All are welcome

Who knew you could pick up good theology from the back of a cereal box?

When I was a kid, I read the back of cereal boxes while munching breakfast. They made great reading because they were always selling cool stuff like sets of green army men and Tony the Tiger punching bags.

I once badgered my parents into ordering one of those punching bags for me. A century or so later (“allow up to six weeks for delivery”), I received a TINY plastic Tony the Tiger punching bag that didn’t survive more than a few six- or seven-year-old punches.

It was one of my first clues that the real world wasn’t what it was cracked up to be. If you can be bamboozled by Tony the Tiger, who can believe in heroes anymore?

The other day, while getting ready to make Chex Mix for Super Bowl munching, I read the back of a Kellogg’s cereal box. (The local Price Chopper suddenly dropped most Best Choice versions. Boo!)

Imagine my surprise when I read the main headline on the back of the box:

“EVERYONE DESERVES A PLACE AT THE TABLE.”

The first word, “everyone,” is in red. You can’t miss the emphasis.

Turns out, it’s part of a campaign to support NaviLens, a service for the visually impaired that uses color QR codes.

But it’s actually so much more than that. It’s a huge statement of faith.

Everyone deserves a place at the table that God sets for us in God’s kingdom, as well as in the miserable counterfeit thing we call “the real world.”

To be sure, no one actually deserves such a place. Not one of us. But God graciously invites all of us to the table anyway.

To be sure as well, many Christians want to limit access to God’s table. No, they say, God only invites the holy – you know, those folks just like you and me.

It’s a lie. God loves everyone, and God wants everyone to join in the banquet of grace. Sure, everyone – that is, every last one, of all theological stripes and all manner of sin and all degree of holiness or lack thereof – will be changed by the experience.

That’s part of the point. Sharing a meal with the Lord changes you. Or at least it ought to.

The next time you’re reading the back of a cereal box, remember the message from Kellogg’s: EVERYONE DESERVES A PLACE AT THE TABLE.

It’s a message from God, too. Come to the table and find out.

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I’m still processing the messages of religious commercials from the Super Bowl. I’ll talk about them soon.