At God’s table
water
In this morning’s Gospel reading we hear of the radical hospitality of Jesus who urges his followers to shun the status games and pecking order that humanity so easily falls into, and instead to invite all to the table.
We see that open invitation most clearly in the sacraments of the church – Baptism and Communion. Through the first we are all made children of God, clothing ourselves with Christ. No matter where we have come from, in baptism we are made worthy. We are no longer guests, but family. At Communion, the king’s table is made available for all. There is no one more or less worthy of receiving. All are invited, and all are fed the same simple meal of bread and wine, flesh and blood.
It's a delight to be welcoming the Sim family for baptism this morning. In the baptism of Isaac and Lydia we are following the commands of Jesus who desires all to be invited to participate in the feast of the new covenant of God’s grace.
Factory Full
It was God's 14th birthday
and he invited all his friends:
eighteen hundred lepers,
all the crooks he could find,
a squadron of unhappy whores,
a town full of cripples,
three deaf mutes; an underweight Buddha,
an Indian girl that had learned the Gita by heart,
twenty-five secondary-school headmasters
who still wanted to be gardeners,
a penguin who had the wrong body,
the designer of an educational toy
that taught only laughter,
Florence Nightingale's daughter
who suffered more than her mother's patients,
four nurses who had wanted to save people
but found only corpses,
and a man so skinny his ribs contained only his soul.
They all arrived late, in tears,
birthday gifts forgotten, lost, broken
or used on the way.
God welcomed them as they
collapsed at his door,
kissed away the tears,
emptied his factory-full into their hearts
filling them with the gift,
that they could never have dreamt of.
David Lander, “Heaven’s Backyard” Dove Communications (1984).
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