The Sacred Table Co.

I have been the stranger at someone else’s table. New to a town, knowing no one, invited to Sunday dinner by a family who had no reason to bother. I don’t remember what we ate. I remember that they had set a place for me before I arrived — that the welcome was ready, waiting, mine before I walked in. It changed something in me that no sermon ever had.

All week we’ve talked about the seat that’s kept for you — by God, at His table, no earning required. But belonging that only ever flows in stops being belonging. It becomes hoarding. The seat you’ve been given is meant to make room for one more.

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers,” Hebrews says, “for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” I love that you’re never told in advance who the stranger is. You just leave the chair open and find out later what you were part of.

This isn’t a call to entertain. Entertaining is about the house. Hospitality is about the person. One asks, “Is everything impressive enough?” The other asks, “Do you know you’re wanted here?” You can offer the second with paper napkins and a pot of soup.

I’m learning that hospitality is less a task than a posture — hands open, the table a little bigger than my own needs require. Not a project for when life finally calms down. Just a way of holding the ordinary door.

So leave a chair open this week. You may be setting a place for an angel. At the very least, you’re setting one for someone who, like you, just needs to know there’s room.