Enemies at the Table
Do you ever find that when you talk about your family, there are a lot of competing emotions and thoughts that come to mind? Some are positive, some less so, some memories you're keen to share, others you would rather forget. Sound familiar?
Families are complex, despite what Hallmark cards would like us to think when it comes to Mother's Day! So when I sat down to work on my sermon for today, I found myself struggling with all that complexity. At first I wanted to look at our larger family, the family of humanity and creation, at what we are learning about that family as we go through Covid, where we are growing and learning, where we still have long way to go.
Then thought, no, it's a happy day, we should focus on celebrating family!
What do we love about our nuclear families, our church family, our family of creation? But that wasn't feeling quite right either, even though I had half a sermon written.
Then I participated in Queer Vespers on Sunday night and something Serena Patterson said pushed me in a totally different direction. As a side note, I really encourage you to check out Queer Vespers, it's done as a zoom service in the evening, usually the last Sunday of the month. You don't have to be part of the LGBTQ community to join in, straight people are welcomed too, and wow, can you learn a lot.
This past Sunday, we were looking at Psalm 23, going through line by line. When we got to verse 5, “you prepare a table for me in presence of my enemies,” Serena commented that this probably means our enemies are invited to the banquet table God has prepared for us.
I literally sat back from the computer in shock when she said that. My enemies are invited to banquet table God has prepared for me? Really? I had always had the image of eating a great meal at a beautiful table while my enemies watched from the sidelines, regretting they hadn't been nicer to me. A bit childish, I admit, but true.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Serena was probably right. After all, can you really see Jesus having a banquet with anyone excluded? Jesus' teachings were all based on the justice teachings of the Old Testament.
The writer of the Psalm may not have intended that interpretation, but there is no doubt Jesus would have taken it that way.
All of a sudden I had whole new perspective on family. Don't we all have some family member or another with whom we would really rather not have to eat? Going beyond the family we are related to, aren't we all somehow connected to someone who is difficult or argumentative or simply unkind?
We don't often use the word “enemies” these days, it seems over the top, but I imagine we can all think of people who we would rather not sit with at our banquet. So what would it look like to share not just a meal, but a banquet table laid out by God, with those people?
I recognize that sometimes we can't share a meal because isn't safe. If there has been abuse in a relationship, then sitting down at table most likely isn't an option. But what about other relationships? Difficult ones, irritating ones, ones where you've been hurt or have caused hurt? Just the act of inviting that person to the table might be a chance at healing for both sides.
I want to share few stories with you, of situations I've seen or experienced where people invited or were invited to eat with their enemy, or at least with a person where the relationship was strained or painful. I find that sometimes stories unlock thoughts and emotions for us better than anything else.
The first story is about a wedding. The couple had both been married before, each had two children. The man's ex wife was struggling with him re-marrying, their girls, who were 7 and 9, were aware of this. The girls really wanted Dad to invite Mom to the wedding. Their mom wanted to go, she thought it would help her, but Dad absolutely didn't want her there.
The new wife to be was actually okay with the idea and she was the one who raised the issue we me at our last meeting before the wedding. I knew the ex wife, they all attended church and even all sat together. She wasn't a difficult person, it was just a difficult relationship.
So I said to the man, obviously it's up to you, but it's something to think about. Your girls are holding back from getting excited about your wedding because they're worried about their mom. If you invite her to the wedding, it allows your girls to be fully part of not only your wedding, but of your marriage. It could bring about a lot of healing and make things easier in the future.
This was NOT what he wanted to hear, but he could see the truth in what I was saying. Reluctantly he agreed that his ex wife could have a place at the wedding and indeed, it resulted in a lot of healing.
The next is a very different example, a friend of mine whose brother has been a meth addict for years. After my friend spent thousands on rehab for him over and over,after being taken advantage of by him over and over, finally she had to cut him off, no money, no contact.
Then a month ago, she saw his number on her phone, thought, do I answer? She took the risk of answering, it turned out he had been through rehab on his own, had been clean for almost a year.
She agreed to accept his invitation to renew their relationship but recognized she had to put boundaries on it. That's okay too. Sometimes the invitation to the table has to have boundaries to keep everyone safe.
Inviting our enemy to the table can happen in churches too. Up in Whitehorse there was woman who didn't see much good in me, she said and did some pretty hurtful things, and then left the church. About four years later she started coming back occasionally, and then she asked if she could give me healing touch, something I knew was very meaningful to her.
It took courage for her to extend that invitation and it meant the world to me. It meant more than any verbal apology, because healing touch comes from the heart, she couldn't offer it if she wasn't feeling differently.
That experience helped me to reach out to another woman where the relationship had been strained, this time on both sides. I knew she was a good reader, so I asked her to help with the Blue Christmas service. It was a risk, I wasn't sure she had let go of her issues with me, I wasn't sure I had let go of my issues with her, but after healing touch with the first woman, I knew it was time.
The second woman was so happy to be asked to help with the Blue Christmas service and working together was a wonderful, healing experience for both of us. It was the beginning of a whole new relationship between us and of her going on to become lay worship leader. Inviting her to the table truly resulted in a banquet.
Covid times offer us the opportunity to invite our enemies to the table on a wider scale, to engage with our larger family of humanity. How many times do you watch the news, or see people in our community, and see things that make you angry? Anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, people who ignore restrictions.
It's easy to get angry and frustrated, but Psalm 23 pushes us to ask, what would preparing a banquet with these people look like? Just this week I was talking with a friend in town who had struggled with this. About a month ago she was at Marina Park and saw two women she knows. One started going on about how terrible Covid vaccines are and how no one should get them.
My friend was feeling tired and stressed already, she knew that if she tried to respond she would just get angry, so she said she had to go and avoided the conversation. But when she got home, she was upset with herself, and wondered how else could she have handled that situation?
She decided that next time, she would open up the conversation, ask why the person felt that way, realizing that their views were probably based on fear. She also did research so she knew all facts about Covid and vaccines. A few weeks later she encountered another person leery of vaccines. This time, she engaged the person in non-judgmental conversation. She discovered that sure enough, the person had a lot of fear and misinformation. When my friend presented facts, in a gentle, non-confrontational way, the other person listened and afterwards said she had some thinking to do. Obviously not everyone is willing to listen or engage, but if we never invite them to the table, there's no chance of conversation at all.
In the passage from John, Jesus talks about love. He makes it clear he's talking about love in powerful & concrete terms. The disciples are called to love others as Jesus has loved them, with a willingness to take risks and make sacrifices.
Psalm 23's call to invite our enemies to the table offers us a powerful and concrete example of how to live out that kind of love, love that follows in steps of Jesus, love that can make a difference to our world.
I encourage you to think about who God might be calling you to invite to the table. Who are the people with whom you have strained or difficult relationships in your family, your community, our church and in the wider family of humanity?