True Communion

Until now, I have neglected to mention that one of my churches is worshiping in our relatively small, but very beautiful, fellowship hall. We are doing so with gratitude, and without complaint, while a construction company repairs our sanctuary building. The sanctuary, you see, was built in 1950 without enough structural support to keep in standing forever. So now it's having orthopedic surgery, I say. It's getting some steel implants, and then it will be as good as new.

So this past Sunday, All Saints Sunday, we had our first service of Holy Communion in the Fellowship Hall. The setting is already much more intimate than our sanctuary is, now add tears and sniffles as we remember the saints. Then throw in that we receive communion completely by intinction in that church. Add, too, the fact that in the intimate worship setting we're in this month, there is no altar rail, so in order to offer the body and blood of Christ into His peoples' cupped hands, I and the cup-bearer had to stand literally behind the Lord's Table and serve from there. Put it all together, and you get the most real, authentic, Holy Communion I've ever celebrated.

As people came forward, you see, they were brushing the knees of the choir and their friends in the front pews who had already received. They came with tears in their eyes; they came sensing the presence of the saints we had just named walking with them. And then they got to shake a hand or pat a knee. They got to smile and laugh and chat with their brothers and sisters in Christ, so close to them they could feel one another's breath, while they filed up to the Lord's Table to receive the good gifts, the holy food, offered there to all of us.

At first the extra noise bothered me. Didn't they know this was a holy moment, a kairos moment? Why were they talking to each other?

And then it hit me. This was the feast of remembrance AND the victory banquet. This was not my table, but God's. And at Christ's table in God's eternal kingdom, we bring our tears and our laughter. More importantly, we talk, and we touch. We listen and we receive. We are in relationship, intimately, with the Lord and with each other. There will be a lot of talking, I think, and a lot of touching, at God's eternal banquet table. This Communion was real. This Communion was like it always was meant to be. And now I want to move into the Fellowship Hall for every first Sunday of the month for Communion. Maybe Baptism will feel more full there, too. Who knows. At any rate, I thank God for the taste of intimacy and authenticity I was privileged to experience on All Saints Sunday. I pray that all of us may experience the same truth in some way each day.