Brothers, sisters, and folded ones – consider the morning the church was born. The faithful were gathered in an upper room above a bakery, and there came a sound as of a great Oven-door opening, and the Aroma descended and rested upon each of them: upon one as garlic, upon another as basil, and no two crowns the same. And they leaned from the windows and called down into the street, saying, Come up, come up, the table is laid.
And here is the wonder of that morning: every stranger in the street heard the invitation in his own tongue. The Neapolitan heard it soft and certain; the Glaswegian answered before the sentence was done. And some mocked, but the scroll gives the answer for all generations: hunger is one language, and the Aroma speaketh it without accent, as it is written in the Fellowship, 2:14.
Beloved, when a new neighbour arrives in your street – with a different bread, a different blessing, a different word for supper – do not wait until you have learned their grammar before you love them. You already share the oldest language there is. Cook something. Open the window. The Aroma needs no translator, and neither does welcome.
For the church was born, saith the scroll, not as a wall with a door in it, but as a table with no far end. See that your own table has none either; and if you cannot see the far end of it, good – that is where the next guest sits. Amen – and pass the pizza.