Christ at Our Table

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our lives are lived around food.  In our happiest of celebrations, we eat together! In our saddest moments… we eat together! We celebrate births, graduations and marriages by eating! When we die… our family and loved ones come together and eat. The power of the table to nourish, to fill, to make and sustain relationships and to comfort and heal, is amazing.

For the last seven years I have eaten most of my meals in a dining hall. As most of you know, my husband teaches at the Loomis Chaffee School, a boarding school in Windsor and we live on campus as boarding faculty.

Each night at dinner time, we walk over to the Olsen Campus center. We often end up walking with Ned’s students, each person coming from practice or study or work merging our days together at the dining hall.

The conversations we have along the way during these little walks are often not about school or work, as you might expect. This little pilgrimage to the dining hall brings us together differently as students and faculty– the power of the table begins to take it’s hold.

On these walks to the dining hall, we often learn about siblings who may not attend Loomis, parents who are visiting on the weekend, excursions off campus into town or to the mall in West Hartford. Conversations that remind us that though we are student and faculty, we’re also neighbors and living in a community.

When we get to the dining hall Ned and I are left by our student companions who go to find their friends and we turn our attention to our place:

The Faculty Table.

And that table has become very precious to me.

It’s at that table that I’ve learned about people getting promotions and leaving jobs; getting engaged or becoming divorced; getting pregnant or struggling to have kids. I’ve sat with colleagues’ children and have come to be known as “Uncle Ryan” to these kids. I’ve eaten with people who are anticipating the death of a loved one. I’ve eaten with people who have told me about an illness that nobody else knows about. And I remember the last meal I ate at that table with a dear friend and faculty member who died of cancer a couple years ago.

At the table, our humanity is revealed and made vulnerable. At Loomis, it’s a place where a collection of humans who have been brought together by a professional opportunity meet. We come to know each other more deeply. Our life’s cares are listened to. Relationships start and unfold into friendships.

The power of the table to create and sustain people in relationship, is amazing.

So, I’m not at all surprised that the two disciples on their way to Emmaus in our Gospel story this morning come to know Jesus at a table, while eating together. They come to recognize that the stranger they’d been walking with all day, the one who they invited to stay and dine with them, was indeed the Risen Jesus! It was during table-fellowship that Christ was made known.

Has Christ ever been at a table with you?

What might the world look like if we sat down at a table with those who we think are strange, or the other, or even the enemy and shared a meal with them? Would the Risen Christ be made known during that table-fellowship?

Could Christ’s Risen presence in this act of table-fellowship end division, misunderstanding, greed, violence and even war in our world? Knowing Christ is indeed present at our table when we eat together is the power of the table. It is my firm hope rooted in the presence of the Risen Christ who shows up to the disciples and in my experience of table fellowship being transformative in relationships I’ve had throughout my life.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer, a prominent pastor and theologian who was killed in 1945 by the Nazis said, “I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.”

Praying for someone means you are holding your best intention for that person out to God and asking for God to attend to that intention. It’s an act of care. I think the table does something similar.

At the table, we acknowledge our humanity through our common need for food. We share what’s set before us with others at the table. These are little acts of hospitality and care, acknowledging the preciousness of each person. When we break bread together it becomes hard to condemn or hate the ones with whom we share and eat.

At the table, we are called to see Christ there with us in each person, acknowledging that each person is beloved by God. This is transformative.  

And I don’t think Bonhoeffer would be offended if I riff on his statement today saying: “I can no longer condemn or hate a person with whom I eat.” We are transformed into people who know who we’re eating with. Just like the disciples come to know Jesus at their table, so we come to know that Jesus is present with each person at our tables.

The table is a powerful place.

I know that the Risen Christ has shown up at the Faculty Table at Loomis over the years. I know this because relationships have been created, mended, shaped, and deepened at that table including my own. I know Christ has shown up at the Faculty Table, because that table is a precious place where people feel noticed, heard and become well known. I know that Christ has shown up at the Faculty Table because we leave feeling nourished in body and in soul. And I know that Christ has shown up at the Faculty Table because I can no longer condemn or hate the person whom I have come to know through food and fellowship.

Christ broke bread with people throughout his earthly ministry; Christ broke bread on the night in which he was betrayed; Christ broke bread with his disciples after his resurrection. God’s cup of blessing overflows at: The Table. We are table-fellowship people.

The world can be changed at the table. So, let’s make an invitation.

Amen.  

Rev. Ryan | Third Sunday of Easter | April 19, 2026