The Feast
Friends, welcome to The Book of Common Words, where we explore the Christian spirituality of being human through poetry and essays about my life, art, and the Christian faith. I’m your writer, Aaron.
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My grandma could cook.
Fluffy and smooth mashed potatoes. Tender and juicy pot roast. Oven baked macaroni and cheese, emphasis on the cheese. And the pies, oh the pies she would make, complete with leftover pie crust baked with cinnamon and sugar.
From apple crisp to baked salmon, from cookies to potato rolls, my grandma knew how to cook.
At least once a month, her food would gather all four of her children and their families around the dining room table for a meal of good food and good fellowship.
We told jokes, had disagreements, caught up on each other’s lives. That table kept us a connected family. After my grandma died, the meals stopped, and the family seemed to float its separate ways. But I will never forget the meals we shared around Grandma’s table.
And there was always room for others. Family friends, strangers hard on their luck, visitors from out of town: we always made room for another person at the table. There was always food enough, an empty seat, and an open invitation.
I don’t know why anyone would want to skip out on such a rich meal. When someone who knows their way around the kitchen brings out their best cuts of meat, the freshest vegetables, the most decadent recipes, well, that’s a meal you want to show up to.
That’s a jubilee.
The people of Israel were offered their own jubilee. God set before them gifts and promises—a veritable feast of grace that would be theirs if they would love God and worship God only. God is gracious, and God offered this feast to Israel time and time again, sending prophet after prophet to call them back to the feast, back to the table.
But the people of Israel, the leaders and priests and kings, rejected God’s messengers and God’s message. They ignored the message, instead choosing to go about work and money as if nothing had happened. Then, they moved from indifference to violence against the messengers, mistreating and killing prophets that brought them the freedom that comes with repentance.
God was set to give them the kingdom of heaven. Instead, a kingdom of power, violence, and oppression was chosen.
So, God gave them over to their empire thinking, oppressive ways, and abuse, and an empire oppressed and finally destroyed them. In 70 A.D., Roman legions led by Titus laid siege to Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. Instead of a jubilee, there was sorrow, destruction, and death. Instead of coming together at the table of the kingdom of heaven, the people of Israel were exiled from their homeland and scattered across the Roman empire. Instead of being a light to all nations, calling all to God’s banquet, their light was dimmed, threatened to be snuffed out. Violence had spoken, and it had taken its toll.
But God still has a table set, a feast laid out, waiting for people to come, to sit, to enjoy. God’s jubilee is still open and waiting.
Our God isn’t a passive God. For all the times God seems silent, we can trust that even then God is silently working in us and the world around us. This active God is the one that has set the table, prepared the feast, laid out the banquette, and he intends to have guests.
God’s message goes out to all the roads, all the byways, highways, dark alleys, and dead ends. His message is for the good, the bad, the lame, the poor, the oppressed, the privileged, and the strong. It’s the same message God gave—and continues to give—to Israel, and the same message God gives to each and every one of us. The message is simple, but it encompasses the world.
Come.
Come to the table and be fed. Come to the table and be clothed in grace. Come to the table and find community. Come to the table and be healed. Come to the table and find yourself swept up in the love of God and the kingdom of Heaven.
You, as you are come.
With your sin and shame, come.
With your triumphs and dreams, come.
With your callings and challenges, come.
With your hurt, your pain, your trauma, come.
With your repentance and regrets, come.
No matter where you are, no matter what road you find yourself on along your pilgrimage, you are invited to come to the wedding feast. You are invited to lay down your burdens and rest. You may be walking in the valley of the shadow of death, but you don’t have to fear the evil around you. God sets this table here, now, before you, with chairs, and community, and sustenance, and jubilee.
This is a feast of restoration, victory, and freedom. This is the death of death; this is the promise of resurrection. This is the destruction of sorrow. This is the Lord we have waited for.
It’s to this feast that we are all invited, our baptism becoming a promise and a seal that we have a place reserved for us at the table. Those baptismal vows we make with God’s help are a sure sign that we are gathered to the table of the kingdom of heaven.
So, let’s clothe ourselves with the garments God has provided for us. Let’s set our minds on what is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable. Jesus has called us, has come to us to lead us to our place at the table, so let’s accept this gift.
Tables have a certain power to them, the power to bring people together, the power to feed, the power to heal. As we come to the table this morning to receive the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation, let us remember that this is a shadow of the table we are truly at, the table of the kingdom of heaven.
Let me leave you with a question: what are you doing to bring others to the table? God has issued a call for all to come to the feast. We carry that call with us. So, how are we giving that call away, telling people about the grace of a magnificent God? How are we inviting people to this Eucharistic table as a foreshadowing of the heavenly table we are all pilgriming towards? How are we telling people our stories of responding to the call of God and encouraging them to hear the call of the king for themselves?
The table still has empty chairs around it. There is room for all. We don’t miss out on a thing by bringing more people to the table. So, I encourage you, tell people about the jubilee you have found, the grace you gratefully walk in, and the feast that is waiting. Tell people your stories, your beliefs, your heart. They need to hear the call from God just as much as we need to tell people what we have found.
As we pilgrim towards this heavenly feast, encourage one another to remember our baptismal vows, our promises to God and the community of the table, so that we can keep walking towards the heavenly table strong and well, together. We need each other. We rely on each other. This isn’t a solitary walk nor is it a meal for one. We are a community bound together by a feast prepared for us by the God who has come to save us from the systems of this world that rely on violence, oppression, discrimination, and exclusion. That salvation is what we celebrate at the Eucharistic table and what we will feast on in the kingdom of heaven.
Everyone is invited. Let’s make sure everyone finds a seat.
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