Keion Henderson - The Head Table

I want to talk about this subject for a few moments: the head table. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh upon us. Eternal Spirit, it is once again that I come asking for your permission to preach. I can’t do this without you; I need your amazing grace. Hold me up with your stable hand, use this weak flesh to speak about a word that was here before time began, and give us eternal truths that will lead us to higher heights and deeper depths. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Throughout my life as a pastor, I have had the privilege of being involved in numerous conversations and gatherings. On occasion, I have had to gather people together for conferences, banquets, and meetings. Whenever you bring people together like this, especially those who grew up in the church world like we did, you always have to offer something. Even if you don’t provide words, you must always offer food. There’s always got to be some eating going on. We eat at our funerals, we eat at our weddings, we eat at our conferences; heck, we just eat because it’s Sunday. Most people plan their day like this: they get up, get dressed, and go to church. They even choose which service to attend based on which meal they want to have afterward. If you like brunch, you go to the early service here in Houston; if you want to go to Papadeaux’s, you know you must arrive around one o’clock to avoid a long line, because we all love to eat.

When I’ve organized these events—these banquets, these conferences—there are several tables set up to accommodate all the guests. But in every one of those rooms, there is always a head table. There’s always a table where I, or you and your guests, will sit. For those of you who are getting married this year, you will have a head table, and your most esteemed participants will sit there with you. God forbid, and I pray it doesn’t happen for me or for you, but if you have to go through a funeral in the coming months, there will be a repast at the facility and a head table, designed for the people who mean the most to you to sit closest to you.

Jesus is a little different than us. At our head tables, we usually want only friends. However, I promise you, if you read the Scripture, you will find that Jesus even reserves seats for his enemies. The Bible tells us that at the head table during the Last Supper, Judas was present, and his betrayal was not a surprise to God, because he said, «At the head table with the meal that he provides, one of you will betray me; who is it? The one who sups with me.» Just because you will betray me doesn’t mean you are disinvited. This signifies that we must reach a point where we don’t disinvite or disengage from people who have disappointed us. Even those who disappoint you are still appointed to you by God, and your table shouldn’t be full of people you like; some of them have to be included, even those with ulterior motives and other plans.

There is a quote that says, «Choose not to be harmed, and you won’t feel harm. Don’t feel harmed, and you haven’t been.» I’ll say it again because that kind of language doesn’t even make sense to people who think we have a right to feel a certain way because of what others have done. Listen, here’s the quote that could change your life: «Choose not to be harmed, and you haven’t been.»

«Pastor, you don’t know what they did to me. I gave them everything, and they still betrayed me.» Choose not to be harmed, and you haven’t been. «But pastor, if you knew exactly what they said to me, you wouldn’t be preaching that sermon.» You’re probably right, but I do know how to quote this: «Choose not to be harmed, and you haven’t been.» In other words, the writer of the quote is saying that no matter what has happened to you, you still get to choose how you feel. Even though harm has been inflicted, watch this: harm doesn’t have to be felt. Even though distress has been experienced, disappointment doesn’t have to be the outcome.

Now, take everything I said and put that aside, and let me give you a real-world example: Rubin «Hurricane» Carter, a man who was at the top of the middleweight class, was approaching an opportunity to become the middleweight champion of the world in the 1960s. At the height of his career, he was wrongfully convicted of triple homicide. We would later find out that he spent 19 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Look at this: the devil doesn’t wait until he’s a has-been; he attacks him at the peak of his career, when his hands are still fast, when he’s still «floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee,» when he is a physical specimen, when his mind is still sharp, when he has all his faculties, and when he retains the ability to bob and weave. The devil attacks him and convicts him through a judicial system that was unjust.