Who's Coming to Dinner?

I don’t know about you, but the readings this Sunday make me hungry -- hungry for food but also for community.

The parable about the wedding feast reminds me a lot of our God Space dinners – minus the weeping and gnashing of teeth, of course. I often thought about this parable as we tried to figure out how to best extend our invitations far and wide. The guests who came to dinner were sometimes a unique group with different backgrounds and identities, people who at first glance were pretty different from each other. When we talked around the table, though, we found that we had all kinds of things in common. Respect for each other was our wedding garment. And, mostly, we wore it well.

We’ve had many dinners over these years. When we started, we were just a small group of people who had been praying together for a few months, and we really wanted to invite others into the circle. We carefully planned a dinner and extended invitations, not knowing if anyone would come. We hoped and waited, and, sure enough, people arrived, filling the whole downstairs, squishing together, laughing and talking and eating. And then we prayed.

After that came more dinners. For each one, I loved getting the house ready and setting the table. Sometimes people would come early to help or stand around and distract me while I cooked. Once, a couple of us stopped mid-preparation to sing and dance around the kitchen like fools. Cleaning up, too, became a kind of ritual. Those who stayed to help would revisit moments of the evening and catch up with each other. When they left, I’d turn on music and methodically put the house back together, feeling so grateful for this community we were creating together. In those closing time moments, often late at night, I would feel the presence of the Spirit and sometimes laugh and sometimes cry at the recognition.

In the warmth of hindsight it’s easy to forget the events when we invited and people didn’t show up or times when someone refused to don the garment of respect, and we had to figure out what to do. We didn’t cast anyone into the darkness, but we did have to get better about communicating our community expectations. Those times were infrequent, though, and there were so many good times that I’m impatient for them to return. I still sing and dance in the kitchen sometimes, but it’s not the same by myself. I long for a crowded table again, the laughter and the prayer, the presence of people and the presence of the Spirit in them.

Underneath my longing for our in-person gatherings, though, is a deeper desire, a hunger for a human community like the one envisioned by Isaiah. On that mountain, the food is wonderful and the wine superb, and people are not separated by the things we allow to divide us. We are no longer concealed from each other. “On this mountain, [God] will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations.” What would it be like to unveil ourselves, to free ourselves from assumptions and suspicions so that we see and love each other as we are? What would it be like to lay down our defenses and create a safe space for each other? I imagine we’d be kinder. We’d rectify injustice because we couldn’t bear to see people suffer, and we’d eradicate greed because we’d know there’s enough to go around. We’d care for each other so deeply that it would feel like the gentle hand of God wiping away “the tears from every face.”

This kind of mountaintop feast is not what has been halted by the pandemic; it’s something that we haven’t been able to do yet, except in fleeting moments. As it turns out, others are longing for this kind of community too. I just read an article in the National Catholic Reporter called “‘Fratelli tutti’ is Ubuntu by any other name.” The author, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, S.J., quotes a South African saying that roughly translates to, “‘A person is a person through other persons’ or ‘I am, because we are.’” Pope Francis’ new encyclical Fratelli Tuti endorses this same kind of belonging to each other. “‘Each of us is fully a person when we are part of a people; at the same time, there are no peoples without respect for the individuality of each person’ (Paragraph 182). In other words, we are ‘brothers and sisters all’ (8).”

This was from a time when we did have “rich fare,” provided for us from one of our Sisters, Chef Mary Jennings, CDP.

This vision that Pope Francis expresses gives me great hope, and I’m interested to see what he tells us to do in order to bring this community about. I think it will take hard work and some brave risks, and I hope that each small thing we do matters, even the simple act of gathering for dinner. At God Space, what we have is not exactly “rich food and choice wines.” We’re simple folk with a smaller budget, so chili and beer is more our speed. However, we do have moments in which we put on the garment of respect and unveil ourselves to each other. Those small moments of connection can’t be that far from the mountaintop.

If enough of us desire community, God must be in it somehow. That for which we long often turns out to be a call from God, and when God calls, God tends to also make things possible. Maybe God is sending out the invitations right now, and we just need to set the table and open the door.

By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP

Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She also serves on the Coordinating Council of Spiritual Directors International. She enjoys music, dancing, and meaningful conversations.