04/06/2026
THE AWKWARD SUPPER PARTY
Tim Keen’s trouble began, as it often did, with a sermon.
He had preached on Corpus Christi about the Eucharist being God’s awkward supper party: a table where Christ was the host, the Church was not in charge, and the seating plan kept being rearranged to the annoyance of the respectable and powerful.
It had gone rather well. This, in parish life, is always dangerous. By coffee time, Sybil Ratchett had said, “We should do that.”
Tim, who had meant it metaphorically, said, “Do what?”
“The awkward supper party.”
Judith Crowther, overhearing from the hatch while rinsing mugs, said, “Is this an actual event, Vicar, or just something theological that will require blu-tack?”
“It could be a simple parish supper,” Tim said.
“Nothing is ever simple once people bring quiche,” said Judith.
By Wednesday, the notice had gone up.
THE AWKWARD SUPPER PARTY OF GOD
A Corpus Christi Bring-and-Share Supper
All Welcome
Please bring food if you can, and yourself if you cannot
Judith objected to the word awkward. “It sounds,” she said, “as though the PCC has planned emotional discomfort.”
“The Gospel often involves just that,” said Tim.
“Yes, Vicar, but normally we conceal it under hymns.”
Perry Wainwright asked whether “all welcome” meant all welcome.
“All welcome,” said Sybil.
Perry looked as though doctrine had flicked his nose.
Pauline Rivers produced a seating plan. It involved numbered tables, dietary requirements, and a pencil note saying “keep Lionel away from crisps.” Mrs Rivers carefully positioned all the parish regulars, by number, on her plan.
Sybil ignored it.
She invited Ron from the precinct, two women from the charity shop, a refugee family who had come in for winter coats and somehow stayed for tea, three teenagers from Faithful Harmony, and Terry, who had once bought a casserole dish and kept returning to ask whether the matching lid had appeared.
Horse Palmer brought bread. A lot of bread. “Corpus Crispy,” he announced, placing four supermarket bloomers and two baguettes on the table. “Thought it were the thing.”
Kevin Keen, arriving behind him with salad, murmured, “Really, Horse? Must you?”
Lionel Hargreaves arrived with a tart. “It is not a quiche,” he said before anyone asked. “It is a savoury custard in a shortcrust case.”
Judith wrote “quiche” on the label.
The hall filled in the way church halls do: slowly, then all at once. The tables were pushed together into one long, irregular line. It did not look like the Last Supper. It looked like the Last Supper after a parish committee had organised it.
Tim had intended to say a few words. He had written them on a card: “Christ is the host. We are guests. We receive before we explain.”
Unfortunately, just as he stood, Dobbs dropped a stack of side plates.
Everyone looked round, and then clapped, in the British tradition of treating public clumsiness as a minor civic occasion.
“Symbolic,” said Sybil.
Then the seating plan failed completely. Perry found himself next to Ron, who asked what a churchwarden actually did. Perry began, “Well, constitutionally speaking—”
Ron said, “So not much with your hands, then?”
Across the table, Pauline was beside one of the teenagers, who asked why churches had so many rules about bread. Pauline inhaled in a way that suggested an answer was assembling itself behind several locked ecclesiastical doors.
Sandy Lintel, opposite, said gently, “Sometimes we have rules because we’re frightened of getting love wrong.”
Pauline paused.
“That is not inaccurate,” she said, with an almost imperceptible harrumph.
Near the middle, Sybil passed bread to the refugee mother, who passed it to her daughter, who passed it to Terry, who said, “I only came about the casserole lid,” and then took a piece anyway. The room softened. There was no miracle. No blaze of light. No angel over the tea urn. Nobody’s gluten-free lasagne multiplied.
But there was enough.
People moved up. Someone fetched extra chairs from the choir cupboard. The teenagers shared crisps with Lionel, who called them “aggressively flavoured” and then ate more. Ron told Perry about sleeping outside the bank in February, and Perry, to his credit, stopped being constitutional.
Tim watched the bread go hand to hand. This, he thought, was what sermons were for: not to finish a thought, but to start an inconvenience.
Then the dishwasher broke. It gave a loud thump, produced a puff of steam, and fell silent. Judith stood before it.
“No,” she said.
It remained broken.
There is a particular moment in every parish event when theology ends and washing-up begins. Several people remembered prior engagements. Lionel said that most regrettably his hands were insured for music. Perry looked towards the door, then remembered Ron and picked up a tea towel. Pauline stacked plates with penitential precision. Sandy rolled up her sleeves. Sybil filled a washing-up bowl. Kevin nudged Horse, who began drying with agricultural seriousness.
Tim found himself at the sink beside Terry.
“Funny sort of holy, this,” Terry said, passing him a mug.
“Yes,” said Tim. “I think it often is.”
At the far end of the hall, the refugee child was asleep on two chairs. Ron was helping Perry scrape plates. Lionel was arguing with a teenager about crisps. Judith was labelling leftovers with military tenderness.
And on the table, one of Horse’s loaves remained half broken.
Tim looked at it for a moment. It wasn't consecrated. Not reserved. Not wrapped in linen. Just bread.
And yet.
Christ had been at the table, not because the event was tidy, but because it had not been owned.
The Church had tried to host a supper.
Somewhere along the way, Christ had quietly taken over.
By the end, the floor was sticky, the dishwasher was condemned, and Perry had promised Ron a lift to the council office on Monday.
Judith, locking the cupboard, said, “Next year, Vicar, we are calling it something less accurate.”
Tim smiled.
“What would you suggest?”
She looked at the long table, the crumbs, the tired faces, the open hands.
“Corpus Christi,” she said. “That sounds harmless enough.”
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