Jesus knew the power of gathering around a table

Dear Friends, 

May as been a whirlwind month. Sue and I returned to Sydney on May 3 after four weeks of blissful leave. Two days later, we joined 130 others for the launch of our newest congregation, Wesley Western Sydney. I sizzled the sausages for the lunch that followed – the church courtyard filled with people, tables weighed down with so much food and the air overflowing with conversation.

As the month unfolded, we’ve both celebrated ‘significant’ birthdays, finishing the month with hosting friends of four decades, enjoying plenty of food, deep conversation and bucket loads of laughter. In between, we’ve enjoyed dinners with friends and after church lunch gatherings. I’ve endured more working lunches than is good for me or my waistline. It seems I’m incapable of choosing the low-calorie option.

As the month of May slides into the background, I’ve been reflecting on the gift of hospitality, especially around tables. At a table, especially where there is food to share, conversation flows. Screens are usually absent and we offer the gift of focused, friendly attention to others.

Some of my best memories in my five and a bit years at Wesley Mission involve tables. Like our annual Easter lunches in Western Sydney and Coffs Harbour, where we host and thank hundreds of our frontline workers.

Or our annual Christmas Day lunch in our Wesley Conference Centre, with 300 of us filling tables – congregation members, clients and many who struggle with homelessness – all of us enjoying a meal fit for royalty, served by some amazingly generous volunteers.

Perhaps my favourite is the early December table laden with ‘Christmas’ KFC for the 28 or so amazing young people we support through our Intensive Therapeutic Care households. The KFC is their choice. Nothing says Christmas more than popcorn chicken and gooey potato and gravy.

There’s one memory that’s especially vivid. It’s not about a meal, but a table. This table, large and square as I recall, is in the open living space of our Coffs Harbor Youth Refuge. It’s well lived-in.

Sue and I visited the refuge in our first months at Wesley Mission. As we were shown around by the wonderful Meena and her team, I couldn’t help but notice a painting that sat on the wall above the table.

Meena shared that the artist had been one of the young people who had stayed at the refuge. This was her ‘thank you’ gift as she moved to safe and secure longer-term housing. She told Meena and her team that it was at the refuge, and around this battered old table, that for the first time in her life she had experienced the unhurried joy of eating, talking and laughing with others. For her, the table and what unfolded around it was life-giving and affirming – transformative.

Extending and receiving hospitality is at the heart of what it means to be human, to flourish in connection and community. Life is lived not just by sharing food, but by sharing our lives with others, often around tables. This is the work of Wesley Mission, shaped by the model and mission of Jesus – who, it seems, was always eating, extending his radical welcome and gratefully receiving hospitality from others, often the least likely.

In our hurried and harried times, loneliness and social isolation steal the joy of so many. We need more open tables. Tables where friend and stranger alike can be welcomed, valued and in the end, loved.

May the tables you gather around be filled with life, laughter and deep joy.