Room at the Table: Who Still Goes Without?
The bread is on the table. The cup is poured. Someone prays, and the prayer is good. Every word is in its place.
And somewhere in the room, a plate is still empty.
This is not one person. It is a pattern every church can fall into. We get the blessing right and miss the hungry. We say the words well and never look down the table to see who is still waiting.
What Paul saw in Corinth
In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul writes to a church that met for the Lord's Supper in a home. The people with money and free time arrived early. They ate their fill. Some drank too much. The workers came later, after long days on someone else's clock. By the time they walked in, the food was gone.
Paul does not praise their order of service. He tells them that when they come together like this, it is not the Lord's Supper they are eating. The bread was blessed. The cup was lifted. And still some went home hungry.
That is the weight of this text. The meal was holy. The way they shared it was not.
Who comes in late
Every church has someone who comes in late. The one who worked a double shift. The mother who had to find a ride. The man new to the city who is not sure where to sit.
That person carries more than tiredness. They carry a quiet question nobody asks out loud. Is there room for me here?
The cost of a full table and an empty plate is not counted in dollars. It is counted in whether that person comes back next Sunday.
What Isaiah heard
Isaiah 56 speaks to two kinds of people who had good reason to expect a closed door. The foreigner who had joined himself to the Lord. The eunuch who said, I am just a dry tree.
God does not tell them to wait outside. He says he will bring them to his holy mountain and make them joyful in his house of prayer. Their offerings will be accepted. His house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
Then verse 8 goes further. The Lord who gathers the outcasts of Israel says he will gather still others besides those already gathered.
God is not finished filling the table.
The turn
Here is the line from Sunday to carry this week. You can bless the bread and the cup and still leave someone hungry. A table is measured by who still goes without.
That line turns the question around. We usually ask, did we do it right? Isaiah and Paul ask something else. Who is still waiting?
Paul's answer is plain. When you come together to eat, wait for one another. Slow down. Look up. Count the chairs. Notice who has not yet been served.
Tuesday
The Lord's Table does not end when Sunday ends. It reaches into Tuesday.
On Tuesday it looks like a lunch break where you notice the coworker who always eats alone. It looks like a family dinner with one more plate for the neighbor who just buried her husband. It looks like a text that says, we saved you some.
None of that is grand. All of it is what Paul meant. And someone watching will learn what a table is for.
An open door
Before your next meal with others, look around and ask who is missing. Then make room for one of them this week.
You are welcome to come and see. We are a New Worshiping Community under the Presbytery of Riverside, PC(USA). We gather Sundays at 11:30 AM at 829 N Mount Vernon Ave, San Bernardino. There is room at this table, and we will wait for you.