The readings for today spark an image in my head of my friends, gathered round a table. Phones are away, some of our throwback favorites are playing through a speaker, conversation is moving, and laughter spills into every corner. We gather securely, not to talk at one another about our own lives, but to listen, to connect, and to truly know each other. One moment we are talking about someone’s recent heartbreak, and the next we are going around the circle affirming how wonderful she is and how deserving she is of good love. The table is round with no clear “head” and it is filled with food prepared by each of us: a lovingly curated tapestry of who each of us is. A celebration – literally – of what each of us brings to the table. To me, this group is an embodiment of humility – not the self-deprecating, self-effacing caricature we sometimes imagine, but the quiet confidence of resting in the love of a community without needing recognition or applause. It’s the joy of doing life with each other, not for. 

While some say the Christian life is defined by a call to service, it is just as deeply marked by a call to solidarity. Service can sometimes suggest a one-way street – doing for another. Solidarity, however, is the joy and the despair of doing life with one another. While spending time in community at L’Arche Boston North, solidarity between folks with and without intellectual disabilities is a hallmark of community. Henri Nouwen, a key theologian for those who spend time in L’Arche writes that “community is where humility and glory meet” (Nouwen, Bread for the Journey). Through humility, glory need not be characterized by the glow of majesty and power, but by the delight of relationship and simplicity. 

Assistants in L’Arche are there to spend time and support core members, yes, but there is a sense of mutuality – that through relationship and togetherness something is created. At mealtimes, food is prepared by many hands, each contribution curated by all emphasizing individuality and cohesion. And as we sit together, side by side, it becomes a moment of humility for all – a reminder that no one comes only to give or only to receive, but that each of us both offers and depends on the gifts of the other. To be a good assistant, to be a member of this community, one ought to simply be a friend, because good friends take good care of each other. In Bread for the Journey, Nouwen leaves us with these words about friendship:

“Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or common histories. Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly.” 

Isn’t this the call of today’s Gospel, that friendship rooted in humility makes all life shine brightly? That at Jesus’s table, no one stands above it in superiority, and no one sits cast aside or left out? All are welcomed to share, all are considered friends. 

The table itself levels each of us to a common ground; it removes the hierarchies that are constructed for us and calls us to embrace the vulnerability of becoming human, of becoming friends with the authentic expression of being human. Around this table, worth is not measured by what we can give back or how much we have achieved. Worth is measured simply by our presence, by our being, by how much we listen. There is no expectation of reciprocity or transaction because the very act of gathering is already they gift – in each other’s presence we begin to create the Kindom of God. Each person has given of themselves and each person receives sustenance in turn, as Nouwen calls it “bread for the journey.”

This is the radical hospitality Jesus describes: a table where humility makes room, where love draws us nearer to each other, and where the Kindom of God takes on flesh in the ordinary act of breaking bread together. The microcosm of communal living in L’Arche invites us to widen our tables in the broader world. To welcome the stranger, yes – but even more, to become a friend to the stranger. Not with the expectation that they will return friendship in kind, but with a trust that genuine relationship always draws us into the embrace of a wider community of support. A truly integrated humility is not reserved for private moments among friends; it compels us toward the common ground of the table, where all are welcomed and belong.

A Blessing for L’Arche
by Olivia Hastie (written in 2021 after one summer of living in community)

Blessed be the love between friends shared around the table and on a ride to see cows. 

Blessed be the duality of howling laughter after a joke and fierce tears after a difficult conversation. 

Blessed be those who hold open a space where all welcome beyond ability, appearance, or difference.  

Blessed be the songs and sounds of community with  words and actions that affirm we are chosen, beloved, and desired by one another. 

Blessed be the gifts of mutuality and vulnerability  calling us to the consciousness that we belong to each other, that we are undone by each other. 

Blessed are we, beloved members of community, that continue on sharing time, living life, and loving one another through the sacred journey of becoming human.

L’Arche Boston North has been my spiritual and community home for the last five years. L’Arche, founded in Trosly, France is a global organization that provides support and service to adults with intellectual disabilities. But as Henri Nouwen says, “L’Arche is not [merely] a service institution or a group home. It is a community that exists to reveal God’s love” (Liguorian, 1992). In its best iteration, it is an intentional community where people with and without intellectual disabilities live together in solidarity and friendship theologizing from their lived experiences for everyone beyond ability, beyond institution, and beyond difference. Like the themes of this week’s readings, L’Arche is a school in humility and a school in love.