Hi. I am Larry Pew, a man who has walked with Jesus in the Institutional Church (Pastor, Chaplain, Counselor, Teacher) since 1970.
I am married (52 years) I have been blessed with four children, two sons are gay. Also four grandchildren (one Transgender and one who is seeing herself as Asexual).
I no longer pray that God will change their orientation, rather I will change my heart to be fully loving and affirming.
This short story is a combination of several non-published musings. I believe Table is more than a place, rather Table is The Place. Hopefully, this story will bring understanding.
TAGLINE FOR A TABLE
2017 is an eon ago. Walmart published an ad depicting people coming to a table carrying their own chairs. I shared this ad with (who was then) my pastor. He liked it, but did not show it at church, since “it has the Walmart symbol at the end.” I felt a bit unsettled at the time. (Looking back, I wonder if he would have been OK showing the video if it was produced by a big-name evangelical church). The number one retailer in the world gets it? We don’t?
Forward to January 2020, I met with this pastor at my table and told him we were leaving the church. The main reason: not everyone can sit at the church’s table. Not my Gay sons, not my Asexual granddaughter, not a woman who had been on staff, who was booted out since she is a woman, and has more education and sensitivity than all the male leaders. Not my brother-in-law, who is a large black man with an Anti-racist message. As I found from 2017 to 2020, a lot more people could not sit at the table (which boasted many round tables in the sanctuary, and a few chairs in the back).
JESUS’ TAGLINE FOR A TABLE
OPEN TABLE,
IF YOU HAVE A CHAIR, COME, FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO CHAIR, YOU WHO CAN CARRY THEM. BRING THEM TO THE TABLE.
NO BARRIERS, NO BOUNDARIES, COME AND EAT.
Jesus’ definition of table is all means all, black lives matter, any religion or nonreligious folk sit and eat together. He put it this way after finding great faith in a foreign ruling soldier:
“I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth Matthew 8:11–12.”
As Matthew’s Gospel story continues, Jesus invited Matthew to follow Him. Matthew throws a party at a table in his house. Who came? People like Matthew. (I wonder who would come to our parties, I hope that my neighbors, the unwashed, the lesbian, the alcoholic, the divorced, the single recluse ladies would come, hmm, this is a partial list of the folk who live on my street). If these people do not come, then I am missing Jesus’ message of compassion, and I have not gone and learned that the Lord wants me to have compassion, and not fill up my table with righteous folk: “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
TABLE: WHO IS THERE AND I DON’T BELONG
Table is the place where we come, with our hurts and hopes. Jesus’ table ministry defined His heart when He stripped off his garments and washed the disciple’s feet. Peter did not feel worthy, so objected. We might have two hang-ups at the table, who is sitting there, and the fact that we are sitting there. We might be held up by other people, as we see them as not worthy, or we can also stop the ministry of the Lord in our own lives by saying, I am not worthy.
After the feast, Jesus sends those sitting there out to their neighborhood.
He may say “Go to Walmart, go to other retail places, go to ball gamesI think Jesus would have put Walmart at the end of the ad. He would say to this generation: “Go to Walmart, feed the hungry, heal the sick, converse with the lonely, lift the chairless. He says to those who have left organized church, go on Sunday morning or other times when the “church folk” aren’t there, and begin doing the works of the community, speaking the words of the gathering.1
Go anywhere but not to a church that has a come as you are, but pay as you go theology.” 2(I understand this theology to say, come as you are, but pay as you go and become like us or you are not really welcome here, since you do not meet our expectations as to what a real believer is).
JESUS’ TABLE TALK: AGAPE’
Bummer, another ad with the company logo at the end.3
And just when it was going so well.
Since I did not show this video to the pastor who saw the first, I cannot speak for his response. But, I do believe that Jesus would say to anyone “Watch and learn.” Take one minute, not a half hour to repeat the message over and over again”.
Just take a minute, watch, and eat at my table of love. Eat my message, then go out with it to Wall Street, to your investment counselor, your insurance broker, to your CPA, and share love.
While taking stock of our personal wealth is OK, we may want to invest in the living church in our neighborhood. It may be time to tear down the old, to clean out the temples and sell them to the nonprofits, to stop paying our weekly experts of theology and become little Christ’s (Origen of Alexandria, I know, a heretic) in our daily lives, our workplaces, our homes.
Just when it was going so well, bringing chairs, loving the unlovely, and Walmart and New York Life put their trademarks in the ad. I think that if a church would have placed a cross or a time to worship at the end these messages would have fallen face first. But Walmart and New York Life seem to be doing just fine. My kids will not go to any church building, but they sure know their way to Walmart, and they can talk to an agent about buying life insurance.
YOUNGBLOODS GOT IT RIGHT SO MANY YEARS AGO
(Music to Many Chairs, One Table. Full disclosure, I am a really old guy. I heard this one and memorized it 1968).
They wrote this one in 1967 (just saying, maybe we should hear and do this message):
If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It’s there at your command
Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now4
Finally, Walmart gets it, New York Life gets it, the Youngbloods got it. Maybe it is time for those of us to do the works of the Community of God and speak the words of the Called Out ones without anyone else telling us what to do or say.
We already know.
NOW IN 2024, another invitation to the chairs are moveable feasts to come to the table
Chairs are moveable feasts by Courtney Abruzzo
“Back when I was a bartender, I noticed a similar trend. Chairs defined the patron. Empty chairs hold a promise beyond their function. The promise is community. Chairs are meant for gathering spaces — to be set around a table, a fireplace, or a TV set. Chairs don’t set us apart; they bring us together in groups, large or small. It doesn’t matter what your stripe is. Once seated among others, you belong.”5
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wf5V/walmart-many-chairs-one-table-song-by-the-youngbloods August 2017 1
Matthew 9:13, Hosea 6:6; “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Laurie Anderson, O Superman, Big Science Album 2
New York Life series, Love Takes Action, February 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKb--dYdMI 3
Jesse Colin Young Get Together lyrics © Bernard’s Other Music, Publishing Company Ten Ab, Pigfoot Music, Irving Music Inc. c.1967 4
Courtney Abruzzo Van Gogh’s Moveable Feast
https://medium.com/human-parts/van-goghs-movable-feast-bc3576c1eed3 5
