Yet Another Guest at Our Table

EMAIL DEVOTIONAL
Pentecost 13

(Our thanks to our guest devotionerr, Mary Ann Frontz)

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. (Luke 24:30)

Two weekend’s ago in the email devotion, Pastor Ross shared a poem “Perhaps the World Ends Here” written by Joy Harjo.  This poem spoke about the kitchen tables around which the world’s families gather and all that takes place around those tables.

The poem strongly reminded me of the kitchen table around which our family gathered for our meals in the farm kitchen where I grew up.  It’s the table where my family enjoyed countless games of pinochle and gin rummy.  It’s where we rehashed Manheim Central sports, plays, musicals.  It was the place where my father, a history teacher, retold his history lessons to his daughters and wife. It’s where we decorated Christmas cookies and wrapped birthday gifts.  This table witnessed much hilarious laughter, some pitiful tears, various family arguments, and constant family love.

This small, maple table was a wedding present to my mother and dad when they married in 1943.  Oh, the stories it could tell of me and my sisters as we grew up!  We always ate our meals around it except for Sundays after church when Sunday dinner was eaten around the larger table in the dining room.  I remember many special times, talks, and sharing at the small kitchen table as a little girl and as I grew to be a young adult.  The conversations we had around that maple table formed and shaped me.

The maple table traveled with my parents when they left the farm until they ultimately moved to Brethren Village.  The table has now witnessed the childhood of my grandchildren and, at this time, it’s still in the family at our son’s home in Pittsburgh.  It’s on its third generation of memory-building!

Looking back, I can see that there has always been another at our table.  Our Lord Jesus has been there too, watching over us, loving us, and blessing us.  Thanks be to God for families and for the blessings of family love.

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Rev. Craig Ross

Senior Pastor

The vibrancy of life here at St. Peter’s makes my service on our staff a joy and privilege. Visitation, teaching and preaching are the ministries that feed my pastoral identity, as together our staff and lay members share in our missional calling … Building a community of faith by God’s grace.

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