Who Gets to Set the Table?
From the series: Making Space at the Table: The Slow, Holy Work
“When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind… and you will be blessed.”
—Luke 14:13–14 (NRSV)
It is one thing to be invited to a table. It is another to be trusted to set it.
In many churches, inclusion is spoken of warmly and often. We announce it in newsletters. We write it into mission statements. We include it on banners and posters and parish profiles. But beneath the language of welcome lies a harder question: who actually holds the power?
Who plans the liturgy?
Who picks the hymns?
Who decides what counts as beautiful, reverent, or holy?
Inclusion that stops at invitation remains incomplete. Because true belonging is not about being allowed in—it is about being allowed to shape. And for many who have long been pushed to the margins—disabled people, neurodivergent people, LGBTQ+ people, working-class people, migrants—simply being “welcomed” into a space already structured without them is not enough. The table might be wide, but if it is always set by the same hands, for the same appetites, according to the same aesthetic, then it remains a table of control.
The Gospels are full of meals. In Luke’s Gospel alone, Jesus is constantly dining—at Simon’s house, at Levi’s banquet, with Mary and Martha, with the crowds in the wilderness, with his friends on the road to Emmaus. But at each of these meals, something strange happens. Jesus does not just accept the hospitality of others—he transforms it. He receives and reconfigures. He calls the host into vulnerability, the honoured guest into repentance, the outsider into centre place.
And again and again, the logic of hierarchy is turned upside down.
When Jesus tells his disciples to prepare the upper room for the Passover, he gives them no elaborate instruction. Just: “Go. Find the room. Make it ready.” The feast of Christ is always prepared in ordinary places—often borrowed, often imperfect. It is not a gala. It is not a performance. It is a shared table set by many hands.
If the Eucharist is to shape our imagination, then it must also reshape our structures. Not just the bread, but the baking. Not just the words, but who gets to write them. Not just who is served, but who is trusted to serve.
Many of us in ministry, especially in liturgical traditions, have been trained to believe we know how the table should look. We know the prayers. We know the choreography. We know the sacred rhythms. And so we find it difficult to let others touch what we consider holy. But if we are serious about making space, we must ask not only how we welcome others, but how we let go of control.
Because to allow someone to set the table is to trust that their experience of God is just as real, just as rich, just as sacramental as our own.
This is not about chaos or abandoning tradition. Quite the opposite. This is about returning to the heart of tradition—to the ancient, disruptive, deeply Eucharistic truth that God prepares a table in the wilderness (Psalm 23:5). Not in the sanctuary. Not on our schedule. In the wild places. In the overlooked places. In the hands of people we might never have chosen.
Too often, we curate the table of the Church like a gallery: each piece selected for coherence, clarity, style. But the Eucharist is not a gallery. It is a gathering. And real gatherings are messy. They involve compromise. Translation. Stretching. Slowing down. Letting go.
Real gatherings are shaped by love, not polish.
In the Rule of St Benedict, the cellarer—the one in charge of the community’s goods—is told to treat everything, from vessels to people, “as if they were the sacred vessels of the altar.”¹ This is a radically sacramental worldview. It insists that every interaction, every offering, every act of preparation is holy. Not just the chalice. The hands that polish it. Not just the bread. The hands that knead it.
To make space at the table is not to invite people to watch. It is to hand them the linen and say: Set it with us.
This is especially important for those who have long been on the edge of Church life. To be truly included is to be trusted with shaping what inclusion looks like. And that is costly—for those already in power. Because it means the table may change. The language may shift. The music may sound different. The rhythm may slow or quicken. What we consider normal might no longer be central.
And yet—isn’t that the pattern of the Gospel?
Over and over, the Spirit draws the Church into conversion. Think of Peter and Cornelius. Think of the Council of Jerusalem. Think of the early deacons, appointed to ensure no one was overlooked. Think of the letters of Paul, negotiating culture, difference, belonging. The Church has never been static. It is always being remade in the image of Christ’s hospitality.
But remaking takes risk.
Who do we ask to lead prayers in our congregations? Who decides the pace of worship? Who chooses what access looks like? Who do we trust with teaching? With storytelling? With setting the tone?
To say someone is part of the Body of Christ and then not trust their gifts is not inclusion. It is tokenism.
We are not meant to be guests forever. We are meant to become co-hosts.
And in doing so, we are drawn into Christ. The Christ who prepares a table and then steps back. The Christ who takes the lowest seat. The Christ who breaks the bread and gives it all away.
To let others set the table is not a loss of reverence. It is reverence—of the truest kind.
Because in that act, we say: You belong here. Not as decoration. As foundation.
The table of the Lord does not need protecting. It needs widening. And it will be set best when all of us—not just the confident, the ordained, the well-spoken—are given a role in setting it.
Not because we are perfect.
But because the One who hosts us has always trusted imperfect hands.
References
The Rule of St Benedict, Chapter 31: "The Qualities of the Cellarer."
So cool you posted this today! It’s been on my mind a lot, the very question you asked. I’ve always been fascinated - drawn, really, to longing to be part of a faith tradition that harks back to the first followers. I recently read an article by a very bright young woman who serves as journalist for a Jesuit publication. She related her experience covering the sex abuse inquiries in the Catholic Church under Papa Francesco a few years ago. She said that her next assignment was to do with the churches in the Holy Land. She related her deep distress at the assignment in Rome and said she felt more like a Galilee Catholic than a Roman Catholic. I loved that. Next time someone calls me a cafeteria Catholic, I’m going to use it. It’s so tempting to get distracted by the barnacles on this oldest of all Christian ships. Honestly, despite the last call for alcohol, otherwise known as Vatican II, or “come out of her, my people,” the Catholic Church as a whole carries on relying on tradition more than the gospel. I suspect it will continue to do so. I get discouraged, I won’t lie. But in my role, I’m also forming relationships with good seeds. Not many, but volume isn’t as important as depth. Because I was raised and formed in a very different, Protestant tradition I have a unique perspective - there’s not really much difference in the flaws of any organized faith. It seems all of them suffer from the same problem that dogged the Pharisees - worship of self, making gods in our image. They all do it. It’s why the numbers of the “nones” are skyrocketing in the Western world. Sometimes I think the only two populations of believers are either the discouraged, disheartened who have thrown in the towel on organized religion altogether or the sleepwalking zombies who can’t imagine real faith that challenges them to leave their comfort and convenience and go out and be living witnesses. But then, in the doldrums of my days, I realize my work is not to stand on a soapbox preaching, or walk away in high dudgeon, childishly washing my hands of the whole thing. It is to stay and nurture relationships with the good seeds. To be fertilizer for them when it seems the soil itself is poisoned. Watch and wait. Be alert for Him to guide my next step - even if that means just standing still. All the structures of human order are crumbling around us. It can be disconcerting to stay, to stand still and wait, especially when all we (I mean “I”) have ever learned to do is resist with fighting or walking away. But that won’t do. Not now. There may come a time for it. And it’s very easy to slip into anxiety about what it will be like or what we will do when that time comes. Who will serve when all the traditions crash to the ground? I’m pretty sure they will. They are. Then I think of what it must have been like for the apostles during the days after the crucifixion, before He came back, or during the few weeks He kept showing up, walking through walls and stuff. I bet they didn’t have any more of an idea of what would come next or how they were supposed to be than I do. But they did what He said to do: they went to Galilee and waited. Yep, that’s me: a Galilee Catholic. There are more too. Scads of them.
Wise and challenging message here. Were a church - any church - to embrace this vision of the table it would be profoundly transformative. Thank you for putting this forward.