Crowded Tables
“I want a house with a crowded table,” I belted out from the back of the sanctuary. The musicians were leading us in a song by The Highwomen that I hadn't known before, but, almost as soon as they started to sing, I started to cry. I always wanted a house with a crowded table myself, and I have been counting the missing people at that table in my own family for so long. Only this time I was crying with joy, not thinking about all the kids I didn't get to have because I was instead looking over some of the family I *do* have. This weekend was Reconciling Ministry Network's Convocation, an event for United Methodists who are and love LGBTQIA+ people to worship together, learn from one another in workshops, and organize to wrangle our polity to be more inclusive. It was a joyful, colorful, crowded table.
Now I haven't been involved much in justice or inclusion ministries in the church in recent years. I couldn't travel for conferences when I was in constant fertility treatment mode. My imagination for a better world was too stunted by depression. Plus there was COVID in there. And also, many of the people I grew up with in college and seminary and those few first years of ministry were not planning on being at Convocation this year either. Many have left the denomination for safer spaces, fed up with the abuse of the institution. Many still aren't traveling. So, in some ways it seemed strange to be at Convocation, lonely even. But there were plenty of people I haven’t seen in a dozen years who held my baby close as we caught up, and there were also new people to meet and connect with. One of the new people was a colleague who went to high school with me: we grew up in a place in which people booed in the movie theater when gay characters kissed in the movie Rent, but here we were, both pastors and parents raising our kids to center and celebrate queer folks in sacred spaces.
I cried during the first hymn we sang, too, “For Everyone Born,” as we continued to make space for everyone at the table. One of the people who read Scripture was a young person from my conference, a child in a long line of United Methodist pastors and leaders, so her reading revealed to me the great cloud of witnesses at the table with us from before and who will be joining us in the future. We remembered our baptism, and my six month old, who has not yet been baptized, still played in the holy water, splashing around his tiny hand in awe as someone who had prayed for him before he or his brother were ever born held the bowl. He was later anointed with oil by a new friend, offering him another blessing of love. It was a beautifully crowded table- a big beautiful place where we felt so loved. My kids get to grow up in this kind of church- and I get to help raise others in this kind of church.
We sang: “The door is always open/your picture's on my wall/everyone's a little broken/and everyone belongs/yeah, everyone belongs!” I don’t identify as queer; though I don’t claim to be straight, either: I’m mostly just a girl married to a boy who’s her high school sweetheart, which imbues me with heterosexual privilege. But I know my liberation is bound up in the liberation of all of creation. We’re all, whether queer and straight(ish), a little broken, and we all belong.
I first recognized my call to ministry as a call to invite others to the table when I received communion from a queer person. I knew as she served me communion that I belonged, and I want everyone to feel that way. Convocation reminds me of this call, and it reminded me that I still belong. May we have more crowded tables.
