When certain men came down to the new tables teaching, Except ye eat of the gluten after the manner of the fathers, ye cannot be saved – there rose a woman who had kept every feast and shared every slice, and she asked the question that called a council: Must my body’s own weather unseat me? And no man could answer her to her face.
So they gathered at Naples, and Pietro stood and said the word that ended it: hunger, not wheat, is the membership; and he that cannot eat of the grain is not thereby the less hungry, nor the less beloved, nor the less at table. And the council wrote to all the churches: the table is measured by its welcome, not its menu, as it is written in the Fellowship, 11:20.
But mark the verse that follows, for it is the practical mercy: let every table keep a corner whereon the free loaf is baked apart, that no crumb of the wheat fall therein; for carelessness is a small cruelty, and we are done with cruelties, small and great. Not tolerance, beloved – provision. Not “we can probably sort something out” – a stone kept ready.
So when you plan the party, ask about the allergies before the invitations go out, not after the plate is served. Build the ramp before the wheelchair arrives. Learn what your friend can eat, and cook it well, not apologetically. The pilgrim who would know a true table, saith the scribe, asketh not for the menu, but watcheth the door. Amen – and pass the pizza.