Family Reunion Table

What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase family reunion? Does it bring up fond memories and laughter? Does it give you a pained look on your face at that one family member who always brings up that one topic of conversation? Sometimes family reunions are difficult because not everyone is there. Maybe your family table looks different when certain members and certain recipes are no longer present as they once were.

I remember when my Aunt Wilma died and the change in the atmosphere when we no longer had her quiet presence, let alone her caramel cake and homemade mac-n-cheese. In our text today, David’s table looked different after his friend Jonathan had died. For David, there was this empty presence where his dear friend used to be. Jonathan was Saul’s son. Admittedly, David’s relationship with his friend’s dad was complicated to say the least, with Saul having tried to kill David a few times. Things were...messy.

Yet still David asked, “Is there anyone left of Saul’s family? If so, I’d like to show him some kindness in honor of Jonathan.”

The servant replied that there remained a son of Jonathan, Mephibosheth, who was lame in both feet. Mephibo-what? Say that three times fast. All that remains of your enemy line is a disabled man. Normally, the reigning king didn’t go around asking about the well-being of enemy relatives. Normally, the king didn’t go out of their way for someone they didn’t know. Mephibosoandso isn’t family. David didn’t owe him anything. He was a stranger.

What does it mean for someone to be a stranger, to be unknown to you? Think about it for a minute.

Christine Pohl defines a stranger as “people without a place.” When we worked on the grant for the mural, we talked about murals as a form of placemaking. In communities of faith, we engage in place making by welcoming people in and providing a space for belonging. Calvin described strangers as “for the most part destitute of all things, being far away from their friends.” In that sense, a stranger is not only dislocated in terms of space but often socially isolated as well.

Sensitive to these “people without a place,” in 1785 Wesley and “a group of Methodists founded the Strangers’ Friend Society in London, dedicated to ministry among the urban poor. Wesley described the Society as “instituted wholly for the relief not of our society, but for poor, sick, friendless strangers.” In the very name of the society itself, the purpose wasn’t just to serve the stranger but to befriend the stranger. Years ago, William Booth said “one of the secrets of success of the Salvation Army is that the friendless of the world find friends in it. True hospitality involves friendship.

David is grieving his friend, and all that is left of his friend’s line is his son named Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth has no family ties. He is the sole survivor of Jonathan. He embodies that sense of stranger that arises when one has a deep sense of placelessness. This sense of placelessness is even indicated by the name of where we find Mephibosheth in Lo Debar. This Hebrew name literally means no pasture or no thing, almost seeing it as he comes from nothing. When Mephibosheth is called before King David, he fears for his life and he feels unworthy, calling himself a dead dog. His own name “mephibosheth” means breathing shame. Mephibosheth, unable to walk and provide for himself and lacking family, feels like nothing.

Have you ever had a Mephibosheth moment, or felt deeply vulnerable and dependent on others? The King could have had him killed, but instead of a death sentence he gets a dinner invitation.

King David invited Mephibosheth to his table. Not just once, but said “you will always eat at my table.” And so Mephibosheth remained and stayed at David’s table. He remained and continued to eat at David’s table for the rest of his days.

A son who had lost his father. A king who had lost his friend. Complete strangers. Now friends. They sat down at the table and became family to one another in the midst of their loss. The text says, “From then on, Mephibosheth ate at the king’s table as though he were one of David’s own sons.”

Grief doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs to be companioned. There is an organization called The Dinner Party that organizes grief groups around meals. They connect “young adult grievers to a caring and supportive community of peers who help each other navigate loss, life, and all the stuff in between. Because grief isn’t a problem that needs solving, but the loneliness that comes with it is.” Similarly, in Portland at The Grief House, they host something called the Lost Table. They describe it as “a table that is resilient, strong and safe for those who have experienced a significant loss. Take a seat, bring a dish and feel free to share your heart in good company. Sometimes grief needs community and food.”

When I felt led to start a grief group several years ago, I had no idea how to do it or what to do. I felt so unqualified, but all I knew was that I wanted to sit with those who were grieving. I asked a couple of ladies in the church if they would join in helping me and the three of us put it out into the world and slowly, little by little, they came. Many of them I didn’t know. They were complete strangers to me. The only common bond was loss, even though it looked different on each of us. The sudden loss of a wife. The horrendous loss of a teenage son on New Year’s Eve. The loss of a best friend. The loss of a husband and now Easter just hits different. Week by week, I watched as we kept showing up for each other. Telling our stories. Showing our pictures. Watching out for signs where we still felt the presence of loved ones. Week by week, we came with our losses. Week by week, we met at the table.

Maybe we just need to sit down and share a meal, each of us bringing all of our own lostness.

Our lost hopes.

Our lost productivity and energy levels.

Our lost abilities.

Our lost sense of pride.

Our lost loved ones and friends and sense of security.

Our lost freedom.

Our lost sanity.

Our lost ability to make it through another day.

I’ll bring all of my lost items and you can bring yours and we can gather around the table together and pour out our losses over coffee or salsa or leftovers or the best pizza in the world. And somehow in the midst of all of our loss, Christ finds us even there, leaning in to listen and offering grace.

These past couple of weeks we have had such a tremendous amount of loss. I know I have felt it. I imagine you have too. Grief has felt thick and raw and tangible. Lives lost have felt senseless, tragic, and unfair. And in the face of such loss, even words feel like they are tripping over themselves trying to offer something they aren’t meant to explain. But when even words are lost,, there is the table and community. As Kate Bowler says in her blessing For When There Are No Words, “if blessing means presence, then let it be this: God meet us here in the undoing, in the unbearable ache, in the why- knowing that no answer will ever satisfy. Meet the ones whose arms are empty, whose lives have been split into a before and after. Meet us too, as we watch and weep from the edges of this sorrow, helpless in the face of such pain. Carry all that we cannot. Because your presence is the only center that holds.”

This past week, I have witnessed such community around some very big losses. I watched as an entire town sat everything down so that they could come and sit at the lost table. I watched them extend their arms towards one another and show up for one another. I watched them sit with those who have lost everything and remind them that they are not alone, and clinging together to the only center that holds. I have witnessed what Rev. Sam Wells calls the solidarity of grief.

He says, “We come here with different stories. We each have unique pain and isolating grief. But in surprising ways we have the same story. A story of a powerlessness we all share. A story of an emptiness that feels like it will never resolve. Yet as we search for meaning and truth, we find ourselves here together, today. And we’re grateful for one another, because we’ve found something surprising, profound, and transformational... it is is the soil out of which some or all of those things may eventually grow. It’s a human experience chiseled in adversity and fostered in community. It’s what we call solidarity: the solidarity of grief.”