Lent Series: Week 1

A prayer from me - The Table

Photo by Zach Lezniewicz on Unsplash

O Lord, you gave us an example of what a neighboring table should look like.

One of humility and of love. Of giving out our lives in the service of others rather than grasping for power over others.

You showed us that you can multiply our meager portions of a few loaves and fish to feed a multitude of people. Our ‘this is all I have right now’ turns into abundance through you. It’s enough.

At your table, you declare blessings over the poor, the destitute, the hungry for justice, and the thirsty for righteousness.

You preached about freeing the captives, you stopped entire crowds for a bleeding woman who spent everything she had on healthcare, you centered the child in your midst, you stopped a teaching to let a sick man be lowered from the roof, you spoke with a woman who just wanted to remain hidden at a well, you made sure your mom was taken care of before you died, you touched the untouchable and loved the unlovable, you ate with the ‘wrong’ crowd, blessed the ‘wrong crowd’, and washed the feet of the ‘wrong’ crowd.

O Lord, this way of neighboring seems so upside down to me.

But, perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps the point of you flipping the script shows us how to live out our faith in these days. A faith of being assured of things not seen yet but promised. A life of living the here-and-not-yet but hoped for.

I want to do the same.

And, sometimes that takes flipping tables over that I’m sitting at.

Lord, during this Lent season, let us remember the upside-down way of faith. Let us flip over tables that we are not meant to sit at and sit at the ones you are at.

Your tables are the tables of enoughness for all rather than a select few.

They are the tables you set in the middle of war zones and enemies.

They are the tables you break bread at, pointing us towards a new way of life, and reminding us to give thanks.

They are the tables where you bring the poor to the head of the table and the least are given the seats of honor.

Those tables, O Lord, those tables are ones of abundance and justice and equity.

Help us see the tables we are seated at that need to be flipped over and left. And find the ones you have prepared for us.

Help us during the lonely and confusing and tiring moments to find the tables of restoration, of living water, and of thanksgiving bread.

You, O Lord, prepare a table for us in the middle of the wilderness.

May we find it during this wilderness time. When we can’t, guide us with your gentle and strong shephardness. When we mourn for how things should be, remind us that that’s our hearts aching along with the Spirit.

You alone prepare the table for us.

May we sit at it and weep and feast and rest and love.

May our hearts journey in the long obedience towards your table of neighboring through faith during this Lent season.

Amen.