Come As You Are

Last week we reflected on the words of the prophet Isaiah (25:1-9): On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast…

On this mountain… This mountain, for Isaiah, was Zion – Jerusalem. This was the place where God was known to be particularly present. We might think of it as a thin place.

In the New Testament, Jesus promised that one of the places he would be present in a powerful way was the communion table. Also a thin place. And Jesus invites us to come as we are in this moment – not as we one day hope to be – or not as we should be. No. He invites us to come right now, with all of our brokenness, all of our longing, all of our hope.

There is a lot of brokenness in the world around us – and in the world within us.

Henri Nouwen so beautifully captures the essence of this when he writes: “Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment…. It seems… that even in the most happy moments of our existence we sense a tinge of sadness. In every satisfaction, there is an awareness of limitations… Behind every smile, there is a tear. In every embrace, there is loneliness. In every friendship, distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness… But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence.”

It is beautiful to me that our faith doesn’t deny the brokenness, this longing that we all have… for connection, for relationships to be healed, for the tears to be dried, for the hungry to be fed, for things to be made right… This longing brings us to the awareness of just how fragile life is and our own human limitations and need.

It is often around tables that we share this brokenness and our longings with each other. And it is around the communion table, that Christ invites us to share in his own brokenness… This is my body…

May you come to see the table as a kind of altar. And may you remember that time spent around it alone, or with family and friends, is time spent in the presence of Christ. May you offer him, all that happens around these tables…. Trusting that in that offering, there is blessing and grace…

Let us pray: Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, in our homes and churches and around our tables. And open our eyes to your presence, even here, even now. Amen.