The Way: Come to the Table of Grace

If you are thirsty, there is wine. If you are hungry, there is bread. And if you have been spending yourself on things that do not satisfy, here is something that will. If you've been wondering whether the promises were meant for you, whether the covenant extended far enough to include someone like you, let this table answer that question. It does. You are included. You are welcome. [01:07:05] (29 seconds)  #YouAreIncluded

Here at this table, we do something that the church has done for over two thousand years. We come to a table, we receive bread, we share a cup, and in this simple act, we will say something all our words this morning have been reaching toward, that there is a way of living that runs on grace rather than on merit, on gift rather than on achievement, on welcome rather than worthiness. [01:05:51] (28 seconds)  #GraceNotMerit

As they heard it as a voice crying out in the marketplace, come everyone who thirst, come you who have no money. The invitation was not extended to the prepared, the polished, the spiritually sufficient. It was extended to the hungry, to the thirsty, to those who had finally honestly run out of things to prove, and the same invitation stands here now at this table. [01:06:18] (26 seconds)  #OpenInvitation

Generous God, we come to this table the way pilgrims come to the end of a long day's walk, tired, humbled, grateful simply to have arrived. We confess that we have spent ourselves on things that do not satisfy trading our energy for status, for certainty, for the exhausting project of proving our own worth. Forgive us for standing at the edges of your abundance calculating whether we deserve to enter. [01:07:40] (29 seconds)  #ConfessAndReceive

Your ways are higher than our ways. Your welcome reaches further than any boundary we have drawn. So today, we lay down what we have been carrying, and we receive with open hands what you have always been offering yourself poured out in bread and cup freely and fully for all. And for this, we give you thanks. Amen. [01:08:09] (34 seconds)  #FreeGraceThanks

It's not a table that belongs to this congregation or to a certain denomination or to any particular tradition. It is not our table to guard. It belongs to the one who said it, the one whose ways are higher than our ways, whose generosity outruns every boundary we might draw, and so we draw none. [01:06:44] (21 seconds)  #NotOurTable

Gentiles shared the cup with the Jews, and this was socially disruptive. This was not how it worked in that day, and yet the covenant was democratized. The table was for everyone. The hierarchies dissolved into what looks just a little bit like the kingdom of God. And this vision of a table for all peoples, this vision belongs to us still every time we gather here, every time we have the chance to enact this sacred right again, [00:55:22] (39 seconds)  #TableForAll

Now, we don't know of this economy. Our economy is based on transaction. It's based on earning. It's based on merit. If you work, you get paid. If you perform well, maybe you'll get promoted. If you follow the rules, then maybe we'll let you belong. It's a transactional economy. It's not like God's economy where simply you can come find bread and milk without currency. [00:47:47] (30 seconds)  #BeyondTransaction