All Are Welcome

The table as a gospel analogy.

Every year since the inception of our church, we have hosted a Thanksgiving meal on the Sunday before Thanksgiving day. Instead of the usual singing and preaching, we eat. We share all our best recipes and favorite traditions. I get to the church hours before anyone else and set the table with decorations, load up a playlist of old Christmas songs, and take in the memories of the prior year. Dream Family Thanksgiving is my favorite Sunday of the year.

The table is long with many seats. Everyone has space to belong. If more show up than we expected, we add length and chairs. Everyone has a plate. There’s no expectation of what you must bring; you bring what you can. Some bring elaborate dishes, while others show up with nothing. Nevertheless, the ones who bring much and those who bring little to nothing have access to all—they all eat, sit, and share.

There is no hierarchy at the table. No seat is more prestigious than others. You can be as vulnerable as you like or simply listen to conversations around you. You don’t have to be anything but yourself.

The meal isn’t catered. Everyone plays a part in the presentation of this meal. The dishes come from the heart—what people love, recipes passed down to them, or what they are known for creating. My specialty every year is ham cooked in a glaze of brown sugar and Coca-Cola.

We eat once everyone places their dishes on the designated food table. Everyone loads their plates high and sits with friends and strangers alike. As we eat, we go around the table and share a testimony from the year. This year, some got married, some bought their first house, some got a new job or a promotion, some paid off debt, etc. Others experienced loss—the loss of a spouse, a career, family members, or friends. We laugh together, cry together, remember together, and dream together. In this tiny sliver of a moment, we are one.

Dream Church Family Thanksgiving 2023

As I witnessed this year’s meal, I couldn’t help but think of the words of Jesus when he said,

“Come on in; the food is on the table.”

Luke 14:17 MSG

These words begin a parable of a banquet a man threw for many dinner guests. The original invitees (who represent the religious leaders) were too busy with careers, acquisitions, and compartmentalized relationships. They refused to come, rest, and dine because they were blinded by busyness and religious ambition. Then, the man commands that everyone be invited to his prepared meal. Eugene Peterson (in The Message Bible) writes, “Go to the country roads. Whoever you find, drag them in. I want my house full!”¹

The religious leaders saw a meal as pointless. “No one has time to sit and eat with sinners,” they thought. Jesus, however, shows us the table is the good news (the gospel).

I saw the gospel as I watched the interactions around our table during our Thanksgiving meal. We carried each other’s burdens. We took time to sit and listen to each other. There was nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. We accepted the invitation to come and dine.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the experience of those with nothing to offer religiously. Our churches aren’t proverbial tables that invite everyone to bring whatever they can—even if it is just themselves—and take part. We spend too much time fixing others and molding them into the image we think they should have.

While discipleship is excellent, I have learned that the best discipleship happens at the table. It occurs at a place where everyone is of equal value—you matter here! Yet we are so busy in our religious pursuits that we rarely stop and eat and be. We don’t look each other in the eyes and share our stories' joys and sorrows. We’re too busy doing church to be the church.

The gospel is the message that you matter to God. When God took on humanity in a man named Jesus, it wasn’t the elite he was drawn to; it was those who felt forgotten and rejected. He was drawn to those dealt a lousy hand in life, who had responded by living out of step with who they were. He was drawn to the son who wasted everything and wanted to come home (Luke 15).

Jesus came to “seek and make whole those who had lost their way.”²

Even the way we commemorate and celebrate the body and blood of Jesus takes the form of a meal. The bread is broken and shared with everyone, from least to most excellent, and the wine is poured into every glass. The Eucharist (Communion) is an invitation to come to the table Christ has prepared in his body and blood. The Table of Christ is a leveling place where everyone is equal, belongs, and matters.

Maybe Thanksgiving should be our new model for the gospel. Most workplaces aren’t open (there’s no work to be done), so all the family gathers around and brings what they can; we have everything in common: we laugh, cry, and remember. We throw football and play. For one day, we trade stress for love, chaos for rest, and sorrow for joy.

You matter at the table.

What follows the parable of Jesus and a man’s banquet is Luke 15, where Jesus tells of three different examples, three being the number of complete perfection, in which he “seeks until he finds” that which is lost.

Our God doesn’t rest until everyone has a place at the table and dines.

“And I, as I am lifted up from the earth, will attract everyone to me and gather them around me.”

John 12:32 MSG

1. Luke 14:23-24 MSG

2. Luke 19:10 - Personal Translation