Andrea Lingle, in the new book Rooted in Grace: Essays on Dialogue Without Division, says, “Christians began, not as people of the cross, but as people of the table… the table reminds us of our fundamental need for others.”

The recently passed Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin sang it this way: “You need me (need me) And I need you (don’t you know it?) Without each other there ain’t nothing neither can do.”

God’s folks haven’t always got this right.

I remember as a boy eating lunch at the table in my aunt’s kitchen while a few feet away, a screen door separating us, sitting on the brick wall in the carport, the African-American woman who had been cleaning the house that morning ate her sandwich from home. When I asked why she wasn’t at the table with us, the answer my uncle gave was, “She’d rather eat with her kind.” Like I said, God’s folks haven’t always got this table thing right.

In the epistle to the Galatians we find the apostle Paul’s version of a run in with the apostle Peter concerning the table. Paul says that they were all in Antioch, enjoying one another’s company, eating together during dinner until some of the rules guys from Jerusalem came to town. Somehow these brothers had gleaned from the scriptures that good Jews were not to eat with gentiles and according to Paul, Peter got a bit timid and joined the Jerusalem party for supper.

That seems odd to me since it was Peter who went to Cornelius, a Roman soldier’s, house and when the Spirit fell on the gentiles, he went back to Jerusalem and said, “Guys, all I know is that the Spirit told me to not call anyone profane or unclean and it looks to me like the gentiles are as in with God as we are.” (See Acts 10)

Maybe that day in Antioch Peter hadn’t really thought it out. Maybe he was just sitting with some old friends, catching up on stuff from home. Maybe he was telling them that the idea of two tables was silly and he wanted to introduce his old friends to his new friends. All we know is that Paul interrupted with a rather forceful, “Dude, you’re sitting at the wrong table.” This table stuff was important to Paul.

Paul wanted everyone at the same table or everyone in the carport. For Paul, there wasn’t a gentile table and a Jewish table. There was only the Jesus table and everyone is invited and welcome there. In fact, that may be the table litmus test: Is everyone welcome? Is everyone valued? Is everyone needed?

It’s worth pointing out that Paul didn’t go to the rule keepers’ table and say that they needed to include the others. He essentially said that the exclusive table was invalid and the rules boys needed to fix themselves a plate of humility and take a seat with the “outsiders.”

Pondering that could help us see the Lord’s Table in an entirely different light. Folks like me (housed, straight, white, no ink, educated, male, ordained, citizen, relatively clean police record… ) aren’t actually called to welcome the people my aunt and uncle were uncomfortable with at all. The call on my life is to get up from where me and my buds are sitting, get over to Jesus’ table and say, “Would it be OK if I sat here?”
I need you. You need me.

(My wife, Kathryn, has a couple of essays in the book, Rooted in Grace. She told me not to say that so if you see her, don’t tell her.)

“Live long enough and the people you love get old.” (Lori McKenna)

The song with those words was playing in my head as I sat in the nursing home and listened to my ninety-one year old Dad say for perhaps the one hundred and fifty-sixth time, “If I could just get out of the bed by myself, stand up and walk, things would be so much easier. Of course, if I could do that I’d walk right out of here. (pause for chuckle) But, if you can’t be home, this is not a bad place to be. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for.” It’s a safe bet that in a couple of days, when I make my regular Sunday afternoon call we will hit one hundred and fifty-seven.

Of course he’s not the only one getting old. The other day I was looking at Jim the Grey in the mirror and it occurred to me that I am a senior citizen in every measurable way, excluding maturity. Not sure how or when that happened. It seems like I was a young man forever but I only got to be a regular adult for about three weeks.

When you officially reach the fall season in life it is hard to get your mind around how much time has gone by since that fellow in the nursing home was a twenty-five year old smoking a cigarette in the waiting room when he heard, “Congratulations Mr. Hunter, it’s a boy.”

Sometimes I lie in bed at night and think, “For crying out loud, my daughters are older than I feel.” Maybe I should stop thinking of them as seventeen year olds. But as I often say, “I’m not complaining. I’m just noticing.” (Actually, I have no memory of ever saying that but I like it so I’m going to start often saying it.)

All the graying and lack of body cooperation aside, one of the unexpected discoveries of this season is that, if one is so inclined, growth in spirit continues. Sometimes it feels as if it has even accelerated. It’s almost embarrassing.

I mean you’d think that after committing to team Christ in 1971, earning a couple or three degrees, being an ordained minister for thirty- bunch years, and qualifying for Medicare a fellow would feel like more than an apprentice in life. Yet every day creation shares a new secret, sacred words bring new insight, life is found in community, justice feels more urgent, prayer is more intimate, and the Christ in everyone becomes a little clearer.

On days that I want to try imagining the unimaginable I give listening to the younger folks a whirl. I try to imagine what they are seeing from their spot on the continuum of life and I wonder what they will be seeing, feeling, thinking many years from now when they are lying in their beds thinking, “For crying out loud…” I certainly hope that the young ones in my life will be realizing, as I presently am, that “life-long learner” isn’t just a cliché.

Like I said, sometimes it’s a little embarrassing. Seems like I should have gotten some of this stuff earlier. I should have taken a lot of stuff more seriously, a lot of stuff less seriously. I guess I’m a late bloomer.