Come to the Table

Good morning everybody. It is good to see you this Sunday morning. If you’re watching online, we’re so glad that you have joined us. I know some of you are getting some last-minute time away with your kids or your family. So if you’re in the room, help me welcome everybody watching online. There’s a lot of you who watch online live or later on in the week, and thank you for doing that.

I don’t know about you, but I remember as a kid there was something that really irked me, bothered me, and would get me really upset. I’m a pretty practical person, and I was like that as a kid. I’m sure my parents loved raising me. They’re watching me right now, and I’m going to tell you something that my mom doesn’t even know right now.

Mom, I heard you talking about me this week to somebody. Many of you know my dad is going through some major illness, and so I’m trying to spend time with them, helping them with some legal stuff and financial things. I’m kind of pushing my parents past their comfort zone because I’ve been out of the house for a long time. I know my mom was tired because Carlos was pushing her to do things. I heard her on the phone when somebody asked, “How’s it going with Carlos there?” She said, “Fine… no, he’s really making me do things.”

I was like that as a kid, too. I remember bothering my mom because she loved setting the table at home. I had one of those moms where aesthetics mattered, and we had a table that looked perfect. Then I married a woman who likes to have a table that looks perfect. The problem with the perfect table is none of us are allowed to sit at it because there’s the perfect table with all the settings, and then there’s the commoner table that the rest of us get to sit at. Only special guests get to sit at the main table, while the rest of us look at it like, “Wouldn’t it be nice to sit at a table with room? Wouldn’t it be nice to have napkins instead of paper towels?”

For most of history, people did not have fancy tables. If they had tables at all, they had a setting where a lot of things took place. There was the gathering of food, the fellowship of family, and opening it up to the stranger. People in the community sat at the table; there were conversations, tears, laughter, storytelling, history, and culture.

The table of God is very similar. A lot happens when you are part of a faith community, and I hope you understand that there’s so much to engage and understand. There are places within every faith community—the table of God—where we laugh, cry, share stories, carry the pain of addiction, celebrate weddings, and hold funerals for one another. It’s all of it together. If we are not careful, we want to paint a picture of a family that only has wins. But in the kind of church we are, we don’t have people who grew up in families that only had wins. We share each other’s losses.

Because of that, as I was praying about homecoming and talking to our teaching team, I really sensed that we should spend time in the ancient prayer known as the Shema. It’s in Deuteronomy. I’ve taught on it before, but it felt right to spend two weeks talking about its importance: what it means for us and what it means for the next generation.

We are not shaped to be like God solely in church services. We are encouraged and challenged in places like this, but we cannot be fully formed and shaped to be like Jesus in a 30-minute message once a week—or for many of us, once a month. When the rest of life hits us 9 to 10 hours a day, seven days a week, 30 minutes doesn’t do it. The table of God is where we are shaped in our homes, our conversations, our work, our neighborhoods, and the ordinary moments of life. That is what the Shema brings. We are formed at God’s table so we can make room for others at His table. We come to the table of God, we are formed and shaped, and then we make room for others to sit with us.

Let me read this beautiful ancient prayer from Deuteronomy chapter 6, starting in verse 4: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

What’s interesting about that line is that it is the most important line for the nation of Israel and those of Jewish faith. It is so important that in some Jewish traditions, people cover their eyes when they recite it to eliminate distractions.

I’m going to ask you to do this right now—nobody is going to steal your purse. Just take your left or right hand and cover your eyes. (If you’re driving online, please don’t do this!) Cover your eyes as I read this over you: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

Why cover the eyes? To knock out distraction, to stop looking left and right, and to be one with the God who is one with us. They cover their eyes so nothing keeps them at bay. If God is focused on us as His people, how can we be fully focused on Him?

You can put your hands down. The passage continues: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

Everywhere we go, we are called to be reminded of the goodness of God. This prayer has been prayed in Scripture for thousands of years by a people saying, “This is what matters.”

Fast forward a few thousand years to the time of Jesus. Religious leaders—who were like lawyers of the day because they knew the law—confronted Jesus to trick Him. They asked, “Out of the 611 rules of law in the Old Testament, which one is the greatest?” It’s like a student asking a teacher, “Out of all the classroom rules, tell me the single one I actually need to follow.” They were trying to set Him up.

Jesus responds by pointing directly back to the Shema, pointing them to what matters most. He says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” He speaks their language and honors the law.

Then Jesus, in His wisdom, adds to it by quoting Leviticus 19:18: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus takes the Shema—giving everything to God—and combines it with the Levitical command to love your neighbor. In Matthew 22, He says that the second commandment is like the first: “Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

He is inviting them to know God in a personal way, not just through rules, regulations, or descriptions. He wants them to understand that God embodies, projects, and is love. As 1 John 4 says, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them… We love because He first loved us.” Jesus connects these truths so that when we sit at God’s table, we understand His true intentions toward us.

That can be difficult to grasp, whether you’re new to following Jesus or have followed Him for decades. Look at the story of the Bible: in Genesis 1 and 2, there is perfection. God creates Adam and Eve, and their sole job is to be in a relationship with Him. It’s like having a newborn, a grandchild, or an adopted child in your home—it is a pure love fest. Their only job is to be loved, eat, sleep, and exist in relationship.

