I meditate on the Da Vinci “Last Supper”
hanging on a wall in our dining room.
Number by number, so meticulously painted
by my bride at a younger age.
Jesus, with a chorus line of apostles
on either side of him, presiding
over a meal, broken and shared.
He was no stranger to breaking bread
and sharing a meal with people.
The breaking and sharing of
barley loaves and fish with
five thousand people was a catered
feast that will go down in human history.
Jesus had an annoying habit
of not choosing his dinner companions well.
The great unwashed, the scandalous,
thieves, whores, tax collectors, adulterers,
adulteresses, armed revolutionaries,
politicians, beggars, and traitors, all,
all were invited with some regularity
to sit down and share a meal with him.
And, there he is again, portrayed
on my dining room wall, surrounding
himself with the unlearned, the unwashed,
a revolutionary, a politician, a tax collector,
a traitor and other unsavory guests.
He knows one will sell him to his enemies.
He knows that one will deny ever knowing him.
He knows that all will flee and hide in cowardice
abandoning him to a merciless crowd
who will wreak upon him a merciless death.
Yet, he kneels down before
this weak minded, gutless rabble
and washes and dries their feet.
He, through whom all creation was born,
washes and dries the feet of those he created,
then commands them to follow his example
by sharing a meal, and washing the feet
of those, like themselves,
who are weak, unwashed, cowardly,
violent, traitorous, and sinful
As I reflect upon the DaVinci Last Supper
so lovingly and carefully painted by number,
I see myself among the
people sitting at table with Jesus.
Jesus invites me to sit beside him.
He takes his food and breaks it.
He shares it and eats with me,
befriending me in spite of my
cowardice and faults, and kneeling,
washes and dries my feet,
urging me to do the same for others.
May the dinner table in my Church,
may the dinner table in my home,
be the place that all who are unworthy,
all who suffer the hunger pangs of loneliness,
all who suffer from rejection, neglect, and abuse,
are welcomed by Jesus to break bread,
to eat, to find friendship,
to share stories, and to be healed
through us, his broken and failed disciples.
