Monday, January 24, 2011

Community Table

I had some friends help me carry a table into my house the other night.  My wife and I finally grew up and bought a real table.  Our family of six won't fit around the cheap old one any more.  But I'm so glad I have friends. The friends are close enought they will probably eat around the table soon anyway.  And it makes me think how great it is to have community.  But this is all over a table.  Remember the story from the Gospels about the friends who brought the paralytic to Jesus.

Mark 2

 1 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
 6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
 8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12 He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Does this give you any feeling that it's time we impact our community in a huge way.  I started this blog to dream about the future of our community.  So here we go.  I have been a part of some great communities.  Powerful enough to bring people to Jesus.  And no, I don't think it's Allegory.  I think we should bring people to the one person who has power to forgive, heal, restore, and glorify.  But how is that done?  How do we bring people to the Table? (Luke 14:15-28)  How can you bring people to the Table?

1 comment:

  1. It doesn't answer the question exactly, but one thought I had was this: You have to be willing to accept anyone who wants to come and any gift they want to give out of a pure heart of love toward God--even if that person (or their gift) is "unusual" by our standards. (See Luke 7:36-50.)

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