The Communal Table

The dessert comes to the table through the delighted efforts of the one who loves us best, teaching us that we are cherished…

          But, who, exactly, are we speaking of when we say “we?”

          Certainly this is the sentiment that fills our souls, but aren’t we claiming that the arriving celebration we have come through in Advent is a sentiment to fill our world? We live at a time when groups of people are tearing each other apart. Accusations of inhumane actions. Dehumanizing depictions. Sides drawn with shouts echoing through our media, through our politics, through our neighborhoods. And yet — at this very moment, at our Advent table — we are singing:

          “Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace;

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,

And in His name all oppression shall cease.”

   The communal experience of our faith is not built on agreement. It is built on grace. It is not sustained by sameness.  It is sustained by love. God’s love is for the entire world. Not just for the righteous. Not just for the familiar. Not just for those who sit quietly and nod. God’s love is for the stranger. For the wounded. For the one who shouts. For the one who has been silenced.

At the table of faith, we do not earn our seat. We are invited. We are welcomed. We are taught that we are children of the household… all of us… across difference, across history, across pain. We begin to taste the gospel of peace when we begin to see each other not as enemies, but as siblings. Not as threats, but as fellow image-bearers. Not as problems, but as people.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow knew this tension well. He wrote “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” in the midst of the American Civil War — a time when our country was seemingly tearing itself apart. He had lost his wife in a tragic fire, been scarred himself trying to save her, and nearly lost his son to a battlefield wound that came within a hairsbreadth of paralysis. Into this mayhem, Longfellow wrote:

  “And in despair I bowed my head,

‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said,‘

For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.’”

But, within that moment he found the deeper truth.

  “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.’”

This is the dessert miracle of Christmas that arrives at our Advent table. God came to dwell with us, to redeem, to invite us to come back into his love. Our table is a protest against every form of oppression. It is a declaration that love is stronger than fear. That peace is possible. That chains can be broken.

So we sing and act. Even in the noise. Even in the ache. Even in the tension.

We sing and we act because we believe the sweetness of our celebration, the dessert at the end of our Advent feast – our Christmas – proclaims that at this table there is room for everyone.