Dear Friends,
When I was a kid, one of my first chores was setting the table. I was an only child then, so it was a brief job, but I do remember the meticulous manner in which I approached the task (to be fair, scrupulous is an apt description of me as a child, so this is unsurprising). And don’t get me started on my excitement about the table setting outline in my Girl Scout handbook. I would be doing this correctly.
In my family, table positions were determined largely by the fact that my father is left-handed. The goal was to prevent anyone from being elbowed. But my childhood kitchen was also the same kitchen where my mother grew up, and my seat as the same one her brother always sat in. And much like her brother, every time I drank milk at dinner, I managed to spill it. That seat seemed to be a bit cursed.
The dinner table, tea parties, my collection of aprons, despite a number of food and dining anxieties, these areas of control delighted me. And even now as an adult, I have insistently acquired my mother’s bone china, have a revitalized collection of aprons, and love cooking for my friends or alongside my in-laws. The order of a well- run dinner table makes sense to me. But those aren’t the rules at the table in this week’s Gospel.
The Bible overflows with incidences of hospitality. I think of now, in Godly Play, we describe Sarah’s response to the visitors who appear in the desert. The took three measures of flour to make bread because she was a generous woman. I think of the images of feasts in the Psalms, of Jesus’s first miracle, turning water into wine at a wedding feast. I think of Mary and Martha (who were likely one woman, Mary Magdalene, in fact - if you haven’t read Diana Butler Bass’s sermon on this, you should right now!) and their differing and beautiful welcomes to Jesus. Hospitality is a core value, and we should ask who we truly welcome through our doors, and if we welcome them as they are. But let’s hold on to that. Let’s look at this week’s Gospel instead: the Parable of the Wedding Feast.
A king holds a feast for his son and invites all his friends. But none of them come. This beautiful and bounteous table is empty. The friends send excuses, but the party isn’t over just yet. Instead of just accepting that the invite guests have chosen not to come, the king sends his servant to gather the hungry from the streets and bring them to the table. It is precisely the kind of table Rachel Held Evans has described - one full of misfits with room for more. And those misfits, people like you and me, we hold the places of pride and honor.
One think I love about this story from a formation perspective is just how open it is to our daily life and to activities we are already engaged in. We all sit down to eat sometime, and we have ritualized this feast as part of Christian tradition. We gather t the table, no we do so in particular ways. So let’s notice what we notice.
Some questions for children hand for grownups:
Who sets the table? What do we place there?
Who serves the food? And who receives it?
What do we say when we eat? How do we show we are ready to be at the table?
What else do you notice?
The answers to these questions will vary depending on your tradition and your particular church’s practices. Whatever it is you notice, think about what it means and how it makes you feel. This isn’t a question about canons or other regulations, but about the nature of the table where we go to feed our souls.
In one of my previous congregations I had the honor of gathering the children at the table and guiding them through the Eucharist each week alongside our priest. We would stand around the table (I even kept step stools at the altar so everyone could see over it) and we would watch, pointing and whispering, following the scene with out eyes. But one of the things that happens when children are at the altar is that, along with the celebrant and other servers, they receive communion first.
Bringing children to the altar in this way is a proactive way of turning the order of the world on its head, as in this week’s Parable, while also bringing children nearer to this mystery and helping them notice and internalize the details. We would then watch as others came to the altar, studying their faces and postures, quietly observing how people honored the moment.
I don’t know about you, but this whole story makes me want to put a tea set in my Godly Play room!
As noted many times, I don’t have kids, but I know that many of you are caught in the whirlwind of back to school. That being said, I did in fact make my wife hold an embarrassing first day of school sign on her first day of veterinary school on Monday, and I’m certainly hard at work on my own classrooms. We’re moving back into our education wing this fall and it’s wonderful but hard work.
May this time be at least as blessed at it is stressed. Some recommendations for settling into a feeling of peace:
Back to school blessings by Sarah Bessey, Kate Bowler, and Kayla Craig.
For your smallest students, a new Little Mole! In addition to her beautiful Biblical books, Glenn’s Nellist is also the genius behind Little Mole, and this year Little Mole Goes To School. I don’t even have kids, but I know it’s time for something new because my sisters were of “The Kissing Hand” generation and they’re almost real adults now.
Have you checked out Brittany Sky’s Family Time Kit? She’s recently done a user-led reboot of these home devotional kits to make them more age-appropriate. It’s hard to create space for the practices that matter, but these kits are a great tool for supporting that.
If you liked last week’s note, you can catch me preaching on those themes here.
Now back to the program year projects! Good luck, everyone!
Peace,
Bird