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Love, the guest, is on the way...
Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Luke 14:12-14
Luke 14:12-14
Set the Table
Set the Table
Rev. Emelia Attridge
Imagine setting a table with love. Putting napkin, fork, or plate down with the care and devotion a saint gives to God. Most of the time we are rushing around when hosting company, and focused on the scarcity of time.
This year we hosted Thanksgiving, and for whatever reason there was no sense of feeling rushed. There was spaciousness of time, and as guests arrived there was no feeling of pressure.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel describes Sabbath as a "sanctuary" or "palace" in time. Heschel's Sabbath is a short book densely packed with wisdom. He writes about "love of Sabbath," that, "to observe the Sabbath is to celebrate the coronation of a day in the spiritual wonderland of time" (18). While Heschel's book focuses on time he points out how time and space are interrelated.
Advent is entirely in time. Not just a series of days and hours until Christmas, but what we make of it. Rather than filling our days with anxiety until Christmas, what if we treated each moment with the love and adoration of setting the table for a guest?
This is the spiritual discipline of Advent: to treat each moment as a holy gift. Heschel offers Christians (really, anyone) this gift. His regard of Sabbath can offer to anyone a way to take back our Decembers: to reframe the scarcity of time, the to-do lists, and the consumption into a sacred season.
I once heard a pastor friend say this: "What if we lived like Jesus was in worship with us in church on Sunday morning?" Christ is already and always near to us. But what if we actually lived like it?
God of the Sabbath,
Take my to-do lists, my should-of's, and my expectations self-imposed on this season.
You are my shepherd, I don't need a thing.
Remind me of this when the season gets to be too much,
when my December gets overrun by everything that isn't of You,
when I forget what the whole point of God dwelling on Earth was for, anyway.
Help me to set my table with adoration for You this season,
and to remember the fast you have chosen:
not baubles and trinkets,
but to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with You.
Amen.
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