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John Wesley, our spiritual founder, had a
strong, passionate commitment to the Lord’s Supper. He
personally received the sacrament every four or five days. He
periodically led bands of Methodists to the Anglican Communion
table, much to the chagrin of the Anglicans themselves. They
were none too happy to see this ragtag parade of Methodists
coming into their carefully appointed sanctuaries.
John Wesley ordered that no Methodist preaching
service be held at the same time as an Anglican Communion
service. He also urged American Methodists to receive the
Lord’s Supper at least once each week. So our founder—our
spiritual forbearer—brought great emphasis to the sacrament.
My own history with Communion is not nearly as
strong. Some of John Wesley’s teaching was obviously lost or
set aside during my upbringing. As a child, we received
Communion four times a year in my home church. It included
lots of ritual. We always read the Ten Commandments and the
Beatitudes responsively. There were many prayers. In fact, the
hymnal of that day had a total alternative service for the
celebration of the Lord’s Supper. I re-read that service this
past week. It was a long service, with long lines of people
coming forward.
Perhaps the best part of that service was the
fact that they used shortbread. Shortbread really tastes good.
I liked it a lot. As a matter of fact, when I was about 10
years old I sneaked into the sacristy and helped myself to a
handful.
At seminary, I do not remember any Communion
services on campus. Elaine and I talked about this during the
past week. She says she does not remember any either. It was a
non-sacramental experience. Neither were there any memorable
classes on leading Communion services.
Thus it is fairly natural to assume that in my
first two congregations I repeated my childhood experience. I
served Communion on Sunday morning approximately four times
each year.
In my first church appointment I found there
were people who stayed away from church on Communion Sunday. I
found that strange. I didn’t know what to say. I had never
experienced that kind of thing before. They said things like
they felt unworthy, or guilty, or unholy. Perhaps their
experience was colored by a United Presbyterian church in the
town that had a preparatory service every Friday night before
Communion. People came to prepare their hearts for Communion
at that service, and only those who received a small chip
could then receive the sacrament on the Lord’s day.
At my second appointment I repeated the same
pattern as the first. A few people may have stayed away for
theological or personal reasons, but not nearly as many.
A single event, however, began to change my
thinking on Communion. In August of 1978 a woman in my
congregation came to me with this question: “When is the next
time we will have Communion?” “The next Communion,” I
responded, “will be on World Communion Sunday the first week
of October.”
“Oh,” she said, with a frantic look on her
face, “I can’t wait that long.”
That conversation impacted me. I served her
Communion the next day, but I really made no substantive
changes in my practice.
Today I believe Communion should be an integral
part of the Christian journey. I want to tell you four things
I believe about the Lord’s Supper. They are United Methodist
emphases. They are not rules, but they are emphases.
A REMEMBERING EXPERIENCE
First of all, Communion is a remembering
experience. The key teaching for us is where Jesus says, “Do
this in remembrance of me.” That statement appears twice, once
in Luke’s gospel and once where Paul quotes Jesus in his
letter to the Corinthian church. You can undoubtedly remember
some wooden tables at the front of Methodist churches in
various parts of the country that have these words cut into
the wood. It usually says simply, “In remembrance of me.”
Communion is a way to remember Jesus who is the Master and
center of life.
Leslie Weatherhead tells of a friend who
attended a service of Holy Communion during which, in the
sermon, the preacher gave lofty theological explanations for
what went on in the liturgy. After the service the friend
talked with one of the worshipers and asked him if he
understood what the preacher had said. The worshiper, whose
rough, callused hands and bent body indicated a life of hard
work, answered this way, “When I come to worship, I cannot
always follow all that is going on up front. I just kneel down
and think about Jesus. I think of that last week with his
disciples and the Last Supper, how he knelt in agony in
Gethsemane, how they arrested him and all night tortured him,
and how he died. And when I receive the broken bread and the
cup, I get very near to Jesus. Then, sir, when I go home, I
feel he comes with me. That is all. It is enough.”[i]
Fundamentally, Communion is a remembering
experience.
AN ACCESSIBLE EXPERIENCE
Secondly, Communion is an open and accessible
experience. It is open to all who wish to come. That does not
mean we treat it as a cheap or trivial event. It does not mean
Communion is without deep significance. But it is an open
table.
It is open to non-members of the church. I say
that each time we have Communion. It is open to more than the
“good people,” whatever that may mean. In a few minutes we
will sing Charles Wesley’s hymn which begins with the words,
“Come, sinners to the Gospel feast.”
