I thought life was a dance, but I was just twirling on thin ice.
People thought I was a strong Christian, and I agreed. Appearances can be deceiving, can’t they?
The evidence pointed toward a woman who had it together: A woman who planned a mission trip to Ghana with her mom, taught Sunday School, and served on the church’s mission board. A woman who studied the Bible every day and grew in her faith, who worked for a nonprofit where her efforts helped children and teens.
I had no idea how far I could fall.
The only thing missing in my life was someone to share it with. And it proved an open door to temptation.
In swept a man who swept me off my feet. He adored me. He was interesting. He was Muslim.
A war began in my heart. The Holy Spirit burned my conscience as I skirted the edges of temptation. My wretched heart longed to please the Lord, but I couldn’t walk away from Mr. Wrong.
In time, the Spirit grew quiet. I missed the Lord, but distracted myself with the man I was going to marry. Eventually, I left my job for a work-at-home sure thing and resigned from the mission board. I moved into an apartment with hard wood floors and a view of the trees. I dug through wedding magazines and visited reception venues. My custom-made wedding dress hung in the closet.
Then I fell through the ice.
A week before what would’ve been our wedding day, he broke my heart. Like dominoes, my life toppled down. The sure-thing job fell through and I was unemployed. I moved back into my bedroom in my parents’ house. Hurt, bored, ashamed, and purposeless, I ate away my pain and gained 35 pounds.
But the greatest casualty was my relationship with the Lord. Somewhere along the way, I stopped recognizing myself. I looked in the mirror: Where did that woman come from? I cast aside the savior of my soul for a hope that turned to ashes in my hand. How could He ever take me back? How could He ever use me to serve Him?
Worry tormented me: God would welcome me into heaven, but maybe He was done with me in this life. The followers who remained faithful were the workers in His harvest. Was I left to glean at the edges?
They were sons and daughters with a place at the Father’s table. Did I still matter? Did I have anything to offer now?
Did I have a place at His table?
Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong at the table? How do you smother feelings of inadequacy? Feelings like “I messed up so badly. Will God ever use me?” “Do I matter?” “I’m so ordinary. What do I have to contribute?”
Our place at the table (or lack thereof) reflects our status. The guest of honor enjoys a special chair and fathers or heads of households sit at the head of the table. Ditto for the company president.
In America, we’re pretty egalitarian. We don’t check tax records to ensure we’re on equal footing before we invite Joe Schmoe to dinner. But in first-century Israel, “like eats with like”.1
In the time of Jesus, social and religious laws heavily influenced who ate with who, what foods were served, and where guests sat along the table. The children of Israel weren’t always so picky. Abraham welcomed three angelic strangers without questioning their lineage or asking if they’d washed their hands. Within a few generations of Jesus, though, Jews avoided eating with non-Jews or anyone who might be impure.
What changed? Not many generations before Jesus, the people had been cast into exile for worshiping idols. Scared straight, they returned from Babylon determined to follow the Law of Moses in the strictest interpretation. Jews believed the unclean could easily contaminate the pure, but the pure could never cleanse the unclean2. And they weren’t taking any chances.
Into this stratified, rigid, and uncompromising world entered a radical. A man who bucked convention and expectations and made sure to do it as publicly as possible, as gospel writer (and former tax collector) Matthew proves:
Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” Matthew 9:10-11 NASB
Jesus finished eating and reclined at the table. Crowded near Him were the town’s riff raff, people everyone knew – no introductions needed. Tax collectors, sinners, women of ill repute.
But Jesus called them something else: friends.
The Pharisees weren’t impressed. How could a rabbi like Jesus, who knew the laws of ritual purity, defile Himself with these undesirables?
Jesus was famous, and crowds followed Him, so these snacks with sinners weren’t hidden affairs. This public display – a dinner like many He probably had with “tax collectors and sinners” during His ministry – was a parable without words: This man who was willing to lower Himself from the right hand of God lowered Himself further to call sinners His friends.
