“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”

Matthew 11:28-30

Rev. Martin C. Singley, III

Little did Matt and Christina Drayton know who was coming to dinner that night. Played by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, the Draytons were about to get the surprise of their lives when their daughter Joey brought home her fiancé. The Draytons were thrilled that Joey was going to marry a man of high stature and great accomplishment – a highly respected medical doctor of international regard, impeccably mannered, well-dressed, handsome, from a very fine family.

They just didn’t know he was black.

So when Joey brought Dr. John Wade Prentice home to meet her parents for the first time, they were stunned to see Sidney Poitier standing at the door!

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

That 1967 movie was pretty cutting-edge back in the day when mixed marriages were far less acceptable than they are today. Things have changed in that regard – a little. But the difficulty posed by that question still lingers.

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

It’s a good question for us to consider on World Communion Sunday because the Christian dinner table has always been beset by great controversy over who should and who should not come to the Lord’s Supper.

In my faith tradition, children were not allowed to come to the Table of the Lord until we were twelve years old and had successfully completed a Confirmation class. That’s not what it says anywhere in the Bible, but that’s what the deacons at Adams Square Congregational said. So kids had no place at the table until they jumped through that hoop. Down the street from that church was one of those congregations that believes they are the only ones going to heaven, and so Communion there is served to members ONLY. My friend and colleague Father Dave, former pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle church, has often expressed at joint services between our churches that it is such a shame that Catholics and Protestants cannot receive Communion together.

And this is not anything new. It goes all the way back to the days of Jesus when those who invited the Lord to their homes for dinner were shocked to open the door and see sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes standing there with Jesus, coming to supper.

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

This is a great question to ask on World Communion Sunday because it forces us to think outside of our own frame of reference. In fact, World Communion Sunday challenges us to ask a more probing version of that question, “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”

“Guess who’s NOT coming to dinner?”

Here in our own church, we can simply look around the Sanctuary and see who’s NOT coming to the Lord’s Supper.

Children. Young families. Native east Tennesseans. People of color and different ethnicities.

It’s not very difficult to simply take a look at ourselves here at Tellico Village Community Church and ask if our table looks anything at all like the table Jesus invited people to.

And it’s not just about us and our church. It’s important to bring this question to the Christian Church as a whole. Who is NOT coming to dinner anymore?

Members of the Church Alumni Association – the fastest growing religious movement in America - who are people who were raised in the Church but find it no longer relevant to their lives; people who’ve given up on the Church because of its perceived hypocrisy, intellectual dishonesty, abuses of power, spiritual shallowness, blatant consumerism; those who’ve been hurt by the Church because of personal experiences of rejection.

There are a lot of people who are NOT coming to dinner anymore.

People struggling with issues of sexual orientation; people who wrestle with addictions; people who doubt; people who wonder how a God of love can allow terrible things to happen to innocent people; people who are angry with God because they got cancer, or because a loved one died; people whose marriages fall apart, or who lose their jobs, or find themselves homeless on the streets.

Can I ask you to think about this question today and tomorrow and into the future…who’s NOT coming to dinner these days?

And then think about this: way back when, God established a “supper” to show us how we are to relate with other people. It started among the Hebrew slaves in Egypt. It became the Passover meal of Israel. It was the Last Supper of Jesus. And it is the Lord’s Table set before us today. For thousands of years, God has called us to the dinner table.

And God made some rules concerning this meal. Children are especially invited. Whole families can come. Rich, poor, good, bad, saint, sinner, believer, doubter, married, single, healthy, sick, black, white, red, brown, Jew, Gentile…and get this…even undocumented aliens. God made a special rule that if there is anyone among you who is not a citizen, but an alien in the land, you have to open your arms to them and invite and welcome them to the table of the Lord.

EVERYONE is invited to dinner.

Do you know why?

Our first reading today from Genesis 2 takes us back to the dawn of creation and says something very profound. God has created Adam. Everything is Paradise, but for one thing. Adam is lonely. And God sees Adam’s loneliness and says, “This is not good that Adam is alone.” Do you understand the power of these words? Up until now, every element of God’s creation has been described with the words, “And behold, it was very good.” But now there is something God sees that is NOT good. “It is not good that Adam is alone.”

So God creates the animals, and parades them in front of Adam to see if any of them will cure Adam’s loneliness. But none is found. So God resorts to desperate measures. God puts Adam to sleep, and while he is sleeping takes a piece of Adam’s body, and uses it to fashion another being just like him, although different in some crucial ways. When he awakes, Adam sees Eve. He LIKES what he sees!

And loneliness gives way to companionship, and companionship to relationship, and relationship to wholeness and completion.

Why is everyone invited to the supper table of God? Because we need each other! Because we cannot be whole, we cannot be complete without each other.

This is the Sunday each year when a number of families in our church stand up to advocate on behalf of those who suffer with mental illness. They have learned from personal experience – with mentally ill children, family members, and others – that those who have disorders of the brain are pushed out to the edges of society where they and their families are stigmatized, unsupported, and isolated. In past years, these church families have given the gift of books about mental illness for our church library so that others can benefit from these resources. But this year, they have made financial contributions to an organization called NARSAD – the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression. NARSAD receives no government funding, but uses 100% of the donations given by families, foundations and other caring donors for direct research into mental health. Our families have made their gift this year in memory of John and Jan Martin’s son Craig whose mental disorder led to other physical complications resulting in his death earlier this year.

In this way, these families are bringing to dinner persons who quite often are excluded from the church. Those who suffer with mental illness are often among those who are NOT coming to dinner. And yet these children of God need US. And we need THEM!

When we ask the question, “Guess who’s NOT coming to dinner?” and identify people and groups around us who are absent from the table, we should loudly hear Jesus’ words from Matthew 11: “Come to me, all you who are burdened and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

Come to me. ALL of you. Not some of you. Not a few of you. Not just men. Not just women. Not just adults. Not just people whose lives are perfect.

Come to me, ALL of you.

And that means that our challenge is to come to the table of the Lord on this World Communion Sunday and think about the people around us who are not coming to dinner. And the work of our church then is to figure out ways to invite them and make it possible for them to come.

Is there some person who comes to your mind this morning who is absent from the table of the Lord? Maybe it’s a relative, a neighbor, a friend. Maybe that person lives next door, or on the other side of the country. What can YOU do to help them find their way to the fellowship of Christ?

Are there some groups of people God is making you aware of this morning – groups that are not coming to dinner? We need especially to think about children and young families, among others. They are living in a world that challenges them at every corner, and need Christ in their lives and a loving community to support them.

And what about those who have been pushed way out to the edges – like those who suffer with mental illness? What can we do to extend a hand of friendship, and include them in the life of our church family?

Guess who’s coming to dinner?

Someone once said that when we all get to heaven and sit at God’s banquet table, lots of folks are going to be surprised YOU’RE there!

That’s the great thing about the table of the Lord.

Everyone can come!