Discipleship as Sacramental Living and Table Fellowship
Discipleship is sacramental because disciples are the living temple of the triune God, together.
Years earlier, Paul’s letter to the Galatians erupted with urgency because Judaizers similarly weaponized table fellowship. These communities obsessed over who belonged and who didn’t by drawing sharp distinctions between Jewish and Gentile men based on circumcision. Peter, under pressure, withdrew from eating with Gentiles, betraying the gospel of grace and prompting Paul’s public rebuke: “I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned” (Galatians 2:11). According to Paul, the chief crime of the Judaizers was how they held the belonging of Gentile believers hostage. Judaizers coerced converts to circumcise themselves so they could invoke the protected status of Jewish people as hostility toward the Way in the Roman Empire increased. At the time Jews were still considered a protected class.
Judaizers wanted to be just Jewish enough and just Christian enough to cover all their bases. Paul was furious that the church was being influenced by those who were only interested in their own safety. He pushed back because those folks who wanted to use religious status for personal protection and self- preservation directly resulted in the exclusion and exploitation of Gentile believers. In God’s family, we erase the lines that keep us from table fellowship.
Discipleship is sacramental because God’s family should function as agents of radical inclusivity.
Remembering What Matters in Life Together
Recently I sat with a patient in the last moments of his life. He shared his sacred story with me. And at one point he paused to say, “I was comfortable for most of my life. And I’m just so sad because I know I didn’t share enough. I could have shared so much more.”
In an earlier chapter I mused how hospitals are often wrought with harmful theological takes. But deathbeds are also places of profound wisdom. Through remembrance and regret, patients gain clarity about what life is all about. So, when I’m holding your hands in those final moments, I will hold all that with you— and I’d be a fool not to let those moments affect me.
Remembering and responding is the work of the living. Because before life is lost, so much is found. And after that loss, there’s much more to continue to seek.
Lost Things
The story of the lost son in Luke 15 is part of a threefold narrative pat tern where God relentlessly seeks and embraces the lost— first a sheep, then a coin, then kin. Often called the “prodigal son,” the third parable in the set hinges on an interesting Greek word, asōtōs, which appears only once in the New Testament (Luke 15:13). Asōtōs refers to reckless extravagance and it was culturally loaded with a negative connotation.
The Prodigal Son and the Father’s Reckless Grace
In Greco- Roman texts, asōtōs often described riotous banquets, drunken revelry, and moral excess. The son’s reckless living becomes the backdrop for the father’s reckless grace, shifting the focus from moral failure to radical restoration. But while the text labels the son “prodigal,” grammatically the Greek word is more of an adverb than a noun: ἀσώτως modifies the verb “he squandered” (διεσκόρπισεν), describing how the younger son wasted his inheritance. In the late Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God, he observed how Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son is not primarily about the younger son’s rebellion but about the extravagant, prodigal grace of the father, who lavishes love on both the irreligious younger son and the moralistic elder son.
In the parable, the father’s exuberant response to his younger son’s return subverts cultural attitudes toward the prodigality and offers a thematic reframe. The story points to a deeper truth about the lavish, boundary- breaking love of the father. The overwhelming, never-ending, reckless prodigal love of the father serves as a cultural shock. The father in the story doesn’t conform to norms and expectations. Jesus invokes a term loaded with moral condemnation for the purposes of magnifying the scandalously lavish nature of divine mercy.
Belonging and Reconciliation in God’s Family
This parable also reveals that sibling relationships are central to the heart of God’s family. Jesus doesn’t just address the fact that the younger son left— but also includes how the older son resented his own brother’s homecoming. His refusal to join the celebration exposes a deeper fracture: not just between siblings but between the heart of the father and the heart of his children. Both sons are alienated from the father and one another, yet the father responds with care and compassion by prioritizing reconciliation.
In God’s family Jesus replaces sibling rivalry with the recognition that belonging is not earned— it’s freely given. Siblings do not grant grace to one another; we share it. To grant grace is to assign judgment or control its distribution, implying power over grace. To share grace through participation involves delighting in God’s love together . . . and choosing to join in the party even before all the details are sorted out. Now is the time for cake. This is the theological priority of the parable.
Reflecting the Prodigal Love of the Father
As a mother, my heart hurts when my children think that the best way to my affection includes tattling, competing for approval, and tearing one another down. The truth is that what I want more than anything is for my kids to celebrate one another, trust each other, and cheer each other on. The same is true for our heavenly Father. His deepest desire is not that we attempt to earn his love but that we reflect God’s love to one another by loving one another well.
Practicing Discipleship as Sacramental Living
Reimagining discipleship as sacramental living empowers us to champion the flourishing of the whole family by worshiping the triune God with our whole lives and practicing radical welcome as a testimony to the prodigal love of the Father. This all begins with our posture at the table. Are we eager to scoot over, make space, and ensure everyone has their favorite beverage? Or are we burying seats intended for siblings with all our stuff so that we don’t have to sit near anyone?
Liz Daye is an autistic hospital chaplain, teacher, and theologian with a passion for accessible theology and relationship-based discipleship. Her work integrates academic theology and biblical scholarship with research-based clinical interventions andtrauma-informed spiritual care. She is trained in counseling, trauma care, ethics, and grief work, bringing empathy and insight to her role as a chaplain at Emory Healthcare. She graduated summa cum laude from Dallas Theological Seminary with a master’s inchaplaincy and ministry care and continues to serve there in the Theological Studies department. Liz is currently pursuing a DMin in theology for ministry at Northern Seminary. Inspired by her experiences with motherhood, disability, caregiving, and hospital-basedministry, Liz writes and advocates at the intersection of theology and culture with justice-oriented awareness. Her goal is to make space for healing conversations that promote flourishing faith.
Adapted from Interwoven Discipleship: How the Trinity Redefines Power, Belonging, and Christian Community by Liz Daye, releasing in November 2026 from NavPress.
