If Only Our Tables Could Talk
We had just completed a fantastic dinner in the home of our good friends, Linda and Bob Noland, when my wife, Nancy, brought to the table a bowl of fruit to have for dessert. As she prepared to set the bowl on the table, she asked that a pad be put down on the surface to protect it from scratches or denting, since the bowl is a rather heavy cut-glass type. Linda responded, "Oh, gosh! Don't worry about a pad! This table has seen everything from everyone! From all sorts of dinnerware to playdough putty, from class projects to toys of every shape. Don't worry about a glass bowl making a mark." Then Bob observed, "If this table could talk, it would tell some tales."
There it was, the essential truth of so many of our homes: "If this table could talk, it would tell some tales." Think about the table in your home where your family is most likely to gather, whether in the kitchen, in a dining room, on a porch or maybe at the counter alongside the cooking area. Wherever it is families gather, stories are created and the table becomes the repository of the history, seen and unseen.
Science project successes and failures, brought together and spilled over on the table. Family meetings where the latest decisions to be made, truths to be told, care to be offered, direction given, anger expressed, forgiveness - or not - spoken, words of love shared and diagnosis' dealt with, all happen at the table. Often, food is present, but a meal is not the prerequisite. What matters is where the family gathers and the reality of the world, whatever the age, is laid out as the most intricate of coverings flowing over the edges.
There the child spills her milk and a son cries over a missed shot in a game. There a grandmother tells a story from her years of growing up on a farm and a grandchild learns of their legacy. There a young suitor holds the hand of their beloved, gently kneels down, then asks to hold that hand forever. There a husband sits with hot tears rolling down his cheeks as he looks at the empty chair left by his recently deceased spouse. There the games are laid out, the pieces moved, the triumphant is lifted and the loss absorbed. There the work of the day is heaped up and left for morning, while the family moves out the door for another event. There . . . there, life is gathered up, measured out, held close and silently catalogued until someone later offhandedly says, 'Remember when. . . ', and the table brings to mind the once-upon-a-time of family life lived across its' surface.
If so for a table in our home, then how much more for the Tables in our worship homes? In our gathering in worship, do we not bring with us to the Table all that we are, have been and hope to be? Is this not where Jesus gathered His disciples to transform dining into Life and story-telling into God's Story?
The Table, however you experience it in whatever tradition of which you are a part - is the repository of God's Creative Mercy holding close the family stories we bring to it. The Table is the definer of our faith and the guide for our time together. The Table is our home where we are welcomed in dumping everything we are at the feet of the One who sits at the Head of the Table and smiles, even laughs, as His family gathers together.
If all we do when we come to the Table is bring our Sabbath-best and offer our well-thought-out liturgies, secret hand shakes, and mysterious traditions, including some while pushing away others, then we have missed the very heart of the Table Jesus established in the upper room. Why do you think He told the disciples to 'Remember me' whenever they celebrated being at the Table and the eating of bread and drinking of wine, the Body and the Blood? That is the heart of our family Story, His Family Story - but it is not the only Truth there. The fullness of the Truth-telling which occurs at the Table every time we coming running to it is the amalgamation of all the wildly unbelievable and mundane things which occur in our lives in each and every moment. And the most completely incomprehensible Wonder of it all?
Nothing we set on the Table can hurt the Table. Nothing. The heaviest of our heartaches or the lightest of our delights, the depths of our agony or the highest of our joys, the burdens of our health issues or the release of our victories, the children we raise or the grandparents for which we care, the worries we carry with us or the oblivious nature of our moving on - none of it can mar the Table of the One who holds our very lives in His Heart. Nothing we set on the Table can hurt the Table - because He has covered it with His Grace.
Think on this when next you feel yourself unworthy to sit at the Table - or when someone else tells you you are not worthy. Think on this when you are troubled and are not sure where to turn. Think on this when your soul cannot even bear the thought of anyone knowing what it is you are managing. Remember. Remember. Remember.
The Peace of the Table is that it has heard it all, even betrayal and desertion, and still welcomes us back in absolute Love, Healing and Salvation.
If this Table could talk? This Table does talk - and the Story it tells is one of Restoration and Resurrection in every moment entrusted to it. Come, for all things are now ready . . . .
Something to ponder on the journey.
