Sermon on September 14, 2025
“A Bigger Table”
By: The Very Rev. Pamela Dolan
If you’ve ever been in a meeting with me, you’ve probably noticed that my laptop is covered in stickers, a trend I shamelessly copied from people half my age (okay, maybe even younger than that). I think of these stickers, on my laptop and my organizer and various water bottles and coffee cups, almost as miniature bumper stickers, a way to add some humor or beauty or even a little “moment of Zen” to an otherwise ordinary, workaday object.
The biggest sticker on my laptop, and the one that gets the most reactions, is simply a sentence in black typewriter-style font, that says, “tell your dog I said hi.” I bought it from an organization that helps fund medical services for dogs whose owners can’t afford their care. That sounds kind of noble, I guess, but the truth is I got it for the sheer whimsy of the statement. For me whimsy is like having messy hair and wearing bright lipstick; it’s part of who I am. The sticker makes me smile, and sometimes it makes other people smile, too. I like that.
Two of my stickers are more serious, lest anyone think me frivolous, I suppose. One says, “If you hate anyone because of your faith, you’re doing it wrong.” The other says, “If you’re more fortunate than others, build a longer table, not a taller fence.”
These stickers speak to the hopes I have for this world, and for our church. Faith should never be used as a weapon, and there should always be more room at the table. Those are core beliefs for me. And yet, this past week I found myself struggling mightily with my beliefs. Faith is being weaponized in our country, turned into something I hardly recognize, and sometimes I want to use my own faith to fight back. It’s important that Christian nationalists not have the last word on what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It’s also important that we don’t turn everything into a battle between left and right, that we allow for nuance but not give in to whitewashing or “both-sidesism.”
There’s a fine line there, and I’m not always sure that I’m staying on the right side of the line. Am I being just as dogmatic and inflexible as the people I oppose? Am I also cherry-picking verses and seeking out stories that simply confirm my own biases and support conclusions I came to long ago?
Alongside these questions, there is the problem of how to make room at the table for people I find genuinely harmful or even frightening. Especially people who have made it clear they have no interest in making room at their table for so many people I love and respect. As someone posted online this week, it’s one thing to “agree to disagree” on issues like whether to drink tea or coffee in the morning, but quite another thing when it comes to human rights or the dignity of all human beings.
And yet, Jesus seemed to be able to make room for everyone, even the really tough cases. Not that he didn’t call out individuals for their behavior, but nobody was automatically excluded because they belonged to a particular group of people. Today’s Gospel passage is just one of many that show how open Jesus was about including all and sundry at his table and, ironically, how it was his very openness that made some people angry and turned them against him.
As the story opens, the scribes and Pharisees are grumbling at Jesus for eating with tax collectors and sinners. Those terms are so familiar to us as shorthand for opposing teams—in this corner, the Scribes and the Pharisees, and in this corner the tax collectors and sinners—that we might forget that this opposition was far more than a matter of social cliques or in groups and out groups.
The scribes and Pharisees were upright, faithful men who were doing their very best to follow God’s commandments; they were, to most of the followers of Jesus, the good guys, the examples to follow.
Tax collectors, meanwhile, were not good people, or at least they were, as a group, people who did bad things, exploiting vulnerable members of the community for a living. Taxation was a major force of division and polarization in Roman-occupied Palestine, leading to wars and insurrections as well as conflict between landholders and peasants. The burden of taxes was especially heavy for the people Jesus cared so much about, the poor and marginalized.
To the Pharisees and scribes, then, it’s bad enough that Jesus eats with sinners, those people who were perhaps morally disreputable, but it’s far worse that he eats with tax collectors, because they are actually benefiting from the systemic oppression of his own people.
And what’s even worse is that he doesn’t just eat with them he welcomes them. It’s not like he holds his nose and grudgingly permits them a place at the table, maybe somewhere down at the far end in the least comfortable chairs—no, he genuinely wants them to be there.
Finally, as if to add insult to injury, Jesus seems to be having a good influence on these people. The Gospel describes them as “coming near” and “listening” to Jesus. This is language typically used to describe disciples, people whose lives are being transformed, whose hearts and minds are being changed, because of Jesus. Witnessing this kind of conversion is unsettling for those of us who want to believe we’re on the right side of history, particularly if our belief is predicated on finding other people wrong.
It’s an uncomfortable thing to admit, but there are a lot of people I would have trouble welcoming to my table right now. There are people with real power who are doing so much harm to our democracy, to our environment, and to marginalized persons near and far. I would be hard pressed to offer genuine welcome to people who, for instance, demonize all immigrants in the name of wanting safe and secure borders, or who mock victims of gun violence because of their unflinching support of the Second Amendment, and so on and on.
Still, here we are with this Gospel, and these parables. No matter how I might try to turn aside or make exceptions, I keep bumping up against this image of Jesus, sitting at table with tax collectors. It seems like Jesus might have been serious when he said we have to love not only our neighbors but our enemies.
It turns out it is a really good thing that Jesus hasn’t put me in charge of the big stuff, like who God will seek out and save and welcome. Luckily for me and for everyone else, that is entirely up to God. When Jesus tells these parables about the lost sheep and the lost coin, he is clearly indicating that God doesn’t do math the way we do.
We are not the shepherd who braves darkness and thorns and bad weather. We are not the diligent woman who searches and sweeps and doesn’t give up. God is. God is the gatherer, the seeker, the welcomer, the one whose love and mercy and grace are so beyond our understanding that the words nearly lose meaning, or are at best hints and guesses, hints followed by guesses.
We, on the other hand, might be the ones who are lost and in need of being found, or we might be among the 99 so-called righteous people who are wondering why on earth God is bothering with that one who has wandered off. And still, either way, there is room for us at the table, as long as Jesus is there.
The stickers my laptop might be seen as performative, even as virtue signaling. Maybe they are. I do want people to know that I am a person who loves dogs, that I have a silly sense of humor, and yes, that I believe my faith makes me a better, more generous person. What my little laptop stickers are not meant to do is to shame or scold anyone. They are reminders to myself. A reminder that if I think that God hates the same people I hate, it’s a pretty good indication that I’ve created God in my own image.
A reminder that deep down I only want to sit at a table where none are turned away empty-handed. A reminder that, whether it makes any sense to me or not, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the 99 righteous who need no repentance.
I don’t understand the math, but I am grateful for it. I want to dedicate myself to building that bigger table, even though I don’t know who might end up sitting next to me. And I dream and pray that one day we will all be rejoicing together, having at last overcome our divisions and fears and hatreds, as we are swept up in the welcoming arms of an all-loving God. Amen.