THE OPEN TABLE PRIMER

The community of God is one marked by hospitality, generosity, inclusion, peace, and love.  The vision for this community compels us, it excites us and we can’t help but drop everything and get involved.  The Open Table, since its inception, has sought to embody this.  We hope to create a community of substance, where we discuss meaningful issues and offer practical hospitality to those on the margins.  Through our shared meals and lively discussions, we begin to live out the very things we believe in.  We begin to form a radically reconciled community, where our divisions melt away and no one is in need.

This is just a sample of what was discussed last Sunday.  We talked about the past, present and future of The Open Table, and how we can do so much more together than apart.  To close, we read a prayer from Archbishop Oscar Romero entitled, “A Step Along the Way.”

A STEP ALONG THE WAY

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.