at a round table there are no sides...

Alan Wilson, the blogging bishop, posted this poem today, which I haven't come across before. I like its theme, and the honesty it portrays. All church organisations I have come across (including those that claim to be egalitarian and non-organisational) are prone to people "working their way up the table" - simply because that is human nature. To become a "round table" church has less to do with organisational structure than it does with a willingness of heart to share power and presence with all comers. 

In search of a round table

Concerning the why and how and what and who of ministry,
One image keeps surfacing: A table that is round.
It will take some sawing
To be roundtabled.
Some redefining
And redesigning,
Some redoing and rebirthing
Of narrow long Churching
Can painful be
For people and tables.
It would mean no daising
And throning,
For but one king is there
And he is a foot washer,
At table no less.
And what of narrow long ministers
When they confront
A round table people,
After years of working up the table
To finally sit at its head,
Only to discover
That the table has been turned round?
They must be loved into roundness,
For God has called a People
Not "them and us".
"them and us" are unable
to gather round; for at a round table
there are no sides
and ALL are invited
to wholeness and to food.
At one time
Our narrowing churches
Were built to resemble the Cross
But it does no good
For building to do so,
If lives do not.
Round tabling means
No preferred seating,
No first and last,
No better, and no corners
For the "least of these".
Roundtabling means
Being with,
A part of,
Together and one.
It means room for the Spirit
And gifts
And disturbing profound peace for all.
We can no longer prepare for the past.
To be Church,
And if He calls for other than a round table
We are bound to follow.
Leaving the sawdust
And chips, designs and redesigns
Behind, in search of and in presence of
The Kingdom
That is His and not ours.

Chuck Lathrop

Comments

[ash]

I like this. I remember hearing John Bell speak at greenbelt once about how the women's group used to meet in church round a table, with coffee in the corner, and how civilised it was; and how the PCC met with the leaders at the front facing the rest of the members, and how uncivilised it was... Round Table sounds good to me.

[Caroline Too]

sigh, this poem is so rich, so profound and so hard

because, of course

the round tabling is not a structural thing but a heart thing

and I so want to be recognised for how I've contributed and how wise I am..

and I find that, however hard I pray for an anonymous heart,

this wish to be recognised wriggles in, and I have to start the sanding and sawing of a round table heart all over again,

sigh

[Catherine]

We had a new altar commissioned for our Lady Chapel. It was made in the round and when it arrived the chairs were placed around the altar in a semi-circle except the president's and assistants chairs which were placed in across in a striaght line. A suggestion ws made to put the three chairs at the cardinal points leaving the fourth space as a way in and ot of the circle. Feels more encompassing and welocmimg. Also a comment was made by one celebrant about 'But where do i stand...?'

[Dick Wolff]

Fred Kaan's hymn (1980s, I think):

The church is like a table
a table that is round.
It has no sides or corners,
no first or last, no honours;
here people are in one-ness
and love together bound.

The church is like a table
set in an open house;
no protocol for seating,
a symbol of inviting,
of sharing, drinking, eating;
an end to 'them' and 'us'.

The church is like a table,
a table for a feast
to celebrate the healing
of all excluded-feeling,
(while Christ is serving, kneeling,
a towel round his waist).

The church is like a table
where every head is crowned,
as guests of God created,
all are to each related;
the whole world is awaited
to make the circle round.