For us to build a bigger table and to make room for everyone, it will mean shifting our perspectives on who is invited and who is not; it will mean appreciating the abundance we experience there and not hoarding it ourselves. For us to build a bigger table, it will mean asking who is missing from the table and why. To build a bigger table, we must let go of the easy excuses and begin the hard work of justice and mercy.
November 9, 2025
The Welcome Table
“Build a Bigger Table: Who is Coming to Dinner?”
Luke 14: 7-24
Rev. Dr. Heather W. McColl
Luke 14: 7-24
When Jesus noticed how the guests sought out the best seats at the table, he told them a parable. “When someone invites you to a wedding celebration, don’t take your seat in the place of honor. Someone more highly regarded than you could have been invited by your host. The host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give your seat to this other person.’ Embarrassed, you will take your seat in the least important place. Instead, when you receive an invitation, go and sit in the least important place. When your host approaches you, he will say, ‘Friend, move up here to a better seat.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.”
Then Jesus said to the person who had invited him, “When you host a lunch or dinner, don’t invite your friends, your brothers and sisters, your relatives, or rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return and that will be your reward. Instead, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. And you will be blessed because they can’t repay you. Instead, you will be repaid when the just are resurrected.” When one of the dinner guests heard Jesus’ remarks, he said to Jesus, “Happy are those who will feast in God’s kingdom.”
Jesus replied, “A certain man hosted a large dinner and invited many people. When it was time for the dinner to begin, he sent his servant to tell the invited guests, ‘Come! The dinner is now ready.’ One by one, they all began to make excuses. The first one told him, ‘I bought a farm and must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I bought five teams of oxen, and I’m going to check on them. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ When he returned, the servant reported these excuses to his master. The master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go quickly to the city’s streets, the busy ones and the side streets, and bring the poor, crippled, blind, and lame.’ The servant said, ‘Master, your instructions have been followed and there is still room.’ The master said to the servant, ‘Go to the highways and back alleys and urge people to come in so that my house will be filled. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’”
Build a Bigger Table: Who is Coming to Dinner Luke 14: 7-24
We continue our conversation this week about how as Jesus’ disciples, we are called to build a bigger table. When we talk about building a bigger table, the first thing we need to ask ourselves is who is coming to dinner? Are we planning a small gathering? Will it only be our family and friends? How will we make everyone welcome at the Table? Because when we are talking about building a bigger table, what we are really talking about is capacity. For example, let’s take our monthly free community dinners or our Epiphany Dinner, or any dinner or function we hold in our fellowship hall. We only have so many chairs in that space. Sure, we could say everyone is welcome but we need people to bring their own chairs. That still would not work because there is only so much space in our fellowship hall. It can only hold so many people. It only has so much capacity.
To expand that capacity, we have a few options. We could do a deconstruction project where we basically tear down walls and rebuild something that would hold a larger number of people. This would expand our capacity and allow us to build a bigger table. But this option would take a while, and it would be at a significant cost. Or another way we could expand our capacity is if we move our dinners to different space, say the street for example. How cool would it be to have tables lined up end to end going up and down Bruen Street? Again, this option would take time and resources because we would have to go to city council, get them to shut down streets, move all the tables outside, probably get more chairs? But it would definitely expand our capacity and allow us to build a bigger table.
I’m sure there are more options. These were just the first two that came to mind. And maybe the reality is that it is not either or but both and, meaning to expand our capacity we do have to tear down some walls both physically and figuratively and we have to transform our way of doing things.
However, these things don’t happen overnight. They don’t happen simply because we say we want it. They take time. They take resources. They take us rethinking our current way of ministry. They take us reimagining what is possible. They take us doing the difficult important work of becoming the people God created and calls us to be.
This is what the author of Luke wants us to think about when he shares his parables with us this week. He is wanting us to think about our capacity for Welcome, for justice, for mercy, for grace, and expand it. He is wanting us to reimagine what is possible not only for ourselves but for our communities, for our world when we truly commit ourselves to building a bigger table. He is challenging our status quo and inviting us to experience God’s Beloved Community in our midst. He is asking us to tear down walls, to transform our modes of operation so that our capacity for recognizing, for embracing, for living out the vision of God’s Beloved Community is expanded and realized, not only for ourselves but for all of God’s people.
He does this through two different parables. In the first parable, which is more sound advice rather than an actual parable, Jesus again turns the rules of our world upside down. He reminds those gathered that being at the Table together is not about sitting in places of honor. Rather it is about who is sitting at the Table with you. He reminds the dinner guests that if they only invite their family and friends, what do they gain?
Then Jesus moves quickly to another parable in which he tells us that a man throws a big dinner and invites various friends and family, but they all have excuses as to why they cannot come to the dinner. The man then tells his servant to go out into the streets and bring in the poor, the blind, the lame and the crippled. When the servant does that, there is still room at the table. Our parable ends with the man saying that none of those who refused the invitation will taste the dinner.
At the heart of Jesus’ parables, he is reminding us as children of God, that we are called to build a bigger table, not just for our friends and family, but for all children of God because we have been welcomed by our gracious host, our God who loves us more than we will ever know. At the heart of Jesus’ parable, Luke is challenging us as people of faith to think about who are the guests around our Table or better yet, who is not at our Table and ask ourselves why is that so? At the heart of this parable, Luke is wanting us to think about when we invite people to our Table, how often it is an uneven power dynamic. We are the host. They are the guests. We assume we know what they need and want. We craft the menu to our liking whether that menu is the actual dinner menu or a way of living which keeps us comfortable.
Through these parables, Luke is reminding us that throughout Jesus’ ministry, the Table was the great equalizer. It was also the natural place for beginning relationships and community. Luke wants us to realize that as people of faith, as Jesus’ disciples, for us to build a bigger table and to make room for everyone, we need to expand our capacity for grace, for justice, for mercy, for love. That it is not enough for us just to extend the invitation. It will also take us shifting our perspectives on who is invited and who is not. It will also take us appreciating the abundance we experience there and not hoard it ourselves. For us to build a bigger table, it will take us letting go of the easy excuses and beginning the hard work of justice and mercy, tearing down the walls we use to separate and divide and changing our modes of operation.
Or in the words of someone way smarter than me, “the heart of the bigger table is the realization that we don’t have to share someone’s experience to respect their road. As we move beyond the lazy theology and easy caricatures that seek to remove any gray from people’s lives, we can meet them in that grayness, right where they are without demanding that they become something else in order to earn proximity to us or to a God who loves them dearly. Just as was true in the life and ministry of Jesus, real love is not contingent upon alteration, it simply is. There is no earning of fellowship or deserving of closeness; there is only the invitation itself and the joy that comes when you are fully seen and fully heard. There is only expanding our capacity to reflect and share the abundant love of God” May it be so. Amen.
See also: Theology Tuesday for Sunday, November 9, 2025 – Build a Bigger Table: Who is Coming to Dinner Luke 14: 7-24.
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