Around the Table
This past January, I engaged in the sorrowful task of sorting through my mom’s stuff. The task wasn’t monumental. My mom had undertaken several rounds of sorting through her worldly possessions long before she died and delighted in gifting her things to people she loved. Her strand of pearls to a beloved granddaughter. A well-worn and favorite book to a colleague and friend. A treasured print to a dear student. It was a years’ long process for her, and one that was meaningful. For me, sorting through her things was a bittersweet exercise, and every once in a while during those few days of work, I’d run across something that surprised me.
While most of the family photographs had already made their way to my brother and me, there were a number of pictures to peruse. In sorting through them, there was a genre of photograph that took me a little by surprise. I should say not completely by surprise because, well, she was my mom, and I knew her well—but a little by surprise because it’s a little weird. In the collection of pictures, I came across dozens of photos of our dining room with the table set with its finest. These weren’t pictures of dinner parties, mind you. These were pictures of our dining room table set with china and silver and crystal and flowers and all the other fancy stuff you pack on a table before the beloved crowd arrives. Weird. Quirky. And loving. My mom loved putting loved ones around a table.
If we pay careful attention to the story of Easter, the story that predates Easter, and the stories that come afterward, we come to the quick conclusion that God loves a dinner party, too! The healing powers of a feast around a table reverberate through the Biblical narrative. During Holy Week alone, we hear tales of the liberative power of the Passover meal from Exodus. We read a prophecy from Isaiah of Israel’s restoration as an extravagant feast. We listen to and reenact the story of Jesus’ Last Supper in our Maundy Thursday liturgy. We share the Paschal Feast on Easter Day in church. Maybe we even throw together an Easter Brunch (with cheese grits) afterward. The dinner table sits in the center of our religious storytelling and our spiritual practice.
Given the fact that Easter is a season, not a day, we could focus on the power of the table. For these fifty days on our way to Pentecost, perhaps we focus upon bringing the beloved around our own tables, or meeting one another around a table at Orsetto or The Bird or any number of other spots. Unlike my mom, I don’t think God cares much how the table is set. I think God likes to be a part of the care that happens around and across the table when we gather there. Happy Easter. See you around the table or across the room!
Love,
Jimmy
