COMMUNION: FEASTING AT GOD’S TABLE
1st Corinthians 11: 23-26
John 6: 51-58

           God is amazing! Does that qualify for “understatement of the year”? Time does not permit even beginning to count or tell the ways in which God amazes us. However, for our purposes today, God is amazing in that God so often takes the ordinary and uses it for the extraordinary. The Scriptures are full of examples of God taking the common and making it sacred. The elements of Communion are a perfect example of this amazing ability and work of God. In Jesus’ day, it was likely that bread and wine were staples at virtually every meal. At the Last Supper, Jesus took fairly common elements and made them into a holy meal. He took what was ordinarily used for physical nourishment and transformed them into a means of spiritual nourishment. He transformed a simple loaf of bread and a cup of wine into a means by which we can come face-to-face with God’s grace and the love God seeks to lavish upon us.

           Communion is one of those topics that is widely debated within the wider Church. There are debates as to who may or may not partake of the Sacrament, who may or may or not consecrate and serve the elements, etc. I have no intention of engaging in that debate here this morning or really at any time from the pulpit (I am always willing, though, to have private conversations). Instead of engaging in the aspects of Communion that are debated, I instead want us to focus on and explore the Sacrament as not something we are required to do but another means by which God lavishes grace and love upon each one of us.

           If you recall from last week, we explored the invitational nature of worship—that we are able to worship because God has invited to draw near to God. I want to continue in that theme for just a little longer. Just as worship is grace-filled because of God’s invitation, so, too, is Communion. To understand this invitation a little more, it helps for us to consider what is called “table fellowship” and its importance in Jesus’ time. In that world, to invite someone to dine was the highest honor one person could extend to another. To accept that invitation, likewise, was to honor the one who extended the invitation. To share a table with someone else, be it one other person or a group of people, was to share a bond and a kinship that went beyond the human bounds of relationship. It was, in fact, a way in which people were known and indentified in the community. In thinking about that, sometimes we consider ourselves unworthy to sit at the same table as Jesus. Consider, though, with whom Jesus dined at the Last Supper.

           If ever there was a motley crew, it was this bunch of Jesus’ disciples. Among this group, there were fishermen, at least one tax collector, and other, probably “blue collar” workers. Most, if not all, of these people would have found themselves on the lower rungs of the social ladder. In a sense, they had to eat with one another because no one else wanted to eat with them! Yet it was this group that Jesus chose to be his disciples and to share many meals, including his final meal. Despite where they were in society’s eyes, despite how “unrighteous” they were considered, Jesus honored them by inviting them to the holy table! Jesus wanted them to share this meal with him! In the same way, we are invited to Jesus’ table. We are invited because we are WANTED! God wants to lavish grace upon us. God wants us to know just how much God thinks of each one of us! Just as we have been invited to worship, we have also been invited to dine and share together in this meal, with Christ and with one another.

           I could probably stop right there. Within the idea that we have been invited to the table because God desires us is enough grace to overwhelm us. This is just the beginning of the grace in store at Christ’s table though! What we do when we get to the table also become moments of experiencing God’s grace.

           Every time I read this passage from 1st Corinthians, I am continually struck by the final phrase Paul uses. It is there that he says, “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death….” (11:26). As we come to this table and eat the bread and drink the cup, whether it is a little individual cup or dipping the bread, we are proclaiming the death of Jesus Christ. As we partake of the elements we proclaim and come face-to-face with the greatest expression of God’s grace—the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ! Coming to this table is our proclamation that Jesus’ body was broken and his blood was poured out in a horrific way for the sins of the world—for my sins and for your sins. Here at the table, we are met with the fact that God’s love for us is so immense that God was willing to let God’s Son endure the shame and the agony of crucifixion on our behalf. Tell me what could be a higher expression of love and grace!

           Communion is more than a “memorial dinner” though. It is more than remembering that Christ died. It is also a proclamation of Christ’s life. We believe that on the third day after Crucifixion, Jesus rose in his body from the grave. We believe that, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus lives in this world through those who follow him. Take that in for a second—Jesus Christ lives in the world through you and through me! Just out of curiosity, is anybody here perfect? That’s what I thought. In spite of all our brokenness, our pain, our sinfulness, our human-ness, Jesus chooses to live in this world through us! Partaking of his body and blood is a way that we abide in Jesus and hide our lives in his life, so that what others see is our body but the light and life of Christ shining through each of us. Communion is a tangible way in which we declare to one another and to the world, “Jesus Christ lives in ME!” As Christ lives in us, we become a reminder that God has not left this world. Turn on the news—there is one depressing story after another, and it is easy to ask where God is in the midst of it all. As we come to this table, we declare to the world that God in Jesus Christ is still present in the world and that in Him we have the nourishment that can and will last for all eternity! So may it be! AMEN.

           || Home || Welcome || Pictures || Sermons || Maps || Special Sprouts || Opportunity || Missions || Newsletter in pdf || VBS || Women of Promise || Easter || Links ||