The role of the table

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THE Jesus of the gospels is preoccupied with eating. Not only is it implied that some people think He was a drunkard and glutton, but there are in all of the gospels endless references to eating, banquets, tables and reclining at tables.

The table is one of the Lord’s key places for teaching, for reproving, and for encountering those who were marginalised. The table served as a focal point for some of Jesus’ parables. Tables, and the people who gather around tables, are close to the heart of Jesus in the gospels, and that should not escape our notice. Tables are, as John Bell has said, “level places.” Not all may be equal at a table, but all are at the same level, and when seated at the table, we have to look at those around us in the eye.

One of the tragedies of modern-day living is so little time at home and at work is spent eating and meeting around tables. There is a Near Eastern proverb that says:

“I saw them eating and I knew who they were.” In the early church, common meals were a way of meeting physical needs but in such a manner as to embarrass no one.

Those who had and those who did not have sat at table together without distinction. Table fellowship means full acceptance of one another.

Oslo is an award-winning play set in the 1990s and tells the true story of Norwegian diplomats brokering discussions between the warring Israelis and Palestinians.

The play is inspired by Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul and her husband, Terje Rød-

Larsen, who co-ordinated months of top-secret negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. Oslo portrays how real diplomacy works. The play shows what can happen when people on opposite sides of what is perceived as an intractable divide strive to create a shared humanity. Is there something to learn in current political debate in our country today? A table, food, drink, talk. Realised community.

Barriers cracking. Hope persistently refusing to be quelled.

In the centre place in most of our churches a table is found – the communion table. A table around which women and men gather, from every conceivable background, to share bread and wine and do what Jesus and His disciples did to remember the saving love of God, where we read in Mark 14:18 that, “…they were at table eating…”

There are other tables in our churches. I think of the tables at coffee time after services, and during the week, where the church community and the community beyond gather to share, support, critique, encourage and relate. Sitting at a table to share food and drink is such an ordinary event, but with an extraordinary impact.

At a table we can learn and re-learn not only our manners, but our better behaviour as human beings.

Communion tables, coffee tables, conference tables, dinner tables. At a table – eating. Remembering Who God is – the One Who saves and is present. Remembering who we are: the ones who are saved, and no longer alone. At tables like these God’s hospitality, God’s giving nature, is to be found in what God does, and in what we do and why we do it.

Together. ¤

The Very Rev Dr Derek Browning is minister at Edinburgh: Morningside