The longer I’ve come to know Jesus, the more I recognize that he rarely asks us to make room for “those people.” Instead, he recklessly expands our definition of “our people.”
My parents taught me this through our years as a foster family, saying, “our hearts grow as our family grows.” Working in the school system reinforced this when I entered expecting to serve students with IEPs and ended up also falling in love with my homeroom, a family unit of students with all kinds of backgrounds and needs. Working in Christ’s Church’s disability ministry continues to teach me this as we set up extra tables to make room for students.
We see examples of obedience to Christlike unity in Luke 10, the parable of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus reframes the definition of one’s neighbor entirely.
When you look at Jesus, his life consistently moves in one direction: toward the people who are unseen, overlooked, vulnerable, unlikely, and pushed aside. Not because those groups were his special interests, but because that’s what love does. It makes room, moves in, and then it stays.
Setting the Table requires willingness to learn who is coming and what they need in order to be present. We’re encouraged in James 2:1 to “…show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.” Because of truth seen in 1 Corinthians 12, where each part of the body of Christ is defined as indispensable.
I want to highlight one of my favorite people in the world of advocacy and a member of our Christ’s Church family, Brandi Carey. In one of her blog posts, she writes:
“Autism is more than the trend of calling it a superpower. It’s being eight years old and still in diapers. It’s not being able to tell us when he’s hungry or hurting or scared. It’s watching other kids run and play and talk while he can’t. And as his mom, I love him with everything in me. I advocate for him. I fight for acceptance and understanding. But I can’t pretend it’s easy—it hurts to watch him struggle with things most people don’t think about.
Acceptance means seeing the whole picture: the beauty and the heartbreak…My son deserves a world that sees him. Really sees him—not just awareness posts or hashtags, but the real boy behind them.”
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had the privilege of sitting at tables with people with disabilities, and over the years God has shown me how easy it is for us to assume someone else will take the empty seat beside them.
I’ve watched friends, students, church members, and siblings sit at tables where people smile and keep walking. Not because they don’t care or are unwilling to love. But because surely someone else will sit down. Someone else will make sure no one is left waiting.
Making room at the Table was always meant to be both the job and the joy of the Church. In fact, it’s often where Jesus meets us most clearly! Not in what is easy, but in what stretches us towards loving like him— sacrificially and completely.
Saving space at the Table for the forgotten isn’t a trend—it’s a Gospel response: seeing people as Jesus does and calling them our own. Love is costly, but so is every table Jesus ever modeled for us to join.
Here are some questions I’m praying over and searching within my soul, and I encourage you to do the same:
- Where is Jesus expanding my understanding of who belongs in his family, and where am I resisting it?
- How is God calling me to make room for the overlooked in the way I love others?
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