Then comes Genesis 3, bringing a shift and a fracture in the relationship. Do you remember the first time you felt a fracture in a relationship? I remember when my son Max was 11 and lied to me for the first time. He did it so easily without blinking, and I thought, “I can never trust this kid again!” (My wife Libby had to tell me to chill out).

We see that ultimate fracture in Genesis 3 when humanity did the exact opposite of what God asked. Yet the Shema reminds us of restoration. Even when there is a fracture, we have a God whose table restores our soul and our strength. The command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength” is God’s invitation back into an exclusive relationship with Him. When we have fractured the relationship, returned to sinful patterns, doubted, or feared, He still invites us to return and love Him with all we have. It is the restoration of humanity’s original vocation.

I remember a story from when my brother was little. He was accused of stealing a baseball card from an older kid at church. My dad, being the pastor, was embarrassed and spent six hours searching through my brother’s thousands of cards while my brother maintained his innocence. My dad eventually found the card in his stack. My brother insisted he didn’t steal it, but my dad held that moment against him for years.

Fast forward 12 years to Thanksgiving dinner. My brother was there with his fiancée, and we were all laughing and telling stories. I thought it was a safe time to admit the truth: I was the one who had stolen the card and put it in my brother’s stack to protect it from another kid. My brother looked at me, got up, and walked away from the table. His fiancée called me a jerk, and my dad was stunned. It could have fractured a lot of things, yet the very next night, we sat down, shared a meal, talked, and began to heal and move forward.

That is the table of God. Many people experience a fracture and run from the table, never to return, coming back only when they feel completely broken. But all we have to do is return to the table.

The Shema points backward to Eden and forward to the new creation in Revelation 21–22, where God restores all things. It is a prayer of faith, restoration, and hope that God will one day restore not just our relationship with Him, but all of creation.

The Shema is like an alma mater. I was thinking this morning if I still remembered my high school alma mater from 35 years ago, and I actually sang the lines to myself. I remembered it because we sang it every day for four years, and it was ingrained in us. But the Shema isn’t just an alma mater you sing at football games; it is meant to be imprinted on our hearts daily to remind us of the goodness of God.

Contextually, Israel was in the desert on their way to the Promised Land after being freed from slavery in Egypt. God was telling them in the desert, “I am calling you to an exclusive relationship with Me.” He wasn’t looking at their circumstances or asking them to impress Him with success; He was simply asking, “Be Mine.” The Promised Land was just the stage; covenant faithfulness was the actual mission.

Through this, we learn three key things about God:

1. God Invites Us God is constantly in the habit of initiating relationship. Verse 4 and 5 declare His oneness and His call to love. His Holy Spirit draws us, wooes us, and pulls us in. It’s not about a message or worship music; it’s God’s Spirit inviting us. He pursued Abraham, David, the disciples, and sinners at the table.

If you feel lonely, ask yourself: when was the last time you initiated an invitation to someone else? God is always initiating. Religion often tells us to follow rules to impress God, but Jesus invites us as we are. Have you said yes to that invitation? Or have you settled for a cultural or transactional version of Christianity? For those who have followed Jesus for years, are you still listening for the still small voice of His invitation? Ephesians 2 reminds us that we are saved by grace through faith as a gift, created to do good works that He prepared in advance.

“Shema” literally means to listen—with the intent of doing something about it. In Mark 9, a father brought his child to Jesus and said, “If you can do anything, take pity on us.” Jesus replied, “Everything is possible for one who believes.” The father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” We all face moments where we hold faith alongside tiny percentages of unbelief, asking God to help us overcome it.

2. God Forms Us God doesn’t just invite us; He shapes us. The Shema outlines daily rhythms: sitting at home, walking along the road, lying down, and getting up. Discipleship isn’t reserved for extraordinary vacation moments or spiritual trips; it is woven into ordinary everyday life.

What are your daily rhythms? If you look at your phone’s screen time statistics, it reflects where your time and attention go. Formation happens when God is woven into the spaces in between waking up and going to sleep. Years ago, I decided to drive in silence without sports radio or music. At first, I didn’t like what I heard in my own head, but over ten years later, driving in silence allows God to shape, correct, and speak to me in the daily rhythms.

3. God Gives Us a Family God places us in a faith community. When I first joined a college church group, I wasn’t sure I liked any of the people based on superficial judgments. But as I engaged, those people became vital to my walk with Jesus, helping shift my life away from unhealthy patterns.

In Acts 2, the early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. They saw themselves as an adopted family brought together by God. We need each other. If God has called you and me, He has called us into a family together.

To put the Shema into practice today—because listening requires doing—we want to pray for our students, kids, teachers, and administrators. We have prayer cards with QR codes available so teachers and school staff can submit anonymous prayer requests for our church to pray over. We are also committing to pray for our local infrastructure, including police officers, nurses, and leaders.

Let’s extend our hands now and pray for the kids and students represented here today:

God, we thank You for Your goodness and for the great honor of leading, loving, and supporting these children. As we invest in them, we pray that every child and student understands that they are part of the family of God. May Your truth be impressed upon their hearts so they can enter their classrooms, surround their teachers, and impact their friends with Your love. We bless every parent, grandparent, stepparent, and guardian represented here. Help us to be a church that actively raises up the next generation. In Jesus’ name, Amen.