A Place at God’s Table – All Are Welcome

Yolanda Pierce is dean of the Vanderbilt Divinity School. In her new book The Wounds Are the Witness: Black Faith Weaving Memory into Justice and Healing, Dr. Pierce shares this childhood memory:

“I imagined the day of Pentecost as a spiritual table, like the kitchen table of my grandmother’s house, with room for whosoever will come. The kitchen table of my childhood expanded infinitely on Sundays and holidays and special occasions, when the normal place settings for a family of four grew to miraculously accommodate 20 or 30 or 40 guests. There was always room — and food — for one more person.

“I c-_ould not imagine a scenario in which someone would be turned away from our table. I still can’t. I cannot imagine a family member or stranger not being embraced and welcomed with an offering of biscuits or pound cake. It wasn’t just that there was room at the table; there was love and joy and laughter. The meal was already prepared for you. All you had to do was choose your seat and sit down.

“Now, truth be told, as kids, we were regularly bumped from the table for adults. If the knock at the door brought another grown-up for dinner, I knew I had to give up my usual weekday spot at the dining room table. Some Sundays, and all the holidays, we had enough kids for a separate kids’ table. What we learned as children is knowledge I now treasure as an adult: God multiplies whatever we freely offer, including food and hospitality.”

Today we mark the “setting of the table” that is our Church. In the spirit of his Risen Son, God welcomes all of us to his table — and in taking our place, we do all we can to make sure everyone finds their place. At Pentecost, the Spirit of God opens Peter and company to all kinds of possibilities for realizing the Kingdom of God that Jesus died for — and rose for. It’s the Spirit of God — invisible, difficult to define in mere words, but very real — that makes you and me and the people gathered around this table the Church of the Risen One. The Spirit is that great love that binds the Father to the Son and now binds the Father and the Son to us; it’s love that transcends words and laws and sentiments to embrace the heart and soul of each one of us.

This Pentecost, may our community dedicate itself to realizing the promise of the Risen Christ at our own parish table: to be a safe and welcoming place of mercy and reconciliation for all God’s daughters and sons.