I find the timing ironic. As the refugee conversation heats up politically and socially we find ourselves with a massive opportunity. This opportunity comes every year in our country and leave us desperately distracted with football games, parades, methods of cooking turkeys and discussions whether our cranberry sauce will be homemade or shaped like a can. Thanksgiving is, perhaps, one of our greatest opportunities to welcome people to the table. A question I am asking this year is, “Who would Jesus invite to the Thanksgiving table?”
Food was not just an opportunity Jesus seized during his three years of public ministry, but many would say it was THE opportunity he seized. Robert Karris notes, “In Luke’s Gospel Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal.” For Jesus meals and parties became a space for relationship, celebration, mission, inclusion, invitation, intersection and incarnation. Meals were more than food to Jesus; they were a sacred opportunity. How Jesus spent his time should shape how we spend ours. An area that was so crucial to Jesus should be crucial to us.
The Gospels are full of accounts of Jesus “reclining” with unlikely people. I give this a loose translation of “chillin”, but “letting his guard down for a meal” will also do the trick. Jesus surprisingly accepted an invitation to a Pharisee’s house (Luke 7:36). Jesus reclined with the twelve disciples (Matthew 26:20). Expensive perfume was poured on his head as he was reclining at the table with Simon the leper (Matthew 26:7, Mark 14:3). He even let Judas recline at the table with him hours before his betrayal.
Many of us are looking for opportunities to bless others, but have not once considered Thanksgiving as that opportunity. Maybe you’ve considered it, but it just seems too risky. “They won’t know my family. They won’t get along. It will be awkward. They will feel like they have to accept my invite.” I’ve heard all the excuses. In fact, I’ve used them myself.
I can honestly say that inviting strangers, or near strangers, to the Thanksgiving table has brought a deep sense of joy to my family. Many people have turned us down, but some have accepted the invite. Some have come into this sacred American tradition barely speaking english. Some have walked in the door as friends and left as extended family. Some have warned they can only “stop in for a minute” only to stay for hours. The table is the ideal opportunity for inviting in the wanderer, the lost, the misfit and the lonely into our lives. Tim Chester asks, “What dramas have played out around this simple piece of furniture?” The table has become a backdrop for some exciting dramas to play out in our family.
I believe the giving of thanks for our blessings cannot be fully understood without outsiders around the table. Scripture describes a banquet table we will feast from for eternity. Our meals on this earth can foreshadow that great banquet feast. You can make a case that Thanksgiving is a place to rest from mission and celebrate with family. I just don’t think Jesus would make that case. If Jesus walked this earth today I think he’d be busy inviting the strange and the stranger to his table this week. Jesus spent his time relaxing and eating with intention. Are we?