At The Table

FROM THE ASSOCIATE RECTOR

Earlier this month I accompanied Elliott on a working trip to New Hampshire. It was one of those picture-perfect New England villages with white clapboard buildings framed by a river on one side and forest on the other. Fewer than a thousand people live there and among them is the documentarian Ken Burns, which is why we were there. Elliott was to be interviewed about American Bison.

They put us up in a lovely B & B which is also a working farm, raising grass-fed beef and free-ranging pigs along with an assortment of happy chickens. Our breakfasts were piled high with the fruits of their, and their neighbors, labors. We lingered over the sweet and savory delights in the company of other houseguests, some of whom were also there as Burns’ guests. Others had come to pick up a prize pup and another, Marilyn, had returned, as she does every year, to visit a friend in the village. Our conversation on the first couple of days centered around the documentary and our various connections to buffalo. By the final day it had expanded until Marilyn shared that this was why she continued to stay at the B & B rather than in her friend’s home. It was to gather around the table with people she might otherwise never have met. Suddenly I was struck with an image of us—you and me—gathered at the Altar. Marilyn then looked across the table to ask what I did when I was not accompanying my husband. It seemed the only answer in the moment was: that’s what I do. I come to the table to gather with people I might not otherwise have ever met. I work for the church.

I know that’s probably not the best definition of what a priest does, but it’s certainly part of it.  It’s certainly a part I cherish. Her comment reminded me of what a seminary professor had said of the Episcopal Church: that we are not defined by doctrine (although we do have some) or creed (although we do recite one) or any sort of unanimity—so much as we are defined as a diverse people who come to the one table. We come hungry.  Hungry for peace, hungry for wholeness, hungry for connection, forgiveness, comfort, strength, hope. Hungry for God.

At any celebration of the Eucharist at the Society of John monasteries, the Bread is broken with the words, “Behold what you are,” and the people reply, “May we become what we receive.”  Our lives are bound together at that table and made whole, as the Body of Christ; we tear ourselves away for another week as living fragments of that Body. Our various appetites draw us week after week to the table where the holy meal we share sends us out, in turn, as sustenance into a hungry world. 

In faith, hope and love,

Suzanne