Showing posts with label Communion. Show all posts

As the title says, here's "Another Communion Story" for you. I have bunches of them after 11.5 years of serving here in Girdwood. This one gives you a hint into what goes on in my mind during communion.

I have said here that we get wonderful communion bread from Girdwood's own "The Bake Shop." We are so accustomed to those delicious, rectangular loaves of mild sourdough (really more like a wheat in flavor) that our communion service at 10 AM really revolves around it. Just recently we were given a new communion set so we could have a rectangular plate that would hold the bread perfectly.

I understand that bread. When it comes time to serve, I know just about how far it needs to "stretch" depending on the size of the congregation that day. So, when more people are there, the kids don't get quite as large a piece. But, when the crowd's a little slimmer, I can afford to be much more generous.

I understand that bread. I know how it breaks in nice, firm pieces, just right for dipping into the grape juice. Sometimes I'm surprised by the tear and a person gets a larger piece that expected. But most people are very happy with a larger piece.

Last Sunday, Girdwood's "The Bake Shop" was closed. That meant that we needed to get our communion bread from someplace else. It was good bread, don't get me wrong. One of my theories with communion is that, if you're not going to use real wine you should at least make sure you have good bread and real grape juice. This was bread from another bakery in Anchorage and was a great loaf of bread. It was dense. It was round. But, it was mysterious.

I didn't understand this bread. It was heavier than I was used to. It was a different shape. And when I started breaking off pieces to serve the gathered congregation it broke in odd shapes. Usually I don't have to think much during communion. I just get to enjoy and bask in communion. But this past week I had to think.

The bread, as usual, was broken in two pieces at the start of communion. And, more or less, each half should feed one half of the church. However, as I finished with that first half of the loaf, I wasn't yet done with the first half of the church. Thereafter the pieces were smaller. And I felt bad for the kids who were coming up, eager to get their "big piece" and I couldn't provide.

God still provided. We've never run out of bread during Holy Communion and we weren't going to start last Sunday.

However, it is interesting what goes through the mind of an officiant at the communion table as we try to fulfill our responsibilities in serving a congregation with the body and blood of Christ.

This past Sunday our focus was on World Communion Sunday.  I know most churches do this back in October.  But we had stuff going on.  Now's when it fit our schedule between sermon series.  And, regardless of the timing, it was a day to remember what communion means for our little church and for the Body of Christ around the world.

This is about uniting Christians.  This is about keeping the memorial feast of Christ.  This is about being fed and feeding the world.  This is about community.  It's about communion.  We are made for it.

Well, the sermon was done.

The confession was done.

We had taken up the offering.

And now we were into communion.

I've said, this is the high point of my Sunday.  I love it.  I love presiding.  I love serving.  I love partaking.  I love being at Holy Communion.  And, in particular, I love the way we do it at Girdwood Chapel, where everyone's welcome...especially the kids.

Well, on Sunday one little girl decided to come up on her own.  She's only about one and one-half years old. She didn't want to wait for her mom for the bread and so she walked on down the aisle, following dutifully after some of the other kids.  I leaned down and handed her a piece of bread and said, "This is the body of Christ, broken for you."

Now, this is where the story ends for most 2-year-olds.  We try to have real good bread during communion and most kids of that age just like to have the bread and go.  And that's fine with me.  I think it's wonderful. I think it's holy.  What's funny is that the little one stared at me as I was ready to move on to the next person in line.  She stared at me with a look that said, "There's more."

She wasn't "done" with communion until she dipped the bread in the juice.  After that, she was content to go back and sit with mom.

What's so great about this story is that it shows how the practice of Holy Communion shapes us.  There's memory associated with it.  There's a ritual that even a little girl who's not even two years old can pick up and learn and participate with the grown-ups.

I know that there are many denominations where a "closed" communion is practiced and the thought of having kids this young come up would be completely foreign.  But for us, this fits right in with who we are.  And, my prayer is that, as this little one grows up, it will fit right in with who she becomes.  I pray that, wherever she finds herself twenty years down the road, she'll see bread and cup lifted up and know that it's God free gift of salvation for her.

This past week I commented on a blog post over at Internet Monk about communion, whether it should be open or closed.  In light of the fact that I'm talking about communion in church today, I thought I'd post my response:

This is some of our UCC brothers and sisters doing doing a "Flash Communion" at their convention.



Via

Every week--or almost every week--we get communion bread at the local Bake Shop.  They have graciously donated it to us for years.  So, on Saturday, I usually go over and get a nice sourdough roll for our early Sunday service.  We only average under 10 people at our early service so a good-sized sandwich roll is enough.  And, while you may think that sourdough would be too harsh a flavor for communion, the sourdough at the Bake Shop in Girdwood is more like a wheat.  It's good.  And, even though I get Saturday's roll, it's always good.  Then, after our 8:30 AM service on Sunday, I--or, more often, a gentleman named Joe--go and get a full loaf of that great sourdough bread for our 10 AM worship, where we have quite a few more people.

Saturday was Christmas Day and the Bake Shop was closed.  So, when I called at about 7 PM on Saturday evening, I expected to find no one there and I'd have to make do with a little dinner roll from our own house for communion.  But, someone was at the Bake Shop to work on the bread.  She said they didn't make bread that day but they had bread from Friday.  That was good enough, I thought, and I went by and picked it up...three rolls.

I was concerned that the bread was going to be too hard if left out overnight.  It was already a day old.  So, I put the rolls in the church freezer to keep until morning with the understanding that, as soon as I got in on Sunday morning, I would pull the rolls from the freezer and they would be thawed by the time communion rolled around.  All would be well...I thought.

So, on Sunday I came in and pulled those loaves from the freezer.  Worship ensued.  And, about an hour after the bread had been pulled out, I went up to the altar to break one of the rolls for communion.

I couldn't break it.

It was frozen solid.

I couldn't even pull a little bit off.

I believe I uttered before the 6 people there that day, "I froze Jesus."

So, I tried another roll. 

Nothing.

Finally, I was able to break off a small piece of the third roll.  It was, admittedly, quite cold.  But it was broken...and it was broken for us.

This was a Holy Communion (almost) Fail.  It could have been far worse....

Like that time I dropped the chalice.

But that's a different story.

Fortunately, this is a crew who would have laughed it off, forgiven me, and had yet another story to tell about Girdwood Chapel.

Anyone who has been reading any of this stuff knows that, with Shane Claiborne, and thinking missionionally, and talks of immigration and politics, a lot of my own personal conviction has centered on how we are called to be faithful with our finances.  We live in a world that tells us that we can't have enough and I'm still very moved by Compassion International's comment that the opposite of poor is not rich but enough.

I can't say I've come up with a lot of answers or what this all means for my life, but I'm asking the questions.  I was very happy to find the following comments from Stanley Hauerwas, Christian ethicist, over on Richard Hall's blog, Connexions.  The comments are from Hauerwas' article, "Can Greed Be Good?" at the ABC Religion and Ethics Site -- a site I'll have to look around a bit more.