Dear Beloved Community,
What a gift it was to share a Thanksgiving feast with many of you on Sunday! Your words of gratitude touched me right at the center of my heart. I am profoundly grateful for each and every one of you – this season and every season!
As many of us are making the grocery list and winding down for the Thanksgiving holidays, I wanted to share with you some words I wrote several years ago inspired by Jan Richardson. She said this:
O taste and see
the goodness of God
who calls us to the table
and
meets us in every feast.
-Jan Richardson
In response, as you gather around tables this week, I give thanks for the goodness of God who will meet us there, no matter their shape or spirit.
… For those of us whose tables overflow with love and abundance, God will meet us there.
… For those of us whose tables now host the guest of Grief in place of our departed beloved one, God will meet us there.
… For those of us whose tables mostly see famine, God will meet us there.
… For those of us whose tables will only see discord and resentment, those whose tables are heavy-laden with exhaustion and anxiety in ample measure, God will meet us there.
… For those of us whose tables are loud and messy and imperfect, God will meet us there.
… For those of us whose tables are set with anticipated anxiety, with worries we feel but don’t yet see, God will meet us there.
… For those of us who are unwelcome at the tables where we once found our place and must create new spaces for inclusion and acceptance, God will meet us there.
And for those of us who hunger for God, those among us who ache to taste and see nourishing hope, peace, joy, and love in a world where they feel in short supply, God will meet us at the table of Love, a table where Christ is both host and guest.
This Sunday, we’ll share at God’s table of love as we begin the season of Advent, the waiting season when we prepare for the coming of God-made-flesh. Advent at First on Fifth is filled to the brim with opportunities to ground your season in blessing. I do hope you’ll make your plans now to share the season with your church! Advent – and Christmas – will be all the richer with the beloved community at the table with you.
Until then, may your Thanksgiving celebrations be filled with grace upon grace! And may those tables ready you for the coming season of Advent, carving out the fears of your heart so that Love may be born instead. Together, we’ll enjoy ample ways this Advent to remember God’s story of Love – “words for the beginning” as our Advent theme names, words that orient us within the blessing of Love. For that, I say thanks be to God!
Together in God’s work of Love,
Pastor Emily