Come As You Are

Come As You Are

Four word flash cards—the kind some of us used to learn to read—are tucked one after another into a rusted strip of trellis that hangs on my dining room wall. The cards say come, as, you, and are. They form a simple invitation to gather around the table with no pretense or fuss. I like the thought that friends can come as they are to my home and be fed and blessed.

A few weeks ago at my small inner-city church, we kicked off summer with a church-wide breakfast, organized on the fly by e-mail. Food items were suggested: breakfast casseroles, fruit, baked goods, and juice. But no individual assignments were made. Members just began showing up with their dishes, and the long table in the center of the room got fuller and fuller. It was an unorchestrated embarrassment of riches.

As I watched kids crowd the spread the adults had arranged and displayed, I thought that the body of Christ is not so different from our ad hoc breakfast buffet. Anyone might turn up. Everyone has a place. The table is simple, and the meal is sweet. In God’s house, you can come as you are and bring what you’ve got. The Spirit takes the mix and makes of it something better than the sum of its parts. And no one need go away from the Father’s table hungry.

Come as you are. Rich, poor, weak, strong, wise, simple . . . come. Bring what you’ve got: love, money, time, and talent—or emptiness, worry, and want. Just come.

There’s something about a table that begs to be filled. There’s something in each of us that longs to be fed. We have what others need. He has something perfect for us all. And really, what could be better than that? Just come as you are, and bring what you’ve got. He’ll do the rest.

The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ll be—and experience—a blessing. They won’t be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the resurrection of God’s people.

Luke 14:12-14, MSG