Real Families

Our family occasionally celebrates a Passover Seder complete with roast lamb, the ceremonial Seder plate, friends and, yes, an empty chair and empty cup for Elijah. The cup is typically filled toward the end of the meal in hopes that the prophet Elijah may appear, announcing the coming of the Messiah. We learned this tradition from Jewish friends, followers of Jesus at Reba Place Church in Evanston, Ill.

More recently, we’ve celebrated a Seder meal with our church family, incorporating Jesus’ story into the Passover’s reenactment of liberation. It’s always a wonder to experience Jesus’ transformation of the Passover into a Jesus meal. And when we celebrate it, we like to think of Jesus as the guest occupying that empty chair and pouring wine into that empty cup. In fact, we thrill to think of it that way—an awareness that is both sobering and spine-tingling.

David Shenk, well-known pioneer of Muslim-Christian dialogue, has also referred to an open chair at the table. He says it’s helpful to have an open chair in any gathering where Christians and Muslims sit together talking about Jesus. And Jesus does come into that circle, he says, changing the dynamic of the conversation and rising above any of the claims advanced about him by either group.

Last month, I cohosted a conversation among more than 20 Mennonite scholars and church leaders at Laurelville Mennonite Conference Center in Mt. Pleasant, Pa. I experienced an open chair for Jesus in that gathering as well. We sat in a circle passing a “talking stick” as we took turns talking about our journeys with Jesus. Imagining Jesus in the circle meant we spoke to him rather than about him, which profoundly changed the character of our conversation.

Speaking with him as audience changed the way we heard our colleagues’ perspectives on the atonement and resurrection. The grace that marked our careful listening across ordinarily tension-ridden theological differences was perceived by many as close to miraculous.

Perhaps an open chair for Jesus at our family tables could help us when we discuss tough questions in politics, family finances and our plans for the future. It’s admittedly tricky business—imagining Jesus as present in any circle. We’re normally tempted to use Jesus to our own advantage or pretend we know how Jesus would weigh in on any given topic. In fact, some of us have seen Jesus so manipulated and reduced to fit a speaker’s self-interest that we simply avoid making any reference to our hope for Jesus to be present at the table. It often seems easier to get it wrong than to get it right.

But I’ve too often seen the miracle of Jesus’ presence transforming ordinary conversations and disputes to give up trying.

I long for Jesus to have a chair at our tables as the political temperature rises in this overheated election season. The name-calling, unfair caricatures and outright lies show us at our worst. It often seems the candidates and those of us who too passionately join their partisan efforts aren’t just trying to score points but to destroy people in the process.

Several months ago I responded in disbelief when a friend told me what her relative said of the candidates: “I don’t really like John McCain, but you know I’d never vote for that n—–.”

If we asked Jesus to pull up a chair in our family circle, how would it change the character of our table conversation about this election? If we cultivated an awareness of Jesus listening in, would it change our reading of the accusations and hatred deliberately strewn across the landscape?

How would it change the way we voice our dismay over abortion and the terrible anguish that pushes people to consider it in the first place? Might we together be able to share a lament for the neglect of prenatal health care and the lack of adequate coverage for the babies who survive and enter the patchwork maze of complicated access to education, health and human services?

Would inviting Jesus to the table enable us to step back and reclaim our primary allegiance to the kingdom of God? How could his empty chair remind us to be fair in our assessment of the trade-offs the various candidates present us?

And most of all, how would Jesus at our table change the way we regard each other, no matter what our difference—regarding each other as better than ourselves—whether Muslim, Jew, conservative, liberal, black, anglo, latino, democrat, republican, independent? I long for that deep respect to be a reality at our family table, praying, as we often do at the beginning of a meal: “Be present at our table Lord. Be here and everywhere adored. These mercies bless and grant that we may live in peace and dwell with thee.”

Gerald Shenk teaches at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg, Va. His book, Hope Indeed! Remarkable Stories of Peacemakers, appears this summer (Good Books).