The Open Table (Rev. Andy Whitaker Smith)
There’s a particular song I have to listen to all the way through: “You Give Love a Bad Name” by Jon Bon Jovi. If I needed a song to encapsulate my childhood, it would be that one; because after 1986, I heard that song EVERYWHERE—radio, skating rink, pizza parties, you name it.
Parties at Pizza Hut were the coolest thing you could do, at the time. Early Elementary School, you just invited your whole class to your Pizza Hut birthday party.
Then you get a little older…and it’s no longer the cool thing to invite everyone. You have to start getting pickier, smaller… and you definitely don’t want to be seen with certain people.
Some of us may remember what it was like to be the “certain people”….who stopped getting invitations to parties….or maybe never received them. And it’s hard for that experience to not come along with us as we grow up, become a part of society—we may just see how it evolves along with us. It may not be birthday parties, but maybe it’s after-work hangouts, or weekend getaways, or dinners….or church.
We’ve probably heard the statistics about church attendance declining. Lovett Weems, professor of church leadership emeritus at Wesley Theological Seminary, has worked on this for decades….sharing information about the rise of church members aging, and a lower percentage each year of younger people taking their place in attendance in church. In the UMC, for example, Worship Attendance has dropped around 30% in the last 20 years; that may not seem like a big deal until you learn that the median attendance in UMCs is around 40.
The percentage of those whose response to the question of religious affiliation is “none” remained unchanged at about 5 to 7 percent from the 1960s to the early 1990s. Then the percentages grew to 29 percent reported by Pew in 2021. –Dr. Weems
What do we typically do when we hear this information? It can be a mixture of panic and blame—why it’s everyone else’s fault that we’re declining. Then we’ll start talking about how we need to get more people to come to church: younger people, diverse people, active people—people who can step in and take over from those who left or passed on—not just replace in person, but replace in service and financial support.
For decades, now, even before I began as a pastor, I’ve been hearing about how we need to recharge and resurrect the church—that we have to make it relevant, we have to make it exciting, we have to make it a place people actually want to attend a be a part of. And we’ll use example like Blockbuster and Sprint and Radio Shack—businesses which no longer exist because they wouldn’t change their model, and so we need to be more like Apple and Netflix, constantly changing our brand and methods so that we remain fluid and with the times.
Here’s the problem with that: we’re not a business. We’re not out to make a profit, and we don’t have a product to sell…not even Jesus. Jesus is not a product. He is God—LIFE and LOVE INCARNATE. And this INCARNATE GOD does not tell us to “sell” the church—or even (hope the Bishop’s not listening…) to grow the church. Jesus, GOD INCARNATE, tells us to SHARE THE GOOD NEWS.
And what is the good news: ALL ARE WELCOME AT THE TABLE.
You know what I don’t hear in all these stats of church decline and how to recover from them? In all the ways we need to regenerate the church and make it cool and exciting for people, again? I have never, NEVER heard the suggestion: INVITE THE UNINVITED.
The implication is often: invite the wealthy, so they can replenish the budget. Invite the active, so they’ll take over the committees. Invite the savvy, so they can help with marketing strategies. Invite the good-looking, so we can post glamorous photos of our website. Now, of course, we would never SAY that….but we say it. What does Jesus say…?
Luke 14:16-23—“Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.’”
Why do we keep trying to invite people who aren’t hungry? Why do we keep spending our time and energy going around and around in circles, asking why people don’t come to church, anymore, when we have an ever-expanding population right here in Lakeland of people who are homeless, starving, disenfranchised, marginalized, ignored, alone, and invisible?
Bishop Robert Schnase, Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation—It involves seeing ourselves as sent out by Christ and going out of our way, even at the risk of a sense of awkwardness and inconvenience, to invite people into some aspect of the church’s ministry. Imagine people offering the absolute utmost of themselves, their creativity, their abilities, and their energy to offer the gracious invitation and reception of Christ to others.
Who do we know who’s hungry? Do we see them on the corners, in the parking lots, walking out of hospitals, prisons, airports after coming back from war? Some stand out so starkly, that’s the whole reason they’re ignored. Why are they not being invited to the Table?
I’m not saying the answer to all their problems is church, and that that’s what we need to say—that just won’t work, and that’s not the point. The point is not to “fix” anyone, or tell anyone that “they need church,” cuz that usually goes down a harmful path.
But what they may need is bread, or a cup, or a friendly face who accepts them as they are, and lets them know there’s a place—and more importantly—a community of people who will love them.
I wonder if our other fear is: What if they accept…and actually show up? Then what do we do?
Old quote: “CHURCH IS LIKE GRANOLA: NUTS, FRUITS, AND FLAKES.” One of your pastors, who wears a Captain America backpack, knows what it’s like to be nutty, fruity, and flaky….I was the kid who stopped getting invitations.
Jesus was for all people…which is why he went out to those who had been told they were not “all people;” the ones told they didn’t belong….who didn’t deserve food or housing or help or being seen…or love.
Today, of course, it not Communion Sunday for us…but next Sunday is. Who needs to be invited, next week? Who needs to be reminded that they are worthy to come forward? Who’s been told, in one way or another, that they are NOT worthy? Who’s been ignored…who’s been forgotten? Who’s been uninvited?
“Open the table to them,” Jesus says, “THAT is who you are supposed to invite.”