The Welcome Table

It is increasingly obvious that we are living in an essentially post-Christian time. This means that even in the western world one can no longer assume a generally Judeo-Christian perspective or even any basic knowledge of the Bible. Nonetheless, Psalm 23 in the King James Version is clearly one of the most beloved and still well-known passages in all of scripture. And along side the Lord’s Prayer, it may contain the most familiar words in the entire English language. This morning let’s hear it with new ears as it is translated in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Now today on this World Communion Sunday, I want to set beside this psalm a few verses from Matthew’s Gospel because the image I want to reflect on with you is the “table.” Psalm 23 says that God prepares a table for us — a feast —even in the presence of our enemies. In this passage from Matthew, a Gentile woman, that is someone who had no legal, moral, or religious standing in the Jewish context in which Jesus lived, also speaks about a table. Jesus had referred to her as a dog — a horrible insult and, yes, it troubles us that he spoke cruelly to her as the Jews of that day did about all Gentiles. But she responds that even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters’ tables. In other words, everyone needs food from the table God prepares. Let’s read it in Matthew 15.

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

The table at which we sit makes a lot of difference. If we sit at a table of bitterness, the inevitable result is hatred which, if not constrained by other limitations, will lead to bloodshed.[1] Before moving to Massachusetts, our home in Spokane was less than 20 miles from what once was the headquarters of the Aryan Nations, a racist organization that both promoted and engaged in violence against non-whites, Jews, and Catholics. In 1998 the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against the Aryan Nations and won the case. This bankrupted the leader, Richard Butler, and the racists were forced to give their land and its compound to the black family whose son was shot at by the compounds guards. But before that, racist hooligans would sit at table in the compound and then go out to do their violence wherever they could. Evil follows as surely as night follows day from those who sit at and drink the draughts of the table of bitterness and hatred.

Or we can sit and drink at the Lord’s table. As we prepare to come to the Lord’s Table today, let’s not be simplistic or sentimental. We have at the center of our liturgy a table that came about because of a murder. Jesus Christ was murdered and by the power of God’s love for us, that killing has become for us a table of blessing and hope. The table at which we sit makes all the difference in the world.

How do we imagine this table around which we gather this morning? Clearly it is not a table of bitterness and hatred. But might it be, perhaps without thinking about it, a table of exclusion, a table that separates us from those “other” people, those “bad” people, those who are “not our kind”?

Tables that exclude are everywhere, even in the Bible. Even Psalm 23’s table “in the presence of my enemies” can be a table of exclusion. Almost 50 years ago C. S. Lewis wrote a wonderful little book called Reflections on the Psalms. He thinks that table image in Psalm 23 is a kind of “in your face” image. He doesn’t use that phrase, of course, but makes the same point when describing images in the psalms that trouble us. Lewis writes: “Worst of all in [Psalm 23], after the green pasture, the waters of comfort, the sure confidence in the valley of the shadow, we suddenly run across … “Thou shalt prepare a table for me against them that trouble me” — or, as Dr. Moffatt translates it, “Thou art my host, spreading a feast for me while my enemies have to look on.” The poet’s enjoyment of his present prosperity would not be complete unless those horrid [neighbors[2]] (who used to look down their noses at him) were watching it all and hating it. This may not be so diabolical as the [other] passages I have quoted … ; but the pettiness and vulgarity of it, especially in such surroundings, are hard to endure.”[3]

There it is, right in the middle of the most beloved of all the psalms, a psalm that comforts in all manner of life situations. We get to feast at the Lord’s table while our enemies, whoever they might be, are excluded and have to look on in jealousy. Lewis is right. When the Lord’s table is imagined this way it is petty and vulgar.

With this in mind, let’s recall now the Matthew text. The story troubles us because it depicts Jesus speaking about exclusion. The woman with a sick daughter who met Jesus was to be excluded just because of who she was. She was a Gentile with whom the Jews had no dealings and for whom they had no respect. She was a woman, probably widowed, and so had little if any legal or social standing. Her daughter was ill. Who cares? might be the reaction; female infants were all too often left out to die for they were accounted of little worth. She was a marginalized woman on the bitter edges of life.

And then … and then the transformation. “Even dogs need crumbs from the master’s table,” she said. The heart of Jesus turned toward her. The heart of God turned toward her. In fact, the heart of God was always turned toward her but it took this transformation for her and us to see it. Blessing and wellness were pronounced upon her. In other words Jesus said, “Come to the table. It no longer excludes and never should have.” Welcome to the table.

Alice Walker wrote a wonderful short story called “The Welcome Table.”[4] She is best known, of course, for her novel The Color Purple that was made into a movie by Steven Spielberg back in 1985.

“The Welcome Table” tells the story of an old black woman, “the color of poor gray Georgia earth,” who has been worn down by old king cotton. (Like the woman in the Matthew text, she too is nameless.) Dressed in tattered rags she makes her way one Sunday “down the road toward the big white church,” a church that is white in many ways.

The good church folk are shocked. The reverend reminds her pleasantly that this isn’t her church, “as if one could choose the wrong one.” She brushes past them all and finds a seat near the back. Inside it is very cold, colder than usual. She ignores the request of an usher that she leave, but the ladies finally insist and their husbands hurl her out. She is stunned, bewildered, and starts to sing a sad song.

Then she spies a familiar face coming down “the long gray highway.” She grins toothlessly and giggles with joy. For it is none other than Jesus, and he is walking toward her. When he came close, he said, “Follow me” and she “bounded down to his side with all the bob and speed of one so old.” The two of them walk on together. She tells him her troubles, and he listens kindly, smiling warmly. Under their feet the ground becomes like clouds, and they walk on without ever stopping. They are home.

The people in the church never knew what happened to her. Some said they saw her jabbering to herself and walking off down the highway all alone. “They guessed maybe she had relatives across the river, some miles away, but none of them really knew.” That’s how the story ends: “none of them really knew.”

Walker’s story “The Welcome Table” never mentions a table except under the title it quotes an old spiritual:

There is no table in Walker’s story. Or maybe there is. Maybe everywhere Jesus goes there is a table. Perhaps it is, sometimes, in the presence of our enemies, when trouble besets us at every hand. There is certainly a table when we’re lonely and abandoned. It is a table set with bread for the wilderness and wine for the journey. While some may see it as a table that excludes, Jesus does not. For it is the Welcome Table. Thanks be to God.

[1] I’m generally thinking here of Walter Brueggemann’s thesis when he makes the point that liturgy creates a world and we will either create a godly world by worshiping God or we will create an ungodly world by ignoring God. Walter Brueggemann, Israel’s Praise: Doxology Against Idolatry and Ideology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988) 23-28.

[2] Lewis used “Joneses” but “keeping up with the Joneses” has lost much of its currency. It also potentially and unnecessarily offends church members who are named Jones!

[3] C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1958) 21.

[4] Alice Walker, In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973) 81-87.