the welcome table

on 10/4/09, World Communion Sunday, I told the story by Alice Walker, entitled "the Welcome Table," from her book of short stories, In Love and Trouble

I had a woman enact the part of the old black woman. Some men for the usher and husbands who finally threw her out. Here is a brief synopsis of the story:

This story is about an old, rundown black woman who staggers the necessary distance in the freezing cold to attend an all-white church. The white people are at a loss when they see her near the entrance of the church and do not know what to do. Some people take her in as she is, an old black woman with a mildewed dress that is missing buttons. She is lean and wrinkled with blue-brown eyes. Her appearance makes some of the white people think of black workers, maids, cooks; others think of black mistresses or jungle orgies. Still others think that she is a foreshadow of what is to come - black people invading the one place that it still considered the white person's sanctuary, their church. They see her and transfer their fear of blacks onto her.
The old woman makes her way inside the church. The reverend says something to the old woman, but no one knows what and the old woman does not respond. Inside the church, the old woman sits at the first bench in the back; she is shivering. Outside it is freezing and inside the church it is cold. The rest of the white people sit at the front of the church away from her.
The usher approaches the old woman and tells her to leave, but the old black woman shoos him with her hand and tells him to go away. The women of the church finally take the matter into their hands and dare or demand their hesitant husbands to throw the old colored woman out of the church. The white women look with contempt at the old woman in her bedraggled state and are insulted that their husbands expect them to sit in the same church as her. This sufficiently motivates the husbands to grab the old woman and physically throw her out of the church into the freezing cold. The white women feel vindicated and hateful toward the old black woman. No one at the church speaks of the incident afterward, and the church service begins.
The old lady is surprised to find herself outside, for she had been singing a song in her head. The old lady looks down the highway and sees something that makes her smile, laugh, sing, and jump up and down in joy and excitement: the old lady sees Jesus himself walking down the highway toward her. He looks exactly like a picture she stole out of a white woman's Bible.
When Jesus approaches her, he instructs that she follow him. The old woman happily obliges. They walk in silence for a while, and then the old woman tells Jesus the story of her life, how she has worked for, cleaned for, and nursed the white people. Jesus listens and looks at her with kindness. The old lady indignantly recounts to Jesus how she was just thrown out of the white people's church. Jesus smiles at her and she instantly feels better. She tells Jesus of how she has his picture hanging over her bed. She alternately sings for Jesus, talks to him, and walks in silence beside him. They pass her house and the old woman doesn't even notice. She doesn't know where they are going but knows it will be wonderful. She feels as if she can walk forever by His side.
The white people from the church never finds out what happened to the old black woman who tried to attend their church. The white people do hear of a black woman who died on the highway after having apparently walked herself to death. They think this woman is silly and do not connect the two black women as one and the same. Black families witnessed the old lady walking by herself down the highway, sometimes singing, talking, and walking in silence, smiling. No one knows where she was going all by herself; they just assume she was on her way to visit some relatives.