The Table

The following post is a reflection based on my recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area. New Wine, New Wineskins and I were invited to explore the development of relational networks there in the Bay Area with local leaders.

I received the news a few days prior to the New Wine, New Wineskins San Francisco Bay Area trip scheduled for May 17th-19th that my Dad might pass away within a week’s time. When I spoke with my Mom about my Dad’s condition and about my upcoming meetings in the Bay area, she urged me to move forward with the trip. She emphasized that my Dad would not want for me to cancel; she added that my Dad worked and prayed for me for years in terms of God’s calling on my life and saw his own life and ministry flowing through me. My Mom’s encouragement and exhortation moved and mobilized me. Her words from above gave me the strength and focus with which to proceed.

My Dad died a few days earlier than we had expected. He passed away into the presence of the Lord on Wednesday the 18th, when I was in San Francisco. Soon after I received the news, my friends and fellow New Wine, New Wineskins Advisory Council members Gloria Young and Cooky Wall encouraged me to be alone with the Lord and pray and reflect. They went out to buy lunch and bring it back to Gloria’s office for us to eat before our afternoon meetings. As I prayed and reflected in the presence of the Lord, the words “the table” were impressed upon my mind and imagination. There I was kneeling and crying out to God and saying, “The table, …the table, … the table!” What did these words mean?

One of the things that stands out most to me about my Dad is that he always invited people to “the table”—at home, at church, in the neighborhood, and elsewhere. No doubt, his life has shaped my writings on matters pertaining to the Lord’s Table. I believe his life will continue to shape my life so that I will invite others to “the table” and receive their invitations to table fellowship, too. I thank God for my Dad’s life and love. May his life—a legacy of love—continue to flow through me.

I believe my Dad’s legacy of love will be alive and well in New Wine, New Wineskins’ ministry in the San Francisco Bay Area. Why? Because I believe New Wine, New Wineskins is being invited to the table there as a member of the family and as one whose task it is to make sure everyone else in the Bay Area is invited to come and remain at the table of Jesus’ love by faith. As long as we proceed in prayer and in sacrificial love for those around us—whoever they may be—rich and poor, conservative and liberal, large and small, cool and un-cool, Black and White and Hispanic and Asian and Other (no longer treating them as other but as us), we will be drinking from the Vine who is Jesus and bearing biblical witness to my Dad’s living legacy who with all the saints drinks from Christ’s cup and who eats the same broken bread. O Lord, O Broken Bread, O Vine, as I consume you, break me! Break me and flow through me. Flow through New Wine and replenish these wineskins! There is such a need for brokenness on our part, such a need for prayerful repentance and renewal, such a need to eat the Broken Bread and drink from the Vine. Only as we eat this Broken Bread and drink from this Cup will we make relational space for others to feast, too, in the Bay Area and beyond.

A few overlapping comments shouted out to me during the trip and bear witness to the pressing need for being intentional on making relational space for others at the table. I had shared with a Chinese American pastor in San Jose on Tuesday of that week what the African American pastor couple in San Francisco who had invited me to San Francisco on behalf of New Wine, New Wineskins had shared with me: the white Christian establishment in San Francisco has not invited people to dine at “the table” with them. If anything, they are sometimes invited as guests who can only return when invited again. They are not really seen as part of the family. When I shared this painful statement with the Chinese American pastor, he quickly claimed that “We aren’t invited to the table either. So, we have made our own table.” The next day, Wednesday, the day of my Dad’s passing, a young white emerging church leader led us up on a high hill that overlooked the city and outlying region to give us an aerial perspective. As he pointed to various sectors below us, he spoke of how disconnected and isolated the various Christian communities were in the Bay Area. He also noted in one of our recent conversations that it is not only the African American Christian community that feels vulnerable. In San Francisco, all Christian groups feel vulnerable. After all, it is post-Christendom there and the Christian table appears to be getting smaller and smaller and the number of chairs at the table appears to be dwindling. No doubt, the various Christian groups are trying in conscious and unconscious ways to make sure they have a place at the table. Perhaps, as a result, table fellowship ends up looking there (and in many other places, too) more like the game “Musical Chairs.” Only it is not a game.

The African American pastors who invited New Wine, New Wineskins to come to the table in San Francisco had indicated to me that as we grow in our friendship and partnership, we will share with one another our relational networks. At the table where we celebrate the bounty of the Lord Jesus’ love, we will find that we no longer have to fear scarcity. We no longer have to compete or guard our turf or make sure that we are seizing a sliver of the increasingly smaller religious pie in post-Christendom America. We no longer have to worry about not having a place to sit when the music stops. When we’re at the Lord’s Table, we’re no longer playing at Musical Chairs. There’s seating for one and all.

One event in particular served as a microcosm of hope for what can transpire where there is seating for one and all. I am referring to the final meeting which took place on Thursday afternoon, just hours before I returned to Portland. One leader present later wrote, “The group was small but represented an interesting cross section of the city. Various denominations and church personnel showed quite a variety. The discussion needs to broaden to include many more church leaders. Many of the shakers and movers of the city need to be invited to the table.” Another leader present at that meeting and with whom we interacted the previous day wrote about our efforts: “It is clear that the people involved in the conversation are high caliber people who see what is at stake and who are ambitious for the Kingdom of God. I enjoyed hearing people’s stories and feeling their passion. It is great to see people take time out of their busy schedules to prioritize being together in a listening posture to each other. This is the way of Christ! I believe that doors will be opened that would not have been were it not for the proactive servant-leadership demonstrated by the New Wine, New Wineskins team.”

No doubt, as we celebrate at Jesus’ table, we will be mindful of our need to be good stewards of what God has invested in us. We won’t hide our talents in the ground. Instead, we will make sure that we are investing relationally as we pour out our lives with and for one another as Christ’s body and for the world in the Bay area and beyond. The new wine of the kingdom will flow through New Wine, New Wineskins as we sit at the table to which we have been invited in the Bay area and at which we continue to dine and as we continue to pass the cup and break the bread together and as we make sure that everyone else is invited to the table, and there remain as cherished brothers and sisters, cherished ministry partners and friends. As we live into this reality, I will be offering day in and out a toast to my Dad and a drink offering of sacrificial praise to the Lord.