Read: John 6:35-51

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. (v. 37)

The table is a place of family. It is a place of belonging. By welcoming others to our tables, we extend this belonging and sense of family. By sharing our food with others, we offer life and love, just as Jesus did on the hillside.

Often, those who most need this sense of belonging are those who don’t otherwise receive it. In the Gospels, Jesus demonstrates this truth by specifically welcoming the lonely, the outcast, and the unwanted. These folks are still around us today. They also are our neighbors and need the welcome and love of God. But do they have a place at our tables?

We cannot offer the gift of belonging to folks on the edges of society if we do not know them. We cannot know them if we have no way of interacting with them. Welcoming the folks who most need our welcome means going out of our way to see people who have been pushed to the margins. It means taking the time to talk with the man on the street corner who asks for money or to get to know the new refugee family in town or the woman with a disability who pushes grocery store carts. The people who most need our welcome first simply need to be seen. What a gift, then, to get to know someone, and to make them an honored guest. —Amy Curran

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for the gift of each other.