Are You 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 of our God Space dinners – minus the weeping and gnashing of teeth, of course. I often think about this parable when we try and figure out how to best extend our invitation far and wide. The guests who come to dinner have usually been a unique group with different backgrounds and identities, people who at first glance are pretty different from each other. When we talk around the table, though, we tend to find that we have all kinds of things in common. Respect for each other is our “wedding garment,” and, mostly, we wear it well.
Here’s a picture from our very first God Space dinner!
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, talking and eating. And then we prayed.
After that came more dinners. For each one, I love getting the house ready and setting the table. Sometimes people come early to help or stand around and distract me while I cook. Once, a couple of us stopped mid-preparation to sing and dance around the kitchen like fools. That was a good time. Cleaning up, too, can be a kind of ritual. Those who stay to help revisit moments of the evening and catch up with each other. When everyone leaves, I usually turn on music and put the house back together, feeling so grateful for this community we are creating together. In these closing time moments, often late at night, I feel the presence of the Spirit and sometimes laugh and sometimes get teary-eyed 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 at communicating our community expectations. Those times have been infrequent, though, and now they’re just stories that are part of our communal history. We tell them sometimes and laugh and feel relieved that there have been many more good times than bad.
During the pandemic, when we had to pause our in-person gatherings, I missed our dinners so much. I remember the weekend before everything closed down in March of 2020, we had a dinner with just a few of us. It was kind of a sad little gathering, shrouded in uncertainty for the future with a subtle hint of impending doom, but I’m still glad we did it. The leftovers from that dinner and the lingering sense of community sustained me for a while. However, it wasn’t long before I was impatient for people to return for dinner and prayer and just spending time together. I longed for a crowded table again, the laughter and the sharing, the presence of people and the presence of the Spirit in them.
From our last dinner before the pandemic
We can gather again — thank God — but I still recognize a longing within me. It’s 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 was halted by the pandemic, and even though we can gather again, this kind of communal space is not something that we’ve been able to create yet, except in fleeting moments. We can see this lack of community in extreme ways as Isaiah’s own homeland is ravaged by war and terrorism. And we can see this in more subtle ways, in unjust systems that cause cyclical and generational harm and even in small scale ways in difficult community or family dynamics.
I think the Prophet Isaiah is expressing something he longs for, and as it turns out, others are longing for this kind of community too. Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli Tuti describes 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 all free to be ourselves, and we are all siblings, belonging to each other.
This vision of inclusive community gives me hope, and I think our readings are an invitation to try and bring about this community. It takes hard work and some brave risks, but 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 up the door.
This was from a time when we did have “rich fare,” provided for us from one of our Sisters, Chef Mary Jennings, CDP.
For reflection:
What resonates with you from these readings?
If Isaiah’s description were to come to fruition, what would it look like for you? See if you can imagine it as vividly as you can, using all your senses. What comes up for you?
When it comes to community and connection, what are you longing for?
What is God saying to you in all of this? Maybe just take some quiet time with God and see what emerges for you.
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 Board of Spiritual Directors International and the Board of Thomas More University. She enjoys music, dancing, and meaningful conversations.