There is something so intimate and evocative about hosting guests in one’s home for dinner.  Rarely do we go about our preparations with sadness, greet each other at the door with long faces or hold some disembodied distance while passing the potatoes.  More typically, there is a spirit of revelry and rejoicing.  The meal and the sharing of it draws us closer to one another.  As we see in the reading from the book of Nehemiah and the Gospel reading from Luke today, the very act of gathering at table is tied up in how we respond to God’s law and labor in God’s harvest land.

Those learners and listeners in today’s first reading seem to feel overwhelmed by what is proclaimed and prescribed to them by Ezra from the scroll.  “For all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law.” (v.9)  In response to their tears and heavy hearts, the people are instructed to go and share a meal together while also sharing with those who had little.  It was through the breaking of bread that joy re-entered their hearts.  Jesus draws from the same playbook in Luke’s Gospel when he sends out the 72 “other disciples” ahead of him.  He tells them to take little for the journey other than their trust in the hospitality of others to sustain them and the offering of their peace in return.  Presumably, it is at the meal table where this exchange will take place.

Some years ago now I heard a story told of St. Teresa of Calcutta.  She and a few of her Sisters were visiting the United States and staying at a parish in the Southwest.  The pastor had agreed to say a “private” Mass for St. Teresa and her Sisters very early in the morning.  Word traveled fast of the presence of these holy women and so before Mass began there were already crowds of people being held back by police and barricades outside the chapel.  The quiet Mass started and clearly Mother Teresa was agitated.  As the first reading was proclaimed she was shuffling about in the chapel, whispering to her Sisters to get closer and move forward until their noses were practically touching the altar.  The same went during the Responsorial Psalm.  Then, just before the Gospel was proclaimed, Mother Teresa threw open the chapel door and proclaimed, “Everyone, come inside!”  Well, the police were the first to accept her invitation followed immediately by the crowds.  Then, and only then, was St. Teresa able to find a corner, sink to her knees, and drop into prayer.  She could not rest knowing that people were being held from the table of God’s abundant love.

May we all find ourselves as both hosts and guests at tables of fellowship where we can feast upon the joy and peace for which we all so deeply hunger.