to trust the wisdom of your own soul’s leading.  Your hope could be simple.  Or elaborate.  It could be something close in.  Or it could be something generations in the distance.  Whatever it is, in the weeks ahead, let hope be your guide.  Let it encourage your soul-searching and vision-clearing.  Let it prepare you and open you up to the transformation that the resurrected presence of Christ promises to bring to our lives and to our world. What is the real and tenacious hope you see—the joyful and just hope you long for?  The world desperately needs your hope.

See you in (zoom) church,  
Christy