Luke 14:7-8, 10-15

 “I’m Gonna Eat at the Welcome Table”

Last October I attended the ECC Ethnic Concerns Consultation Conference, an annual conference which brings together Christians of diverse ethnic backgrounds from PCUSA congregations in our region. In one of the workshops, we discussed racial and ethnic bias and the transformative power of relationships. The discussion leader posed the question: Do you have friends of a different race or ethnicity who have invited you into their home? Many people have colleagues, or peers, or acquaintances, but this metric asked a different question. Have you opened your home? Has someone opened their home to you?

As I sat in the room under a vent that was blasting cold air, I suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Plenty of friends had come to mind. But most of us had never been to each other’s homes.

When I read the Gospel reading for this week, I couldn’t help but think of the leader’s question. Friends, who have you invited into your homes? Who have we invited here, in our church home? And who have we forgotten about?

Each one of us misses someone, and Jesus offers a list to begin with: the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. The immigrant, the prisoner, the atheist, the person who does not speak your language, the children, the elderly, the homeless, the sex worker. Take a look around. When we begin our service, we greet one another with a sign of Christ’s peace. We acknowledge one another’s presence. We see who is here. What if we joined with Jesus in seeing who is not here?

In the research which has been compiled to work towards creating a mission study report for our church, one word emerged which best described Parkview. Can you guess what it was? Hospitality. We are a community which has cultivated welcome. We celebrate our food and our openness to many cultures. We aim to be a community where all are welcome. Many of us have come to church today because someone here invited us. Last week or a few months or years ago. A year ago today, I was welcomed to Parkview for my first worship service as a pastoral resident. I had been invited first by my friend, Rola, and then by the committee which called me. In my first Kansha Korner, I reflected on the hospitality I witnessed here in the church. Thank you for welcoming me here when I was a stranger. Thank you for inviting me into your church home.

And I challenge you to give the same welcome to any person who would walk through our doors and come to the table. I challenge myself to extend that welcome. Because, church, we know that ultimately, it is not we who do the inviting, but God. This table, this church, our lives here together, belongs to God. God has made a place for you here. Let no one stand in the way of your invitation. May we all have the grace, the courage, and the wisdom to come, to eat at the welcome table that God has prepared for us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.