‘The Welcome Table’ - Adam Slate, Minister-elect - New Unity - 21st September 2025

‘Perhaps the World Ends Here’ by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Introduction

‘We’re gonna sit at the welcome table.’

‘All kinds of people around that table.’

‘No fancy style at the welcome table.’

This hymn always makes me think of a table where we can get together with others who want to join us, at a table that’s diverse and inclusive, extending warm and inviting hospitality to each other. But when Jen, our music director, and I were planning the hymns for this week, she reminded me that this one started as an African American folk song during the time of slavery. It was not sung by people who wanted to join each other’s table. It was originally sung by people who weren’t welcome at many tables. Who were intentionally and often forcefully excluded from them.

The Welcome Table

That’s an interesting paradox with tables. When you set one, it becomes clear who’s invited and who’s not.

One of the big controversies that exists within Christian traditions involves who can participate in Holy communion, sometimes called the Lord’s supper. In describing who is and isn’t invited to share in this rite, churches will use the terms ‘open table’ and ‘closed table’ to designate that communion is available to everyone, or all Christian believers, or only to certain denominations or to that church only.

Among the Abrahamic faiths, Christians do not hold exclusive rights to the debate over how welcoming to be to others. Jews and Muslims also wrestle with this question, with a wide range of opinions about how close-knit one’s religious community should be... or how open. The answer to this question can sometimes impact a group’s safety, or the ability to live a devout lifestyle. 

It can be really wonderful when a group decides to open its doors to others. Some of us have experienced the special feeling of hospitality that accompanies an invitation to a Passover Seder, or to an iftar during the Holy month of Ramadan.

The Table as a Metaphor

The metaphor of the table representing hospitality is a powerful one. The act of feeding is one of humankind’s most essential life-giving activities.

The metaphor also embodies intimacy: When invited to share a communion service, or a Passover meal, or breaking the day’s fast at an iftar, we have an awareness of being invited into one of a faith tradition’s most fundamental rituals.

And eating together involves vulnerability as we exchange our stories with each other. Here at New Unity we periodically schedule potluck lunches to help build community, but every week we make time to be together after the gathering, socialising around either real or symbolic tables.

The poet Joy Harjo, in the poem read earlier, speaks of the table as being the place where we sing with joy and with sorrow. The place where the gifts of the world are brought and prepared. Where we drink coffee, gossip, reminisce, and where our dreams take shape. Where we raise our children and teach them what it means to be human. Where we pray and give thanks. She says that this has gone on since creation; the world begins at the kitchen table and maybe it will end there.

Few places in our lives can evolve this kind of imagery.

Spontaneous Hospitality

As I was writing this message at my favourite late night cafe where I go when I need to get work done, I took a break to wash my hands, and when I got back there were two people sitting at my table. I let them know it was fine for them to stay but that I was busy writing a sermon. One of them, in spite of promising not to bother me, continued to talk non-stop while her carer tried to steer her away from interrupting me. 

At some point I began to appreciate the irony of me hoping they would leave me alone so I could finish my sermon about radical table hospitality! And so I set aside my work and enjoyed my time with them for a bit. It was really lovely, and it’s possible I’ll see them there again. Unexpected things can happen when we’re willing to invite others to share our table with us.

Whose Table?

Offering hospitality by making our table more inviting to others is an important way to offer hospitality, but there are other opportunities we may have to rethink the concept of being welcoming.

One way is to leave our table and join people at theirs. To get out of our comfortable spaces, our own home turf. For us here at New Unity, rather than hoping people will join us at our chapel, to visit others at their mosques, synagogues, queer spaces, young spaces, and wherever we want to let people know that their agency and their personhood are important to us. Think of the message it sends not to wait for people to come to us.

Another is to reflect on a really fundamental question when people do come to us: whose table is it? When newcomers visit our congregation and we welcome them in, are we making room for them at our table? Or are we simply the current stewards of our Unitarian tradition tending to a table–a church community–that belongs to everyone?

It’s a question with significant implications. Accepting that we aren’t the gatekeepers of our community implies that each time we expand the table to new people, we create something new. And it means that we’re willing to let our congregation change without knowing what it’ll change into.

So offering hospitality isn’t the easy business it initially appears to be. Are we that welcoming? Do we want to be that welcoming?

Conclusion

As someone with a few outsider identities–an American among British Unitarians, an immigrant, a Jew–I’ve learned to value the idea of an open table. And I have been grateful for it because I’ve benefited from them. I hope you can appreciate that this same approach to hospitality can create space for people within our Unitarian tradition–and here at New Unity–who have never imagined being part of a faith community.

Our movement is so small, but we have this gift–this ability to be broadly inclusive, to be radically welcoming–that we shouldn’t take lightly. It can be life-giving. It can be transformative, for our guests but also for us. Let us give this gift generously. May we be willing to share the blessings of New Unity and our Unitarian tradition with whoever will receive them.

Amen