At The Table

While I've been here I've been reading a book about looking at the life of Jesus from a Jewish perspective. One of the things that the authors have hit on is the idea of hospitality in the Middle East (which is also true in Africa, by the way). In these cultures, being invited to dinner was a big deal. It signified friendship and intimacy and ultimately it was one person inviting another to live deeply together. As soon as the guest would step onto the person's property, that other person would take full responsibility for the guest's life. They would fight for you. Being invited to the table was being invited to live in the shelter of someone else.
This summer we have been talking a lot about God's shelter. In Psalm 91 God tells us that we are invited to live in His shelter. "Those who dwell in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. (Ps 91:1-2) But there is something else that I'm learning. In Psalm 23:5 David says, "You prepare a table before me, in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows." Essentially God is telling us that when we come to His table, and we are all invited, He is our protection. He will fight for us.
On Friday night we had the CLAPAI kids over to our house for a celebration dinner. It was the last week of school for them before break and we wanted to honor them for a year of academic achievement. (Just as an aside, we cooked a goat...which I did not taste because we cooked the ENTIRE goat and it grossed me out). We made them certificates and the director called them up one by one and commended them for all they had accomplished this year. But as each one came up she shared a little bit about what they had been going through this year. Here is a snippet. Bincham has HIV. Godya met her father for the first time this year (she is 9) and he is a Muslim, and she doesn't want to be a Muslim. Lucky and Endurance are left alone for days at a time and have to fend for themselves. All of them have been impacted in one way or another by HIV. And as they came up one by one, Kyenpiya was talking about how we must pray for them and fight for them as they are up against insurmountable odds. I immediately thought about the table and how she and Emmanuel has invited each one of these kids to be guests at their table. They are fighting for these kids. They have given up everything in their lives to care for these kids. Why? Because God first loved them and invited them to the table.
God has invited each one of us to His table. He will fight for us. And He invited us to fight for others. So the question I have been asking is who are you fighting for? Who are you inviting to your table (both physically and spiritually)? Who are you caring for and building into? God is fighting for them already, but will we join Him?