The Place Where We Become Human to Each Other: Christ’s Universally Designed Table

Over the past thirty years, disability theology has often returned to the question of hospitality and inclusion, as well as to the practice of communion, through the lens of whether those with (often severe) disabilities (should) have access to liturgical rights in the church. Using a crip phenomenological approach, this contribution begins by identifying difference as bidirectional and arguing that a lack of difference in a space is harmful to all. From there, it explores the concept of Universal Design, arguing that such principles are present throughout Hebrew and Christian scriptures. As such, the communion table is offered as site of liberative possibilities not only for those who have been marginalized from it, but for all those wishing to gather here. The paper concludes by considering four postures for recalibrating our table life around this universally designed table.