|
How We Worship – The Meal
Following our engaging the Word of God in Scripture, song and sermon, we got involved in
bringing about that which the Word calls – to trust in God’s love and care for us, to show that
same care and love for others and to express our longing for the in-breaking of the Reign of
God in the world by prayer and supplication. We share a glimpse of such a reign by sharing a word of reconciling peace with the assembled ones.
Then we move to the other essential of Christian worship – the Meal (or Supper or Eucharist or Communion). This gift of Christ himself, promised long ago to all who gather around the table and remember Christ among us, is really the second part of the principal Sunday gathering of Christian community. Word and Meal – the two high points of worship – are what we need as Christ-followers to get through the week ahead (or get past the week completed) in a world that seems at times as diametrically opposed to God in Christ.
Many of us “old-timers” in the Lutheran church and other denominations remember that this was not always so. Communion was not shared weekly, but bi-weekly or monthly. It was held to be “special” with the thought that it’s “specialness” would be diminished if it was shared at each worship assembly. Actually, this is not what our forefathers in our faith tradition (it was all men centuries ago) taught: Luther wrote that we should take Holy Communion every day if we could. Its benefits were something to be grasped onto as a lifeline to someone drowning in the ocean. But as immigrants resettled in distant lands, along unpopulated frontiers there weren’t many clergymen (It was all men centuries ago) to provide weekly worship leadership in every community. Travelling pastors might come to your town/village on Sunday a month (or even every three months) and this became the pattern. Unfortunately, as habits often do, this pattern became the norm and justification for maintaining the norm took root.
However, for those who understand the foundation of Christian worship as Word and
Sacrament, as we do, then this makes no sense. The Word alone is insufficient to gather us into God’s mission for the world. The Meal is what we share with those gathered, a community that is sometimes at odds with the ways of the powers and principalities of the world.
Thus, we have “recovered” the practice of weekly Word and Meal, not solely for historical or
confessional purposes, but because we need it! We need the Meal side-by-side the Word so
that we have a fuller understanding of the Word. And the Word shared allows us to fully
experience the community of the Meal. In these we are able to encounter Jesus and his
teaching in truth. “This is my body, given for you.” “This is my blood, shed for you.” Apart from Word, these claims lose some power, some authenticity.
Not only that, but we need to continually practice Word next to Meal, Meal after Word, in order for those seeking God - newcomers to the faith (and aren’t we all “newcomers” at times) to see what Christianity itself is all about, let alone what any Sunday is all about: not just ideas and platitudes but the very presence and mercy of Jesus Christ as God’s love for humanity. And without this combination, the way of the cross seems hopeless and futile.
So, we gather as the first disciples did with their Lord. Around a meal that begins with the
blessing and breaking of bread along with the blessing and sharing of wine. But not just any
meal, but one full of promise, of potential, and of peace. This is Christ’s presence in the world – all those who gather, trusting that God is present and covering us in love and the power of the Spirit.
Shalom.
Pr. Mark
| 
