by Southwest Conference Minister Rev. Dr. Bill Lyons; the following is his keynote at the Common Tables interfaith prayer and networking luncheon at the Arizona State Capitol on Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Inviting everyone to the table is something between a buzz phrase and an overused platitude these days. We say it with the best of intentions trying to counter a hyper-polarized culture and the long-practiced injustice of exclusion. But what do we really mean when we invite people to the table?
“JOIN US” – WE WANT THEM TO FIT IN
There are the “join us” invitations. Sometimes we invite people to table because the time has come to acknowledge and interrupt the prejudices and biases that have silenced the voices of our neighbors. We feel embarrassed by the racism, sexism, ageism, classism, or heterosexism any one of a host of other ‘isms,’ and we want to stop the privilege, supremacy, and outright hate that have othered people to the margins. Our invitation to join us is intended to be an expression of our commitments to equal opportunity and fair treatment.
When people accept our “join us” invitation, we are quick to celebrate demographic diversity and the promotion of fair and equal treatment. But the celebration often comes too soon – before anyone new at the table has a chance to say anything. It really wasn’t their voices we valued or wanted among us, it was their numbers, their bodies if I may be so bold, something we could count, not someone to whom we wanted to listen or who might possibly change us. We wanted them to join us, to join US. The expectation was that if people can just share a common table everyone will realize “they are just like each other.” What we hold in common is idealized. The ways in which we are different get subverted to preserve harmony and avoid conflict. The tacit assumption in an invitation to “join us” is that “’we are all the same’ or ‘we aspire to being all the same.’” Because, after all aren’t we all the same in our deepest humanity? And the answer to that is most assuredly no.
BRING A DISH TO SHARE – WE WANT WHAT THEY BRING WITH THEM.
Then there are times we invite people to table with what I call a “bring-a-dish-to-share” invitations. A leader notices that the world around them is becoming a more diverse place while the organization they lead isn’t. Think of the business that wants or needs new markets, the church that needs new members, or the party that needs new voters in order to expand, or to remain viable, or to survive. Fear takes root – the fear of losing. The objective of bringing more voices, new voices, diverse voices to the table is really to gain access to or legitimacy with a more diverse clientele or constituency. The very qualities, characteristics, competencies and contributions that lead to that access or legitimacy are pigeon-holed rather than integrated. Integrating new voices would mean changing the way we do things, or even changing ourselves. Instead, people are exploited rather than being affirmed to bring their whole selves – culture, language, art, beliefs, orientation, and identity – to t e table. When that realization sets in people begin to feel devalued. Bring-a-dish-to-share invitations are born out of the desire to win. Practitioners of access-and-legitimacy diversity fail to realize that they’ve lost the long game.
“COME AS YOU ARE” – ONLY WITH YOU CAN WE BE OUR BEST SELVES TOGETHER.
When we are at our best – faith leaders, business leaders, political leaders, any leaders – we invite people to table with “come as you are” invitations. We are intentional, asking people to bring their whole selves to the conversation. We listen for understanding, not for the best way to make our next point. Together we are mindful that “I cannot remain the same because you have joined me at table.” Differences are not simply valued; they are integrated into everything that happens around the table. And at our very best selves, we tear down the old tables and build new ones together – tables of different substance and different quality.
My faith teaches me that in my humanity I begin to hear the infinite God whom I serve and worship by connecting with and listening to the voices outside myself, as many of them as possible. No voice from the margins can be excluded from the table without risking an unheard word from God, for God has habit of siding with the oppressed.
Today we are being offered “come as you are” invitations. The goal is building relationships in which prophetic calls can be issued and just actions taken. This is a time to be our best selves, to listen one another into understanding, to integrate the differences among us, to set aside our need for a personal win and join the effort for a team victory – the human team, by committing ourselves to building new tables of substance and quality. This is time to break bread together, and without trying to break one another, to find ways of including rather than excluding and therefor silencing as many voices as possible in our democracy, beginning in voting booths, extending to our borders, through the forging an economy that promotes personal dignity, by creating opportunities for rehabilitation, offering forgiveness, and removing stigma. Come as you are. Bring your culture, language, beliefs, and experiences. Be courageous and vulnerable. Together let us end our time together today better for it.
