"Maybe You Can Come Over for Supper"

When the church works best it seems to happen when we accept the invitation to come together for a meal.  Sometimes we are the “inviters.” Sometimes we are the “invitees.” Which is it harder for you to do, to invite someone to join you for a special meal or to accept the invitation of another?

I was sitting at my desk working away at the ordinary tasks of the day when the phone rang. The funeral home was looking for a Reformed minister to help a family who had lost their teenage daughter after a brief hospitalization.  Over the next days leading up to the funeral I got to know the parents and grandparents. We did our best to find a way to grieve their tragic loss. Following the Saturday funeral service I met for the first time the youngest brother.  As we walked out of the chapel and toward the fellowship hall he asked if I was joining them for the meal. I told him that I would like to but that I had to return to church to work on Sunday’s sermon. He asked about my church, and his dad suggested that maybe his son would like to come see me at church one day.  I supported that and invited the boy to come see us.  The boy said to me, “Well, maybe you can come over to my house for supper.” Maybe I could.

The question is always this: on whose terms will we share the meal? How important is it to me? We fail to be the church when we evaluate invitations from our perspective, based on our priorities and schedules.  Being the church, being in community is, in the end, about finding the heart and courage to say “yes” to the invitation to come over for supper. The work of the church happens by accepting the innocent invitations to supper at a new friend’s house. But is also happens when we accept our Lord’s invitation.  The work of the church happens in community, gathered together over kitchen tables and the Lord’s Table.  To accept the invitation to both suppers is the essence of being the church.

Maybe there is someone who will invite you to supper this week, someone for whom you can go and be Jesus. Will you go?  Maybe you could come join Jesus for Supper at his house on Thursday. Will you come?  Do you have the heart and the courage to say “yes” to the invitation to be the church?