At The Table With The Enemy
On Sunday we looked at one of Jesus’ hardest teachings: 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:44-45) If you were not here, I encourage you to go back and listen to the message. The gist of it is simple: 1) While we were enemies to God, He loved us and sent His son to die for our sins. 2) When we accept His love for us we are turned from enemies to His beloved. 3) God’s perfect love for us drives out fear. 4) Without fear, we are freed to love our enemies like God, our Father, loves us.
As I have meditated on these words, my mind keeps going back to the familiar 23rd Psalm and I thought I would share my musings with you. Many of us are familiar with David, the shepherd boy’s beautiful poem about God’s caring and providing presence. But in the light of Jesus’ call to love our enemies the poem has taken on a new meaning to me. David writes:
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
This is the part of the poem with which we are most familiar. It paints a beautiful picture of God’s nearness. How He, like a good and loving shepherd, leads His people to find sustenance and rest. Particularly meaningful, is the acknowledgment that even in the darkest valleys, His people do not have to fear evil, because He is with them guiding them and protecting them (a truly comforting thought). But I wonder how much these words have truly taken root in our souls like they had David. What does it look like to truly have “no fear?” To trust God so much that His presence alone is enough to provide us rest and comfort no matter what.
But truthfully, it is the last two verses that have caught my attention. David writes:
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
Up until this week I have read these words to be David gloating over his enemies. He won, they lost. God has prepared a table for him in the presence of his enemies. And perhaps that is what David the warrior King meant. But Jesus, the crucified and resurrected King, has caused me to read the words differently. In light of Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies I have wondered if perhaps we should not understand these words as gloating, but as invitation. For what is the table prepared before us by God? Is it not the communion table? And what is the feast that I get to partake in by God’s providential grace? Is it not the body and blood of Jesus provided for us? And why has God prepared this table in the presence of my enemies? Is it not to invite them to experience God’s undeserved grace as I have and to become my brother and sister in the Kingdom?
David returns to his trust filled statements of God’s goodness. His cup overflows and he knows that no matter where he goes God’s goodness and love will be with Him. Perhaps one of the most needed areas to trust God is in the presence of our enemies. Something in us flenches at the thought of our enemy becoming a brother or sister. We demand justice. We demand God’s vengeance. But such thoughts reveal our failed understanding and trust in God’s goodness towards us. The only reason we have a seat at the table is because God poured out his vengeance on Jesus so that he might be both the “just and the one who justifies” (Romans 3:26). None of us deserve to eat the bread and drink the wine of God’s love, and yet we celebrate the kind word of Jesus saying, “this is my body broken for you; this is my blood poured out for you.”
This week we will gather as a church around the Communion Table once again. And as we approach it and eat of the bread and drink of the wine, may we pause and pray for our enemies that they too may one day be justified and transformed by God’s grace. May God defeat our enemies by turning them into our brothers and sisters in His Kingdom. And may we boast together in the feast of God’s goodness and love.