There is a scene at the end of the film Places in the Heart that I have never forgotten.

The film is set in Depression-era Texas. A young widow struggles to save her farm. A black man named Moses helps her bring in the cotton crop — and is later run out of town by the Klan. A marriage is torn apart by infidelity. There is loss and injustice and grief woven through every story.

And then the film ends in a church. The pastor reads from 1 Corinthians 13 — love is patient, love is kind — and the elements of the Lord's Supper are passed through the congregation. The camera moves slowly across the faces. And you begin to realize this is no ordinary gathering.

The widow is there. And Moses, who was driven away. The widow's husband — who was killed earlier in the film — is there. And so is the young man who shot him and was lynched for it. The banker who tried to foreclose on the farm, and the couple whose marriage fractured are there together.

All of them. At the same table.

This feels like a glimpse of something larger, something still coming…

I think again about Paul on the road to Damascus — the life he lived before, and the grace that found him there. And I'm reminded that it was not just Paul who is in need of God’s grace. It was not just Paul who was broken, blind, and restored.

Writing about that scene, the pastor David Hall said: "This is the place where there is room for everybody who will come by way of the cross — regardless of how great their past sins may be. In the shadow of the cross, we all stand on the same level ground."

That is the table we gather around. Not because we have earned our place — but because we have all been given one. 

Prayer: Remind us, O God, what kind of table this is — and who else is seated here. Make us a community where all who come by way of the cross find room. May we never forget that we are all standing on the same level ground. Here and now, may we experience your healing grace; through Jesus Christ. Amen.

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