🕯️ Sermon Title: Passover People: Tables of Memory, Tables of Liberation
Texts: Exodus 12:1–14 & Luke 22:7–20
Theme: From captivity to communion—gathering as liberation
Justice Thread: Empire dismembers; Jesus re-members through the table
I have been using the table for years as a way to foster togetherness. For over a year, Erin and I have been eating with the same family. They cook for us each Sunday and it has become a someplace for me.
Deep in the pandemic, The Tennessean came and photographed our empty table and did a story on us. We were known as people who feed people and gather people. But, during the pandemic, our table was empty.
And, today, we come, again, to gather around the table—to practice something that a Jewish Rabbi had borrowed from his own tradition.
⸻
🌒 1. We Begin with the Table of Escape
Exodus 12 is not a dinner party—it’s a survival plan.
“This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand.”
This is a gathering shaped by urgency.
A meal eaten in resistance to empire.
God says: Prepare. Move. Trust. Remember.
It’s more than food.
It’s a ritual that tells the truth about power,
and a meal that imagines freedom before it’s visible.
It’s also one of the most carefully designed gatherings in scripture.
⸻
✡️ 2. Jesus the Passover Jew, Hosting with Purpose
Centuries later, Jesus sits at the same kind of table.
It’s the day of Passover.
And Jesus tells his disciples:
“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you.”
He’s not simply preserving tradition—he’s designing a moment.
And here is where Pria Parker helps us see what Jesus is doing.
In The Art of Gathering, Parker writes:
“Gathering matters because it shapes the way we think, feel, and make sense of our world.”
Jesus is not just eating with friends—
he’s re-shaping their reality.
He gives the gathering a purpose:
• To remember.
• To re-member.
• To prepare them to carry the story when he is gone.
⸻
🍷 3. Gathering as Resistance to Empire and Isolation
Empire wants us fragmented.
Alone. Overwhelmed. Distracted.
It wants us to believe that belonging must be earned,
that worth must be proven,
and that memory is a burden.
But Jesus says: Come.
Eat. Drink. Tell the story. Remember me.
He becomes the ritual.
The table becomes the sanctuary.
The gathering becomes the revolution.
Pria Parker reminds us:
“The way we gather reveals what we value.”
Jesus reveals that we value re-membering.
We value presence.
We value freedom shared.
⸻
💔 4. Loneliness as a Modern Pharaoh
We live in a time when loneliness is killing us.
Studies show that 1 in 5 Americans feel lonely every day.
It affects our hearts, our minds, our life expectancy.
It is a kind of captivity—a Pharaoh in the form of isolation.
But Pharaoh doesn’t win.
Because every act of intentional gathering—
every table of truth-telling and tenderness—
is a declaration of freedom.
And Parker reminds us:
“Don’t start with logistics. Start with the purpose.”
So what is the purpose of this table?
It is not efficiency.
It is not consumption.
It is liberation.
It is healing.
It is awe.
⸻
🕯️ 5. The Table as Sacred Design
Jesus’ Last Supper follows Parker’s wisdom:
• He protects the table—telling the truth about betrayal, naming power.
• He equalizes presence—serving even the one who will betray him.
• He transforms the moment—inviting memory to become a living force.
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
This is not just memory. It is re-membering.
It is putting the body back together.
It is resisting every dis-membering logic of empire and church and capitalism.
⸻
🌈 6. Awe, Belonging, and Becoming Passover People
The solution to loneliness isn’t more content—it’s more sacred gathering.
More awe.
More table.
Gatherings that invite people to show up whole.
To be seen.
To eat with trembling and joy.
Pria Parker calls us to intentional hospitality.
Jesus calls us to resurrected communion.
Together, they remind us that the table is:
• A site of memory
• A site of transformation
• A site of liberation
We gather because God still delivers.
We gather because we are still healing.
We gather because we are still becoming Passover people.
⸻
🕊️ 7. The Charge to the Church
So here is the invitation:
When you gather this week—
make it matter.
Let your table be a protest.
Let your meal be a movement.
Let your presence be a form of awe.
Tell the truth.
Feed someone lonely.
Host with holiness.
And above all—
remember Jesus the Jew,
who knew how to gather the broken,
bless the meal,
and set us free.
Amen.
Share this post