June 29, 2025: Communion Conversation Church

Scripture Reflections

Pastor: With whom did Jesus eat?

Reader One: He ate with Tax Collectors and sinners: “And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples.” Matthew 9: 10-11.

Reader Two: He ate with Pharisees, those in the prominent Jewish religious and political group who often separated themselves from those who they saw as impure, “One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table.” Luke 7: 37.

Reader Three: He ate with lepers and women: “While he was in Bethany at the house of Simon the Leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.” Mark 14:3.

Reader Four: He even invited himself into sinners’ houses such as the chief tax collector. “Zaccheus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.” Luke 19:5-6

Pastor: How did the people react to Jesus sharing a table with all of these different people?

Reader Five: “All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest to one who is a sinner.” Luke 19:7

Reader Six: “When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when Jesus heard this he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice for I have come to call not the righteous but the sinners.” Matthew 9:11-13
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Reader Linda: They judged the woman who anointed him at the table. “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three-hundred denari and given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her, she has done a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.” Mark 14: 4-7.

First Table Group Discussion - If Jesus were here today, whom would he invite to this table? Why? Whom would he exclude?
 
Sharing from a spokesperson for each table

“Hope Makes Room for Love” by Retired Episcopal bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston (Laura)
Retired Episcopal bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston draws on his Native American experience to navigate collective crisis. 

We inhabit a period in history that seems to be filled with conflict. The world has become an uncertain place, a dark place, where we cannot see what may happen next. All we know, based on our recent experience, is that things could—and probably will—get worse.…  

For millennia, my ancestors followed a spiritual path that was respectful of the earth, inclusive of all humanity, and visionary in its transformative power. That tradition has survived. It is one of the oldest continuous spiritual paths on earth. My ancestors’ faith continues to this day despite every hardship and persecution it has been forced to endure.... I was asked to write a brief commentary about the Christian theology of the apocalypse: the final, terrible vision of the end of the world. I said my Native American culture was in a unique position to speak of this kind of vision, because we were among the few cultures that have already experienced it. In historic memory, we have seen our reality come crashing down as invaders destroyed our homeland. We have lived through genocide, concentration camps, religious persecution, and every human rights abuse imaginable. Yet we are still here. No darkness—not even the end of the world as we knew it—had the power to overcome us. So our message is powerful not because it is only for us, but because it speaks to and for every human heart that longs for light over darkness. [1] 
Charleston takes inspiration from the hope embodied by his ancestors during crisis and displacement. 
 
My ancestors did not survive the Trail of Tears because they were set apart from the rest of humanity. Their exodus was not a sign of their exclusivity, but rather their inclusivity. In their suffering, they embodied the finite and vulnerable condition of all humanity. They experienced what the whole tribe of human beings has experienced at one time or another throughout history: the struggle of life, the pain of oppression, and the fear of the unknown. Their long walk was the walk of every person who has known what it means to be alone and afraid. But they walked with courage and dignity because they had the hope of the Spirit within them.… 

Hope makes room for love in the world. We can all share it, we can all believe in it, even if we are radically different in every other way. We no longer need to fear our differences because we have common ground. We can hope together—therefore, hope liberates us. It frees us from our fear of the other. It opens our eyes to see love all around us. It unites us and breaks our isolation. When we decide to embrace hope—when we choose to make that our goal and our message—we release a flow of energy that cannot be overcome. Hope is a light that darkness can never contain. [2] 

[1] Steven Charleston, Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage (Minneapolis, MN: Broadleaf Books, 2021), 14–15.   

[2] Charleston, Ladder to the Light, 62, 67–68. 

Second Table Group Discussion - What gives you hope, and how do you act upon that hope?

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