Pastor’s Ponderings
February 2025
Praying and eating. Hardly a page goes by in Luke’s Gospel without Jesus doing one or the other. Accordingly, “Prayers and Tables” will be our focus as we continue our journey with Luke on Sunday mornings.
Nine times in Luke, Jesus is described at prayer. Jesus prays at his baptism (3:21), after a hard day of ministry (3:15-16), before choosing his disciples (6:12), at the time of Peter’s confession (9:8), on the Mount of Transfiguration (9:29), when the seventy missionaries return (10:21-22), before he teaches his disciples how to pray (11:1), on the Mount of Olives (22:39-46), and on the cross (23:44-46).
What is the significance of all this praying? We should pray as Jesus prayed, including the way that Jesus prayed for his enemies. Jesus didn’t say long prayers out loud to look devout as the scribes did (20:47), but instead spent long hours in listening mode, patiently waiting for a sense of God’s direction. As we continue to discern the future direction(s) of our church, we begin by waiting on God in prayer.
As for “Tables,” there are nineteen mentions of meals. There are ten scenes involving meals that are major occasions for Jesus’ teaching. And Jesus ate with . . . everybody: Pharisees and tax collectors, close friends and astonished disciples, and life’s (perceived) winners and losers.
To quote Fred Craddock, “the measure of your faith is not who you will feed but who you will eat with.”
Table fellowship is a core theme of Covenant’s life together. Our large and welcoming communion table is one of the first things that people notice when they walk into the sanctuary. Our coffee hour fellowship is a wonderful way to catch up with each other and meet new people. And our volunteers who helped with Heart and Home enjoyed table fellowship with our guests, and the volunteers were often profoundly moved by the stories that our H&H guests shared. As we all eat and share together we model the radical inclusivity of the gospel.
My prayer is that our table fellowship will continue to grow. Someone once said that “evangelism” is essentially one hungry person sharing with another hungry person where they found bread.
Join us on Sundays as we explore Luke’s theme of Prayers and Tables and what it means for us today.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Jack
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