Communion is even open to those who are not
sure exactly what they believe. It is open to those who are
struggling to believe, who want to believe. This is an open
table.
When I preached at St. Thomas More in January,
I had to sit out the Communion service. I was not allowed to
participate. I respect their belief, but it did feel a bit
strange.
Know that all are welcome here. That is a
fundamental Methodist teaching.
Communion is open to children. It is open to
any child who is old enough to say this is a way we remember
Jesus. John Wesley wrote, “Spiritual discernment is more
important than full membership.” That principle is operative
here.
There is one other special way in which we are
an open table here. We use grape juice. No recovering
alcoholic ever needs to fear the cup in the United Methodist
Church.
There is a story of a teetotaling mother who
was very verbal about using grape juice at Communion. One day
her daughter reminded her that Jesus had turned the water into
wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. Her mother said, with
an abrupt and loud voice, “Yes, and he shouldn’t have done it
either!”
Our table is an open table. It is open to all
who desire to come. As the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann
once said, “This is the Lord’s table. It is not a church
supper.”
A REGULAR EXPERIENCE
Communion in the Methodist Church is also a
regular experience. This is a new principle for me. I did not
assimilate it until I arrived here. I still heard echoes of
that woman’s plea from my previous church to bring Communion
to her.
Upon arrival here
I found two weekly services of Communion in place. About the
time I adjusted to those two, we added a Saturday night
service, and as most of you know, the Saturday night service
has Communion as a regular part of worship.
Not long after beginning “Sunday Night,” the
need became clear for Communion at that service as well. About
5 years ago we added Communion to staff devotions on Tuesday
mornings.
We also have added special times for Communion.
I will have Communion tonight with the Intercessory Prayer
Team. I have Communion annually with the Altar Guild.
Occasionally I am invited to serve Communion to one of the
Covenant Groups. We serve Communion every New Year’s Eve.
All of this has been a real move in faith for
me—to move from four times a year to at least two times a
week, every week of the year. Often I receive Communion more
than twice. Some weeks it’s as many as four or five times.
Is it always a deep experience? Not
necessarily. Charles Wesley wrote one day in his journal, “I
received Communion today, but I did not receive Christ.”
Even so, Communion ought to be a regular
experience in your life.
A REASSURING EXPERIENCE
Finally, Communion is a reassuring experience.
It is a comforting experience. It is a reminder that Jesus is
with us.
I want you to go back and remember a little
scene that played out in your childhood, if yours was anything
like mine. During the afternoon you realized that your mother
was getting more dressed up than usual—putting on her best
dress, makeup, the like. When your father came home from work
you realized that he didn’t take off his suit coat. Suddenly
it dawned on you—they were going somewhere. The questions
began. “Are you going out? Where are you going? Can I go with
you? When will you be back? Can I stay up till you get home?”
And then came that one last, agonizing question. “Who is going
to stay with us while you are gone?”
Is this not rather what happened at the Last
Supper with the disciples? They asked very similar questions
of Jesus. “Where are you going? Can we go with you? When will
you be back? Can we wait here for you?”
And then they implied the last question, “Who
is going to stay with us while you’re gone?” At the table
Jesus says to them, “I will not leave you alone. I will not
leave you orphaned. I will send the Holy Spirit, the
Comforter, to be with you. I am with you and will be with
you.” It was a reassuring experience.
There was a church somewhere where Communion
was passed in the pews. Each person passed the plate of bread
to the next person in the pew and was to say, “Martha, the
Body of Christ, given for you.” When the plate was passed to
one man, he suddenly forgot his words. He turned to the person
to his left and after an agonizing moment he said, “Harvey,
hang in there.”[ii]
I’ve read a lot of liturgies over the years,
but I’ve never read those words. Yet it is not bad theology.
Life is not always what it should be. People let us down.
Friends and family let us down. Our health lets us down. Jobs
do not go well and they let us down. The church may even seem
to let us down. But we come to the table and we hear the
words, “The Body of Christ, given for you.” Translated, the
words mean, “Hang in there.”
These are words of encouragement. Jesus is
saying, “I am with you. I will be with you. I will not leave
you alone. And this is the sign—this bread—this cup.”
Friends, Communion is food for the journey of
life. Don’t miss any opportunity you have to receive that
food.
[i] Thanks
to Don Shelby for this story.
[ii] Thanks
to Rod Wilmoth for this story.
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