Eucharistic Hospitality -- the Meaning of the Table Fellowship

I have been arguing for an open table fellowship. Historically this is not the pre-eminent position. For most of the church's history the gates to the table have been closed. But I believe that such a theology is at odds with the biblical testimony, and is especially at odds with Jesus' own experience at the table. Jesus' habit of eating with outcasts should be our guide. Bonnie Thurston writes that "Jesus' willingness to share table fellowship with a variety of people was a way of demonstrating his love." Such actions had much more symbolic value and meaning than today, but I think it still has importance.

She writes further:

The table fellowship of the Lord's Supper was a visible manifestation of what the church, as preface to the kingdom, was to be. Here was enacted the original intention of the covenant as spelled out by the Torah, that Israel would be a community of equals under God. In the early church's thinking, the conventional barriers between people had been broken down by Jesus. As Paul wrote to the Galatians, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). To sit down together at their Lord's Table was to live out that fellowship, to express koinonia in spite of economic, social, and cultural differences. To partake in the Lord's Supper was to be at one with Christ in his sacrifice and to share by anticipation the fruits of his passion in the messianic meal in the kingdom. But it was also to be brought into wholeness with those who would come to share that final, eschatological banquet. At his table, the Lord's people were "remembered," brought together in a visible symbol of equality and oneness. [Bonnie Thurston, Spiritual Life in the Early Church, Fortress Press, 1993, pp. 49-50]

If we are no longer Jew or Greek, . . .. can we not also say that when we come to the Lord's Table (I'm sorry but I don't find an altar in the New Testament) can we not also be no longer Protestant or Catholic, Presbyterian or Methodist, Episcopal or Disciple, Lutheran or Pentecostal, Baptist or (I think you get the picture)?