This is a new offering from VP3’s A Mentoring Way, a resource for following Jesus in the company of others.
Think of this blog as a favorite comfortable chair with a table for coffee, tea, or your favorite beverage. A space that allows you to feel at ease, welcomed, and ready for spiritual exploration. On this table, we will set images, provocative questions, quotes from spiritual writers, poetry, stories, and always a fresh look at scripture, the living voice of the living God for going deep into your own living faith.
In the scriptures, a table always represents presence.
Where God is present with God’s people, and people are present with each other.
When you return to At the Table, you’ll find a love for words, biblical words, nuanced meanings, and an invitation to practice what you find there. Think of The Table as a place for you—alone or in the company of others—to read texts necessary for the journey as an apprentice of Jesus.
Today we have set the table with three words: follower, haberim, and acolhimento.
Only one is likely to be familiar.
Jesus didn’t start his mission as a rabbi with an exam, assessment of knowledge, or resume of spiritual competencies. He began with a life-shaping invitation: “Follow me.” The word “follow” asks you to imagine your favorite road, a path in the woods, a beach trail, or familiar sidewalks around your neighborhood. The word “follow” in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, was hodos, which means to first-century hearers: a road, a way, and steps on a journey with another.
Jesus knew his followers would have questions and needed to set the table for conversation with others.
Thus, word two: haberim. Kenneth Bailey lived in the Middle East most of his life. He is an invaluable resource to help us understand the context of first-century words, practices, and culture. The word haberim was the name of a lay movement in the time of Jesus. Lay people, not rabbis or clergy, gathered at a friend’s table to study scripture and help each other in the practice of following Jesus. Bailey believed Jesus learned much from this practice of haberim as a young carpenter nurtured in neighbor’s houses in his hometown of Nazareth.
Word three is the hard one to pronounce: Acolhimento[1]. Try it the way my friend from Brazil taught me to say it: “A coal lee mento.” In Portuguese, it is a manner of creating space in deep hospitality. “It is a deep and intimate welcoming, a place for rest, reciprocity, joy and tenderness.” A place where we say to one another, “I see the entirety and miracle of you,” and “It is an honoring of all that we are and what we have gone through.”
Many of you find this in your formational group studies, such as The Journey. Others feel this in the company of others—a mentor or spiritual director. We are all invited to find this at the table and on the way with Jesus. Jan Richardson says, “Beloved is where we begin.” [2]
With whom might you set a table to learn about Jesus and from Jesus as you journey on the way?
[1] Yohana Junker, On Art. Religion, and the Poetics of Resistance
[2]Jan Richardson, www.janrichardson.com
2 Comments
Jan Richardson’s “beloved is where we begin” really grabbed me this morning Keith…
In my office, I have my grandfather’s rocking chair. I sit in this chair at various times through my working day. Apparently, my grandfather used to hold me as a baby in this chair although I never knew him because he died before I was old enough to be aware of who he was. The chair’s bottom cushion is original so after 60+ years, it could use an update yet I keep the original because it reminds me that the formation process might sometimes poke at me in uncomfortable ways. The chair’s age also reminds me that we are never solely shaped by those in the present. We sit in the experiences of those who have gone before us — those we know intimately and those we only hear stories about. Thanks for inviting us to the table…and the chair. By the way, if you go to my business website, you can see a picture of me sitting in my grandfather’s chair. See https://www.abccr.org/staff