I had been planning this sermon for a couple of months because of some changes we had made in response to changes in the "Directory of Worship" of the Presbyterian Church, USA. I began my sermon prep thinking I would pair the Genesis story about table fellowship used for the wrong reasons with table fellowship like Christ calls us to have. I also had my favorite communion story ever ready for use in the sermon. By the end of the sermon process, my favorite story was left for another time, and the point I started with was used only during the "Time with Young Disciples."
the article mentioned in the section on "passing trays" was very important for me as I worked through the sermon. The expansive nature of the "Directory of Worship" to welcome those to the Table who have yet to be baptized or have yet to have made a profession of faith in Christ, also moved me as I prepared for the sermon. I may not have made the point well enough, but the understanding behind this expanded welcome is that people who come seeking the Risen Christ will be moved to baptism and profession of faith by their experience at the Table. I am still struggling with how we make that response to coming to the Table an integral part of our communion service.
Having the confirmands help prepare the elements for use and then bring the elements in during the service was a powerful moment for them, and I think for the congregation. Watching them prepare and parade down certainly moved me as I watched how it impacted them!
I had several comments about the distinction between "altar" and "alter." I happened on to that thought due to spell check at a previous time when I was typing an article about the difference between an "altar" and the Lord's Table. My misspelling of "altar" was auto-corrected to "alter," which made lots of theological sense to me.
“Coming to the Table” November 4, 2018, SAPC, Denton; Richard B. Culp; I Corinthians 11: 17-27; Genesis 27: 1-17
I Corinthians 11: 17-34 Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it. 19 Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine. 20 When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. 21 For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. 22 What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!
23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for[g] you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For all who eat and drink[h] without discerning the body,[i] eat and drink judgment against themselves. 30 For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.[j] 31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined[k] so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
33 So then, my brothers and sisters,[l] when you come together to eat, wait for one another. 34 If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation. About the other things I will give instructions when I come.
introduction: Harvey Cox, noted theologian and retired professor from Harvard Divinity School, tells the story of dating a Catholic young woman who was a year ahead of him in school. Her first Christmas home, they went to a beautiful Catholic Christmas Eve mass (think St. Andrew with more liturgy).
As the communion was happening, the girlfriend, who had taken Anthropology in her first semester at college, leaned over and told Harvey, “That’s just a primitive totemic, you know.” “A what?” “A primitive totemic ritual. Almost all premodern religious and tribal groups have them. They are services where worshipers bind themselves together and to the power of the sacred by a cannibalistic act of ingesting the manna of a dead god.” Communion, Cox noted, was never the same again.(James Fowler Stages of Faith 181)
this morning, I invite you to reflect on coming to our Lord’s Table. Hopefully, in ways that make you want to come to our Lord’s Table even more!
there is too much to say for one sermon, so I want to look at three questions: who gets to come to the Table; who serves at the Table; and what happens at the Table.
Move 1: Who gets to come to the Table? Or fencing the Table.
a. Fencing, as in putting a fence around the Table, whereby only people who meet certain criteria are invited.
1. Sounds like a bad idea, but remember, even at the first Last Supper not everyone was there.
2. A small, intimate dinner group of Jesus and his disciples.
3. Presumably there were servers at the dinner who were not invited; no women; no children.
b. When we think about fencing the Lord’s Table, an obvious example is how the Catholic church approaches the Table.
1. Only members of the Catholic faith are invited.
2. I bet most of us have a story, maybe an old story, of being somewhere for communion and not being invited to partake.
c. Desire to fence
1. Good reason.
2. We heard Paul telling the Corinthians, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord” (I Corinthians 11: 27)
3. idea behind fencing is to protect people from coming to the Table when they were not prepared, or informed, or understood what was at stake when they come to our Lord’s Table.
c. Consider our own Presbyterian tradition.
1. Some churches had communion tokens.
2. Church I served in OH celebrated its Bicentennial while I was there. One of the special services was a communion service where we lifted up the history of using communion tokens.
You had to have a token to come to the Table. Token was earned by going to the minister and confessing showing you were prepared to go to the Lord’s Table.
You were literally given a token to present for admission to the
Table. Everyone who showed up. The gate was side open, but as you came forward for communion, you gave your token to a Ruling Elder.
I had a Ruling Elder share with me how bad it felt to have to use a token. Even though everyone was given one, it felt like there was a price for admission to the Table.
d. Or think about the shifts you may have noticed over the last 50 years here at St. Andrew.
1. 50 years ago St. Andrew had a communicants’ class which youth took to become a member. Only then, after you became a member, could you take communion. Thus, the title communicants’ class
2. then, the gate was widened to all those who had been baptized and trust in Jesus Christ, which allowed children who had been baptized to come to the lord’s Table. Thus, the shift from communicants’ class, with its connection to communion, to Confirmation class, in which the youth, who are already welcomed to the Lord’s Table, confirm the baptismal vows their parents made when they presented their children for baptism.
