Always Guests at the Table
a homily for Mauny Thursday
Tonight begins in a room that feels close and, if we are willing to pay attention, it feels deeply human. There is a table set. A shared meal. A group of friends who have walked together long enough to know one another’s rhythms, and long enough to disappoint one another, too. Part of the humanity of the room is that nothing about it looks remarkable at first. And yet everything that matters is beginning to take shape here.
Jesus gathers them, knowing what is already in motion. He knows how fragile this circle is. He knows who will betray him, who will deny him, who will simply not be able to stay. And he does not step back from that knowledge. He does not wait for a better moment or a more faithful group. He sits down with them as they are and gives himself to them anyway.
And friends, this matters. Because it tells us something about what this night is, and what it is not. This is not a moment where Jesus rewards their loyalty. It is a moment where he meets them in their incompleteness. He takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and places it in their hands. He takes the cup and shares it among them. And what he gives is not an idea about himself, not a symbol at a distance, but himself in a form they can receive, even if they do not yet understand what they are receiving.
There is a quiet honesty in this that is easy to miss. Nothing here depends on their clarity. Nothing here depends on their strength. The gift is given before they can respond to it well. Before they can even remain with him. And that begins to tell us what kind of life this meal is shaping.
Rowan Williams says that to share in Holy Communion is to live as people who know they are always guests1. That we have been welcomed, and that we are wanted. It is simple language, but it reaches down into some of our deepest longings. To be seen. To be sought. To be expected. To be trusted. These are not surface desires. They belong to the image of the living God in us.
Julian of Norwich, reflecting on the Passion we enter into these nights, comes to a similar recognition. She sees that God is not distant or reluctant, but one who desires to be known in just these ways. God wishes to be seen, and to be sought. God wishes to be expected and to be trusted2.
And so these things—the seeing, the seeking, the expectation, the trust—are not something we first generate or secure. They are given to us by the very God who also awakens them in us. They begin with God.
But most of us do not live as if that were true. We live as though belonging is something we must secure. Something we prove. Something we maintain by staying steady, getting it right, holding everything together.
But here, at this table, that way of thinking begins to fall apart. We are not hosts. We are not the ones arranging things, making sure everything works. We are guests. We are here because someone else has made space for us. Because someone else has said, I want you here.
And that is not easy to receive. Because to be a guest is to give up a certain kind of control. It is to accept that your place is not something you earned. It is something given. And for many of us, that feels exposed. We would rather be the ones managing things, even spiritually. We would rather be able to say, I belong because I have done what is required.
But Jesus does not set the table that way.
He kneels. He washes their feet. He puts himself in the position of the servant, not as a gesture, but as a way of showing what his life has always been. He gives himself into their hands, knowing those hands will not hold him well. And still he does not withdraw.
So what is being formed here is, yes, a memory, and yes, a ritual to repeat. But what holds the memory and the ritual together is a way of living that begins with receiving. Receiving that we are welcomed. Receiving that we are wanted. Receiving that our place with God does not rest on our ability to hold everything together.
And maybe that is where we begin tonight. Not by trying to understand everything that is happening, or even by trying to feel something particular. But by allowing ourselves to come as we are. To take what is given. To hear, perhaps more simply than we are used to hearing it, that Christ wants our company.
Not later, when we are clearer or stronger. But now.
And if we can stay there, even for a moment, something begins to shift. Not dramatically, not all at once. But quietly. We begin to loosen our grip on the need to secure our place. We begin to trust, even a little, that it has already been given.
And from there, a different kind of life can begin to take shape. Not one driven by anxiety about belonging, but immersed in the steady, undeserved, and very real welcome of God.
“For Christians, to share in the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, means to live as people who know that they are always guests – that they have been welcomed and that they are wanted. It is, perhaps, the most simple thing that we can say about Holy Communion, yet it is still supremely worth saying. In Holy Communion, Jesus Christ tells us that he wants our company.” (Rowan Williams, Being Christian p. 41)
“Then I understood this: that even if a man or woman were there under the broad water, if he could have a vision of God there (since God is with a man constantly), he would be safe in body and soul and receive no harm and, even more, he would have more solace and more comfort than all this world can tell. Because He wills that we believe that we experience Him constantly (although we imagine that it is but little) and by this belief He causes us evermore to gain grace, because He wishes to be seen and He wishes to be sought, He wishes to be awaited and He wishes to be trusted.” (Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love reading Twenty-Two)