I was blessed to sit down at lunch today with family. I had to have the car serviced which required me to drive past my Dad's home on the way to the dealership, so I called ahead to inquire if there might be room at the table for me. How sweet the words when I heard, "Of course there is!"
Chili, crackers, cheese, celery sticks, and (drum roll please) homemade coffee cake, still warm from the oven. Oh, my God! What a feast!
Yet, as good as the food truly was, being in the company of family with which to share the meal meant more than any particular type of food on the table. 'Family' is who sees us through. 'Family' is who causes us to laugh when reasons to laugh are few. 'Family' reminds us to take ourselves a little less seriously and to celebrate God's life in us more intentionally. 'Family' are the ones who hug us into wholeness and hold us close in prayer, even while encouraging us to explore on our own and find God's will at work in our hearts. 'Family' are the ones who can tell us all the stories of the past, while nurturing us to make our own stories into the future. 'Family' is who catches us when we fall and who stands beside us as we jump into new beginnings. 'Family' are the ones who make room at the table, even if it means 'stretching' the soup so everyone has enough. 'Family' is who we are together in God when all the other delineations between us are put to rest. 'Family' is God's gift from birth till death and in birth beyond death.
When we are created in the image of God, we are created to be 'Family'. Maybe that is why the Body of Christ, the Church, means so much to me . . . and why I have such a hard time getting my head around any expression of the Body of Christ, the Family of God, that does not hold being 'Family' dear, as they turn children or outsiders away from the Table, or deny the Christianity of others who come from different traditions, or do not welcome sisters and brothers who haven't been baptized in their specific tradition. Such behaviors spit in the face of the One whose life, death and resurrection make all of us one family from the beginning of time.
If we are not one Family, then we are not God's Family.
That does not mean we always get along, or that everybody has to believe exactly the same thing in the same way, or that everyone is going to do everything with the same expressions, but it does honor and hold as incredibly sacred that, when everything else is said and done, we are of one Blood: His. We are born of one Water: His. We are of one Body: His. It is only in the magnificent Love of God that the Spirit is able to work such wonders . . . and it is only in the sinful willfulness of humanity that such wonders can be turned into shambles.
I am glad there was room at the table for me at lunch today, for it reminded me of our corporate call as 'Family' to ensure a place for all God's children. Maybe that is why, when the church bell rings, it so reminds me of a big dinner bell: It's time to gather around the Table and be the Family God birthed us to be from the beginning. It is time to be intentionally on earth as we pray it will be in heaven: one Family, forevermore.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Don
1 comment:
Friendship is indeed a special gift. I have been fortunate to have several good friends in my lifetime. Lifetime friends! Those are the friends, we may not see for a while but when we reconnect it is like no time has passed. Years could go by yet it only seems like weeks. We go out to lunch together and before you know it we are ordering supper. Hours of talking, laughing and maybe some tears catching up on the past year.
I heard someone's definition of what heaven is like and in that moment of death, you are all alone and all of a sudden someone comes up behind you and places their hand on your shoulder, scaring you so much your heart races and you turn around and it is the 'Friend', the one you wanted to see all along, spending all of eternity talking, laughing and catching up.
'What a Friend we have in Jesus'
Angie
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