Jesus. Yeshua.
Culture: The pious tossed coins to the poor, the sick, and the disabled, but never would such a low person be elevated to a place at the table.
Truth: But Jesus offered Himself.
Truth for us: We can come to Him with our embarrassing failures, our pride, our marriage trouble, our secret anger we hide from our church friends. He is enough.
Culture: In first-century Jewish culture, sharing a meal was about more than filling an empty stomach: Dining together affirmed one’s social status, so a rich man would never sit beside a pauper lest the poor man’s reputation smear his own.
Truth: But the King of kings welcomed the unwelcome to share a meal with Him as a beloved friend.
Truth for us: Jesus wants intimate fellowship with us. Is it really a close relationship if we can’t tell Him anything and everything? God wants to hear it all and share it with us. He wasn’t afraid to leave behind His glory to be a man who could suffer and die, and He’s not going to shy away from sharing the best and worst of life with us.
Culture: Eating together could form strong friendships, so a person was careful to choose companions who could offer a valuable alliance.
Truth: But Jesus ate with people who had nothing to offer Him but their hearts.
Truth for us: The transformation of our souls from sinful to forgiven was Jesus’s reason for living, dying, and living again. He will do amazing work in our hearts if we trust Him.
Culture: The ritually clean were careful to avoid unclean people like tax collectors, who were considered perpetually impure by their dishonest profession. The unclean could easily contaminate the pure, but the pure could never cleanse the unclean.
Truth: But Jesus never shied away from the unlovely. He could wash away sins and make soiled hearts new.
Truth for us: Our dirt is no match for His blood. Let’s give our ugliness to Jesus and take rest in His forgiveness.
Culture: The religious leaders associated with people who “had it together” and had something to offer – people just like themselves.
Truth: But Jesus knew that the outside appearance of man was worthless and temporary. Eternity would peel away man’s flesh, his social status, his alliances and leave his naked, needy soul exposed to God.
Truth for us: What the world values is worthless in eternity. When we obey the Holy Spirit’s gentle leading, He makes changes in us that will follow us when we leave this life.
How did Jesus reach people who the religious leaders considered untouchable?
How can He reach us when we feel useless, worthless, and voiceless?
Then as now, Jesus meets people where we are, in our dirt, in our sin, and invites us to be washed by repentance and clothed in forgiveness. He doesn’t meet us where He is – holy, perfect, and pure; He meets us where we are: sinful, set aside, and unwanted.
Just as Jesus ate with “tax collectors and sinners,” God invites us into His home. Come, join the family. He feeds us with the Bread of Life and quenches our thirst with Living Water. He invites us, not as travelers soon to depart, but as sons and daughters who have a permanent place at the table.
Rejected by the world, but Jesus’s kind of people.
Slow to anger, abundant in compassion, eager to forgive – that’s the God who revealed Himself to me. The Lord forgave my betrayal and I felt the sweetness of a renewed and tender relationship. This is the God of “before and after.”
This is the God who raised prostitutes to princesses, sinners to sons and daughters.
Before we count ourselves out, we need to remember whose table we’re sitting at. If the space at the popular girls’ table always squeezed shut when you walked by, come recline next to Jesus. If your family table at home was tense and silent, then join the lively conversation in your Father’s house. And if juggling act of marriage, motherhood and real life leaves you no time to catch your breath, then pull up a seat at His table and rest in Him.
God is not done with me or you. If we feel unworthy, it’s because we are. All are unworthy and come to Him with stained hearts and helpless hands. Let us accept His grace, His gift that we don’t deserve and can’t earn or lose, and take our place at His table.
- Feeley-Harnik, Gillian. The Lord’s Table: Eucharist and Passover in Early Christianity. 1981. University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Blomberg, Craig. Jesus, Sinners and Table Fellowship. Denver Seminary. Bulletin for Biblical Research 19.1 (2009) 35-62.