Did you ever have to sit at the kid’s table? Your family had some big whoopdeedo. There was a huge meal. The big table was covered with bowls of steaming, hot vegetables. There was a big platter of ham, or beef, or turkey, or maybe all three. Every chair in the house that could be used was fit closer than sardines in a tin around the table. Biscuits were piled high on the sideboard, along with butter, and honey, and jam, and sorghum. (Okay, that last one is a Southern thing.)
Aunts and uncles, mom and dad, grandparents, the newlyweds, the folks down the street who are related to your mother’s cousin’s uncle’s sister twice removed, everyone is here. Everyone is excited, everyone is all together. Except for the kids.
At the kids table. In the other room. The rickety, spindly-legged card table that doesn’t even have a cloth on it (“You know how children are, dear”). The faux fabric covering has been ripped from the corner revealing the fiberboard underneath.
Grand Marais minister James Alcorn spoke at the recent convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Rochester, MN. Nearly 5,000 people attended the event, including about 15 Cook County residents, to hear Alcorn’s message about the miracles of Jesus Christ.
Eight plates. Eight paper plates. Eight chairs. Eight cheap, metal, non-upholstered folding chairs that your little brother stands up in every year and gets folded up in and causes a big ruckus and they wind up taking your food away in the melee before you’re even done.
And Brussels sprouts. And cauliflower. And too much gravy and not enough turkey. And one word of warning: Don’t even think of leaving the table before you’ve cleaned your plate.
Did you ever have to sit at the kid table where getting seconds meant hazarding a trip into the dining room, to the grown-up table, where you had to stand quietly until noticed and then asking Uncle Hubert to pass the turkey leg he’d been eyeing for the last ten minutes?
I remember several occasions when I was a kid where I wanted nothing more than for the day to arrive when there would be room at the table for me.
Room to sit with the grown-ups. Room to be equal with the big boys. Room to have seconds passed without asking! In fact, room to take the turkey leg before Uncle Hubert even saw it!
Jesus told the parable of a man who hosted a huge banquet. Once all the preparations were made, he sent servants to notify the invited guests, but one after another the guests declined the invitation. One had just purchased teams of oxen that needed testing. He could not come. Another had purchased land that needed surveying. He could not take the time to come. Another had just been married. He was busy.
The host was not to be deterred from his plan. He sent his servants out into the streets of the town to invite everyone they could find to the banquet.
When that was done, the servants reported that there was still room at the table for more guests. The host sent his servants far and near, along the highways and the hedges, searching for guests to fill his table.
The parable, of course, is an illustration of God’s intent for human beings. He prepares great goodness for us and invites us to come to his banquet. And the greatest news of all is that, in the immensity of God’s love, there is room at the table. There is room at the table for me. There is room at the table of grace for you. All of God’s love, his wisdom, his grace, his justice, his mercy, his kindness, his purity are set before us, and there is room at his table for each of us.
The invitation to God’s table comes to us through his Son, Jesus Christ, who came among us as a servant to announce God’s invitation. Through faith in Jesus and his death on the cross we accept God’s invitation to grace and eternal life. And there is never a limit. There is always room at God’s table for you.
That’s the Good News.
Each month the clergy of the Cook County Ministerium offer spiritual reflections. This week’s contributor is Pastor Dale McIntire with The Good News. Pastor McIntire has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
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