My Granny Isabel’s garden was a large, sun-drenched patch of colors, textures and heights. Heavy, bright red tomatoes tied up on stakes. Tall stalks of corn: their yellow ears cocooned in pale green leaves with silken tassels. Bright yellow Sun Flowers as large as hubcaps. Long green beans hanging like Christmas ornaments. Pastel snapdragons. Waxy cucumbers. Squashes lurking in the shade beneath wide, course leaves.

It was in Granny Isabel’s garden that I first experienced the delight of a ripe, round, sun-warmed tomato just picked from its stalk. No plate or napkin. No fork or salad dressing. No salt or pepper. Biting into it like an apple.

Before eating it, however, Granny Isabel instructed my sister and brother and I to rub the tomato ever so gently against our clothing. She told us that butterflies land on tomatoes. Delicate as they are, she said, even butterflies track in dirt, leaving microscopic-sized footprints on the tomato’s skin. Gently rubbing off the footprints of butterflies, then biting into a sun-warmed tomato is, indeed, one of life’s great pleasures. There is nothing quite like it.

My great grandmother Lydia, was an altogether different story. Great Gran, lived in a New York City apartment that was all lace, silk and antiques.

I first experienced Great Gran’s dining room as a four-year-old. Meals were formal affairs, involving China, silver, crystal, linen and foods I had never seen.

I was relieved therefore, to see that Great Gran had anticipated the tastes of a child at her table.
Right in front of me, on a child-sized plate there sat a small, perfect, round, yellow ball … the size of a candy. Using the miniature silver knife she had helpfully provided on that little plate, I skewered the yellow ball, popped into my mouth whole and bit into it.

The butter ball exited faster than it had entered. I gagged and spewed it out onto Great Gran’s whiter-than-snow linen table cloth. It landed there, an ugly, saliva-infused yellow splat.

At the home of my Grandmother Isabel I learned something of the wonders of the earth God had made and of how things grow. I experienced the feel of the sun on the back of my neck while my fingers worked the earth. In her garden I heard the buzz of bees and kept an eye out for the red flash of a Cardinal. I watched butterflies land on tomatoes and studied beetles as they scuttled awkwardly over clods of deep, brown earth. I learned that God is in the colors, the smells, the warm sun, the tastes and sounds of a summer garden.

In the ecosystem of a country garden I experienced communion.

In the company of my Great Grandmother, Lydia, and in the course of several visits to the old-world elegance of her New York apartment I gradually learned how and why to set a pretty table … and that the careful preparation of food is an act of hospitality.

Great Gran had faith that etiquette and manners are in themselves expressions of kindness and generosity … the gifts of a hostess to her guests, of an older generation to a newer one.

In the home of an aged and genteel lady, three-generations ahead of me, I experienced communion.

In his letter to Timothy, Paul writes to a young man from a cross-cultural family. Timothy’s father was Greek. His grandmother and mother were Jewish Christians. Paul urges Timothy to cherish and safeguard the gift of faith he received from his grand mother, Lois and his mother, Eunice. Now, Paul urges, it is Timothy’s turn. Having learned from his mother and grandmother,
it is his turn to pass on the faith … to become a bearer of faith to the next generation.

On World Communion Sunday we gather around the table as one, large, international,
intergenerational family. We are beholden to the generations who preceded us and responsible to
those who will follow.

Here, gathered at this table, are the dead who died in the Lord. Here, too, are the living from every corner of the world. Here at this table the temporal limits of life and death, of time and distance, dissolve.  Here as one holy body are gathered the church triumphant and the church militant. Our grannies and great grannies are here. Our uncles, nephews and cousins are here. Timothy is here and Lois and Eunice. Paul is here … as are Granny Isabel and Great Grandmother Lydia. Also gathered here are the young … the next generation of Christians, awaiting their turn to bear the faith to the next generation.

Here we learn the art of eating together at a table where God is host and we are guests. The table is set with silver, candles and linen. The bread is freshly baked. Here we drink from the cup that has no bottom and eat of the bread that will never run out.  Here we gather to partake of a meal that satisfies our deepest hungers.

Come friends! Come! Come to this table! Taste and see how good God is!