In the coming weeks, we will prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving as a congregation, gathering on Thursday, November 17 for our annual Thanksgiving meal. Around the table with one another, we will share a meal as well as the grace of God, which binds us together. We will celebrate our community of faith by gathering to eat, share, laugh, and give thanks.
If we were to choose one symbol of the church, particularly as we give thanks, we could not select a better symbol than a table. A table is the place where we share our lives with one another. At the table, we say grace, offering our thanksgiving to God. Around the table, we remember how we rely on God, as we remember how our food comes from the ground beneath our feet. Sitting at the table, we learn with and from one another as a church family.
When we gather for our Thanksgiving meal, we will remember the connection between the table of communion and the other tables in our lives. We will pass the bread and the cup around the tables in the Fellowship Hall, remembering that we share the grace of God with one another at all of our tables.
At the Lord’s Table, we find communion with God and community with others. We discover the intersection of the love of God and the love of neighbor, which is found at all of our tables. Eucharist, which is an early name for communion, means “thanksgiving”. As one writer says, “Communion—with God as well as with all other humans—was the great gift, and it gave life to everyone who shared it.” We will share this gift with each other.
We will also give thanks for the community of faith at Auburn First Baptist Church. We will give thanks for our worship, our efforts to serve others, and our desire to care for each other. We will share this joy with one another around the table, as we fellowship and as we celebrate the bread and the cup.
-Tripp