when your morning was hectic and really your 2 weeks before that were hectic but as you were running out the door practicing songs, packing 5 suitcases, cleaning up the trail of mayhem left by the get-ready routine, feeding animals, double checking doors, and the child who takes care of the reptile says, "we're out of crickets", now your mind is running faster than your legs and you're trying to find time, more and more time and it's not possible to make more minutes so you get to church flustered and faltered and very aware of all your weaknesses and all of your missed opportunities to have done today better.
but now you stand there looking at the bread and the wine, all of the broken pieces of today and all the broken pieces of you are quiet because this table is all you can see and it's all that matters. because that bread, that wine, isn't a snack, a chore, a guilt-evoking ceremony. it's an invitation to find shelter, covering, rest in and through the life and the blood of the one person who slayed death and brokenness so you can live freely and confidently. on this table sits peace. on this table is life.
and when you see all the people walking toward the table, accepting the invitation given to them, you see with new eyes and teary eyes that we all come to church on Sunday mornings with baggage from the morning, the week, the year, the lifetime, and we all carry our junk in past the same doors on our way to the same table to lay it all down at the call of the one who saves us from all of it, and we have this one thing in common; we've all said yes, we've taken and eaten and thanked and that's the only thing that matters.