3. There was also a sense that only the faithful should come to the Table. Again, the idea was to protect the unfaithful who did not understand.
4. Now, however, we welcome to the Table any who desire to come to our Lord’s Table. If someone comes who has not been baptized, it is hoped the response to coming tot he Lord’s Table will lead them to the waters of baptism.
We welcome to the Table even those who have not yet professed their faith in Christ or are in a time of doubt in the hope that coming to the Table will lead them to a relationship with Christ.
As our book of order describes it, “even those who doubt may come to the table in order to be assured of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ”(W-3.0409)
e. Sara Miles I still can't explain my first communion. It made no sense. I was in tears and physically unbalanced.: I felt as if I had just stepped off a curb or been knocked over, painlessly, from behind. The disconnect between what I thought was happening – I was eating a piece of bread; what I heard someone else say was happening – the piece of bread was the “body” of “Christ,” a patently untrue or at best metaphorical statement; and what I knew was happening – God, named “Christ,” or “Jesus,” was real, and in my mouth – utterly short-circuited my ability to do anything but cry” (59) Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, Sara Miles
the gate to the fence is wide open for those who seek our Lord and Savior.
Move 2: Who serves at the Table?
a. Let’s be clear - Jesus is the host.
1. Some of you may remember a time when there was an emphasis on the ministers eating the bread and drinking the cup first.
2. Not to put the minister above others, but to emphasize that the minister is a guest at our Lord’s Table like everyone else. There is no hierarchy.
b. We do notice, however, as we gather around our Lord’s Table that the officers of our church take the bread to the pews or present the elements when people come forward. Presbyterian church - leadership
1. have to have an ordained minister administer the Lord’s Supper, and ordinarily the servers are the officers.
2. Again, if you go back in our history, only Ruling Elders were allowed to serve.
3. then, Deacons were added to the list.
4. Now, Deacons and Ruling Elders are the norm, but the Session can authorize any church members to serve communion (W-3.0414).
5. A recognition that the Lords’ Supper is a place where barriers are broken, not erected; a place where we come together as a community.
c. That’s why we have the practice of passing the bread and juice/wine in the pews.
1. Serving in the pews means we are serving each other.
2. Christ is the host, and everyone else comes to the Table on equal footing to be bound together in Christ.
3. Ironically, in research done with congregations, we can find that the meaning of serving one another has been lost.
Now, people often do not recognize the communal aspects of serving in the pews, but see the time sitting in the pew waiting to receive as private, prayerful time; whereas moving forward for intinction is seen as a communal act (Lisa Patterson, Associate Pastor at St. Andrew, corresponded with Dr. Jennifer Lord at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary on this topic. Dr. Lord pointed us to this excerpt from Do This in Remembrance of Me: A Ritual Approach to Reformed Eucharistic Theology, Martha Moore L. Keiesh, 131-140)
d. I hope we reclaim the Lord’s Supper as a place where we connect with each other in Christ.
1. That’s what Paul is writing about to the Corinthians.
2. The Lord’s Table had become a place that accentuated their differences.
3. He reminds them that they are to share together.
5. the Table is a place where we are united in Christ.
today, look at the person to whom you pass the tray, smile (this is the joyful feast, after all), and say, “the body of Christ, broken for you.” or “the blood of Christ, shed for you.”
Move 3: What happens at the Table.
a. Remembering
1. we remember what God has done. The Great Prayer of Thanksgiving recites that history.
2. But in our remembering, we also call on God to remember.
3. Greek word remembrance connected to Hebrew word. Hebrew connotation is both remember what has happened, but also plea for God to remember.
4. We read again and again in the biblical record how God’s people cry out to God to remember them and God does. So we gather at our Lord’s Table to remember, and ask God to remember us.
b. Transformative power of Lord’s Table
1. What do you call the Table?
2. Some traditions call it the altar.
3. We call it the Lord’s Table.
4. Why? Because an altar is a place where sacrifices are taken. We have not need of an altar, because we do not bring sacrifices to God, because Christ’s sacrifice put an end to making sacrifices.
5. Jesus is not on the table as a sacrifice, but at the Table as our host.
6. But, we come to the Table to be changed. We do not have an altar call, as in “a-l-t-a-r,” but we have a Table call, where we come to be altered, as in “a-l-t-e-r” as in be changed by our encounter with the Risen Christ.
c. which reminds us that at this Table we Meet the Risen Christ who transforms our very lives.
Conclusion: The confirmands are studying worship and the sacraments this week and next. they helped prepare the sacraments for us today, and in a little while they will bring in the elements.
The bringing in of the elements is a tradition that goes back to a time when people would bring elements from their homes, their bread and their wine, to the Table to be distributed.
The idea was to bring all that they had to the Table, so that they and the elements could be transformed by the host at the Table, the Risen Christ.
As you come to the Table today, bring your all; expect to be transformed by the Risen Christ. Amen.
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