Making Room at the Table

SACRED STORY AND MESSAGE

Section labels are for navigation and are not meant to be read aloud.

1. A PLACE AT THE TABLE

I know what it is like to sit at a table filled with food

and discover that there is hardly anything there for me to eat.

I became vegan in 2012…accidentally, really. (explain)

I remained vegan until around 2018, when I became vegetarian.

I have also never liked eggs, which means that breakfast can be especially interesting.

A table may be covered with eggs, bacon, sausage, and other food.

There may be more than enough for everyone else.

But abundance on the table does not necessarily mean

that everyone at the table has been included.

Now, there is an important distinction to make.

Sometimes people simply do not know.

If we invite someone we have never met before,

we may not know about a dietary need, an allergy, or something else that affects what they can eat.

Failing to accommodate something we could not have known

is not the same as knowing what someone needs and choosing not to make room for them.

The real question is what we do once we know.

Do we say,

“Well, this is what we have always served,”

and continue doing things our way?

Or do we allow what we have learned about another person

to change the way we set the table?

Because a chair at the table does not mean very much

if the table has not made room for the person sitting in it.

2. TRANSITION TO SCRIPTURE

That question—

what we do when we discover that someone has been left out—

takes us directly into the life of the earliest Christian community.

Listen to how Acts describes the way these first believers worshiped

and shared their lives.

3. SCRIPTURE READING: ACTS 2:42–47 (NLT)

All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals—including the Lord’s Supper—and to prayer.

A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders.

And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.

They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people.

And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

4. THE EARLIEST PICTURE OF CHURCH

This is one of the earliest pictures we have of the Christian church.

And what is striking is that church is not described primarily as a building,

an institution, or an event people attended once a week.

It is described as a shared life.

They learned together.

They prayed together.

They worshiped together.

They gathered in one place, but they also met in one another’s homes.

They shared ordinary meals,

and they shared the sacred meal of the Lord’s Supper.

They also shared what they possessed.

If someone among them was in need, the community did not simply assure that person that they were welcome.

Their welcome took material form.

They changed what they did with their own property, possessions,

and money so that another person would not be left without what they needed.

Their fellowship was not just friendliness.

Their fellowship required them to pay attention to one another.

Teaching, prayer, worship, meals, generosity,

and care for people in need were not separate church programs.

Together, they were the church.

Church happens when people gathered by Christ begin sharing more than a room.

They share their food, their stories, their prayers, their resources, and their lives.

5. TRANSITION TO COMMON TABLE

If that is what church looked like near its beginning,

then what we are doing here tonight should look very familiar.

6. WHAT WE ARE DOING TONIGHT

We have not gathered for dinner and then, once the meal is over, planned to begin church.

The shared meal is part of our worship.

We have gathered around food, Scripture, conversation, prayer, and the Lord’s Supper.

In a modern setting,

we are participating in one of the earliest forms of Christian community.

And once we recognize this gathering as church, another question naturally follows:

How do we make the life of the church accessible to the people we hope to welcome?

7. EXTENDING THE TABLE

For generations, churches could assume that nearly everyone was available on Sunday morning

and that one familiar form of worship would serve the whole community.

That simply is not true anymore.

Sunday morning still works for some people,

and it remains an important time of worship,

but it does not work for everyone.

In fact, it works for fewer and fewer people.

Faithfulness does not require us to abandon what continues to serve people.

It does require us to notice those whom our familiar practices are not serving

and to extend the table further.

Christian hospitality asks more than whether our doors are unlocked.

It asks whether people can actually come through them.

It asks whether the times, places,

and ways in which we gather make room for the lives people are really living.

And when we discover that someone has been left out,

we do not have to become defensive

or pretend that we should somehow have known everything beforehand.

We learn. We adjust. We make more room.

That is part of what Common Table is attempting tonight.

We are gathering at a different time, in a different setting, and in a different form—

not because this is somehow less church,

but because making room for more people is one of the ways

the church becomes more fully what Christ has called it to be.

8. WHEN THE TABLE FAILS

Acts gives us a beautiful picture of what the church’s shared life can become.

But the earliest Christians did not always live up to that vision.

Paul confronted exactly that problem in the church at Corinth.

The members were supposed to be gathering for the Lord’s Supper,

but some began eating before everyone else had arrived.

Some had more than enough, while others were left hungry.

Paul was furious.

They were calling it the Lord’s Supper

while their behavior at the table humiliated the very people

the meal was supposed to gather into one body.

He told them plainly that when they gathered that way, it was not truly the Lord’s Supper.

A table cannot bear Christ’s name while people are knowingly being left out.

The bread and cup proclaim that Christ has made us one body.

Our life around the table must tell the same truth.

9. TRANSITION TO TABLE CONVERSATION

That is why I do not want to finish this message by supplying all the answers myself.

If the earliest church was formed through teaching, prayer, shared meals, generosity, and attention to one another,

then our conversation around these tables is part of the message too.

So I invite you to continue the reflection together with two questions:

10. TABLE CONVERSATION QUESTIONS

When have you experienced a table—or another gathering—where you knew you truly belonged? What made it feel that way?

Acts tells us that the believers shared what they had so that no one among them was in need. What might we need to share—or change—so that more people can find a place at the table today?

Written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).