"Here you go, weirdo."

Last year my family and I were at our church retreat at the HEB encampment on the Frio River. On Sunday, before we all pack up and head home, the church gathers for a worship service. Given that the service is in the open air the worship has an informal vibe to it. More cozy and free form.

Well, last year the person leading the worship asked us to serve each other during the sharing of the Lord's Supper. That is, rather than have attendants watch for and move the trays around we should feel free to take the bread and grape juice trays to a friend or neighbor sitting close by. And when we handed the tray over we were encouraged to pass it along with a word of encouragement such as "This is the Lord's body, given for you."

Okay, so in the middle of this service a tray comes to our youngest son, Aidan. He takes a bit of the bread and we encourage him to take the tray to a friend of his with the prompt to not hand the tray over silently but to offer a word of grace or welcome.

So Aidan gets up and walks over to his friend. Then he passes him the tray and says, "Here you go, weirdo."

Shocked (and amused) we quickly step in to get Aidan to say something more appropriate. He mumbles something and the moment passes. But back in my seat I can't help but chuckle through the rest of the service. "Here you go, weirdo" just keeps playing in my head.

And then I start thinking about the theology of it all. And it dawns on me that "Here you go, weirdo" is how I really think about the Lord's Table. All these odd, broken and, well, weird people drawn together in this quirky family we call "church." And that maybe the problem with Christianity today is that we don't want the weirdos in our sanitized and orderly assemblies. Church is for the proper and well-adjusted.

But Jesus hung out with prostitutes and sinners. He seemed to prefer the weirdos. So I'm absolutely convinced that the Messiah looked down upon "Here you go, weirdo" that day and cracked a small smile and whispered in a voice only the angels could hear:

"Exactly."