Crowded Table

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

During seminary I worked at Cedars Mediterranean Restaurant as a server. It was a good job and I really loved the people I worked with. One of the first lessons I learned there was how to turn tables. This meant that when a table of people had finished their meal and left we should bus the table quickly and get it ready for the next guests. During the busier shifts that I worked there would be people in our waiting area ready to be seated so the faster we could get the tables turned, the faster we could get them to their table and eating.

It was a fun and frenetic place to work on those busy nights and was especially worth it when customers would leave satisfied and in turn leave us a big tip.

After that first year of seminary, I left Chicago for the summer, so I left my job at Cedars, but throughout the rest of my seminary journey, I learned new ways to turn tables. Not necessarily in a restaurant setting, but more so in the public square through community organizing. This is the kind of table turning that is inspired by our Gospel reading today where Jesus enters the temple and flips the money changers tables.

This radical energy of Jesus excited me and many of my other seminary classmates to dream of building enough power ourselves to start turning over the tables of inequality, racism, sexism, queerphobia, and to reverse the destruction we are causing to the earth. I’d be lying if I said that this table flipping gospel lesson didn’t still awaken that radical side of me because it does, but as I thought about preaching this sermon, I didn’t just want to pick the lowest hanging fruit that would just rile up myself and maybe even many of you to just go and start flipping tables.

So instead, I thought about the part of the story that we don’t get. Like what happened in the temple after Jesus turns all the tables and prophecies that he will be killed but will rise from the dead in three days. Like what happens after that? I can imagine Jesus having his mic drop moment then strutting out of the temple with his disciples close behind. The money changers and the other Jews in the temple just standing there silently stunned, but slowly they begin looking around at each other and one by one they begin cleaning up the coins strewn about the ground and they flip the tables back over.

But in my vision, they don’t just go back to business as usual right away. They are too shocked to just go back to the selling of animals for sacrifice and after all Jesus drove out all of the animals, so for the moment the temple is just filled with people and empty tables.

So they begin to surround these tables for conversations about what just happened. A few of them are incensed that Jesus would do such a destructive thing in the temple of all places. Doesn’t he have any respect for private property? Some even start to call for criminal prosecution for this reckless rioter Jesus. But then there are a few of them who start to question the system of sacrifice that had been in place that excluded the poor and those who were unclean in some way and were not allowed to enter the temple to participate in the ritual sacrifices. Some of these folks voice their sympathy with Jesus’ action and begin to wonder if their system can be reformed or if it needs to be altogether dismantled in order for it to be more inclusive and accessible. There are yet others who don’t have the words to articulate their reaction to what Jesus just did, so they quietly and patiently listen and search their own heart for what is being asked of them in response to Jesus’ actions.

These crowded table discussions in the temple may have felt kind of frustrating even pointless for some. Everybody just said what they already believed, and no one actually left with any change of heart or mind. But there was more happening under the surface that no one could fully understand or explain just yet. Because after what Jesus did, after that transgression, all of a sudden people were faced with the truth and they had to make a decision. Would things just go back to the way they were, or would they seek change?

Ultimately the tables that Jesus flipped had to be set again and we all know what happens from here. Jesus and his message could not exist alongside these systems of inequality, exploitation, and death. So one of them had to go, and it turned out to be Jesus.

But does that mean that the system of inequality, exploitation, and death won? No way! Because we also know that Jesus does what he said he would do that day in the temple, he did rise from the dead after three days. And for us that is good news because we too, through baptism have died a death like Jesus but in doing so we will also experience a resurrection like his.

You see, even though the table flipping instinct in me is strong, I now also recognize the reality of needing to reset the table so that it can welcome more people to it. That’s when I think back to my serving days where we eagerly turned tables to welcome as many guests as we could in a single shift.

And I wonder if we could think of our own communion tables like that, which right now are our dinner tables. Maybe it’s time to turn the table and re-set it so that more people can come to know it’s abundance.

The Highwomen are a band I really like and they have a song called “Crowded Table” and the lyrics go like this, “Yeah I want a house with a crowded table, And a place by the fire for everyone, The door is always open

Your picture's on my wall, Everyone's a little broken, And everyone belongs, Yeah, everyone belongs”

What if our communion tables truly reflected the vision this song paints? What if we cleared our table of all the stumbling blocks and set it in such a way that there was no question that every person has a spot prepared for them. Not just that there is room for them at the table, but that the table was set with them in mind!

That’s why Jesus turned the tables in the first place because they were set in such a way that actively discriminated against the poor and ritually unclean to the extent that there was no place for them at the table, and Jesus cannot abide so he overturns the table to communicate that the Lord’s table has a place intentionally prepared for each and every one of us. It was set with you and me in mind. In response we are not only called to be table flippers, but table setters as well, inviting all to God’s table of mercy.

And when we and every person finally take our place at that crowded table, I can’t wait for the conversations, the food, and the fellowship that are had and savored. The table that was once turned has now been set with you in mind, so take your place and enjoy God’s abundant spread. Amen.