I’m not a big fan of the high top table.
That’s a little vague…
Let me make this clear, I HATE HIGH TOP TABLES!
It’s not because I have a hostility towards furniture.
It’s because I have legs that are barely 20 inches long. I’m not built for high top chairs. My low riding butt comes no where near the seat. Every time I try to sit in one I come close to bursting my spleen. It takes a lot of really embarrassing, completely public effort for this little freak to sit at a high top table. I once tried to get a running start and almost broke my tooth. I’ve tried to climb up the chair, which would have been easier if I was actually coordinated at all. I’ve dived in and ended up beached on my belly like a short legged penguin. It gets weird.
A while back I was in a meeting where everyone was sitting at a high top table, after 3 or 4 ugly and unsuccessful attempts to hoist myself onto the chair, I gave up and awkwardly stood at the table. My coworkers were laughing too hard to offer to pick me up like a baby and put me on the chair. I would have let them do it, it might have taken 2 or 3 of them, but I was already feeling pretty embarrassed at that point.
Sometimes you get the feeling there’s not a place at the table for you, that is what high tops symbolize to me. They smell like exclusion. And that is sad, because I AM a big fan of tables. Tables are an incredibly important piece of furniture. Tables create space for supper, story and stillness. It’s a place meant to break bread and break barriers.
I think that sometimes we turn faith into a high-top table. We tell people there is a place at the table for them, but then we make it out of their reach. In the Bible, the Pharisees were the keepers of the hi-tops. They were the religious leaders who made the table unattainable for the undesirables. They heap rules and expectations and appropriateness upon people. The Pharisees were the people who were self-appointed to speak FOR God, without ever speaking OF God, there is a big difference.
In contrast, When I think about the story of Jesus, I see him at a lot of tables, but I don’t think they were hi-tops.
He invited a lot of lowlifes to the table. Lowlifes can rarely reach the high top.
One time, He did knock over some tables in the temple. He didn’t hate the furniture, I think he did it because people were using the tables to take advantage of the poor and excluding the powerless…basically the lowlifes. It seems that Jesus has a problem when there isn’t a place for everyone at the table, so he overturned the tables, I like to think they were high-tops.
At one table, what we call the last supper, Jesus was reclining with his friends…RECLINING!! In order to sit at this table, They were required to recline. It was about “how low can you go?”, the table wasn’t out of reach for anyone. Apparently, for Jesus, tables were an excuse to say “c’mon! Take your seat, take a load off, recline, rest…I’ve got this”.
That’s REALLY good news!
Jesus invites us to sit and enjoy supper, story and stillness.
Jesus hangs out with lowlifes like me, you can’t do that at high-top tables.
There’s a place for me, there’s a place for you, there’s a place for that person that bugs us.
Take a seat.
carbonated joy 