This Sunday was World Communion Sunday. I always wonder how many churches around the world celebrate World Communion Sunday. On the one hand, perhaps it does not matter as long as it pushes us to consider how we are connected to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. On the other hand, it could also symbolize sort of a condescending way to relate to the worldwide Christian community - sort of, we decided that today we would celebrate our connectedness whether you want to or not.
We continue down our preaching series on"What I Need from My Church" with a focus on fellowship. the idea was to build on the warm feelings we have about fellowship and push us to see how we are connected beyond our walls.
“What I Need from My church: Fellowship” SAPC, Denton; October 3, 2021; World Communion Sunday; Fall, 2021 series
Galatians 2: 7-10 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised 8 (for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. 10 They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.
Introduction: We continue in our preaching series on what we need from our church to grow in our discipleship, to help us recognize God’s claim on our lives, and to know God’s grace and love.
On this World Communion Sunday, we reflect on our need for fellowship.
move 1: We begin with a theological reflection on how the Triune God models fellowship.
a. To see God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; To see God’s acting as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; reveals a “God in fellowship with God’s own self.”
1. “The Genesis account does not say “Let me make humankind in my own image, but let us make humankind in our own image according to our likeness.”
2. This is not a “me” God, but a “we” God.
3. God from the beginning is, not God as a bad math problem (how do we get three in one), but God as community.
b. To be made in God’s image is to be people who are called into fellowship with others.
1. God as three persons in fellowship with each other.
2. God in fellowship with us.
3. We in fellowship with God and with others.
Being in fellowship is a reflection of what it means to be God’s people.
Move 2: We know that importance of fellowship
a. one of the comments we have have heard continuously through the pandemic is how much people miss being together in person and making connections in community.
1. We are so grateful for what technology allows us to do - worship or gather in small groups or do bible study via the livestream or Zoom.
2. the possibilities for community have expanded during the pandemic.
3. But we have also learned how much we miss sharing a pew with someone else.
4. Greeting other church members;
having basically that same conversation every week with the same person standing in roughly the same place in the sanctuary;
Greeting new people who come through our doors and learning about them;
lingering past lunchtime over conversations in the Narthex.
We miss those touches, literally in many instances, of fellowship we find at church.
b. But we speak of our need for Christian fellowship it is more than that.
1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together (29): True Christian community is that we are bound despite ourselves by Christ, and those believers seeking some pleasant camaraderie or glow of fellowship will be deceived.
2. As followers of christ, we are bound tougher in powerful ways with other believers.
3. In other words, Christian community is more than the FB community or social media where you can delete someone when you get mad at them or tired of them;
or you can write on their FB page some searing comment and never have to face them or see the look on their face as they read your comment.
4. Being in Christian fellowship means recognizing the bond we have with others through christ and learning to lie together because of that bond.
5. We need the church to teach us how to be in relationship with others as Christ calls us to live in relationship.
c. Fellowship also pushes us outward.
1. Example from Israelites.
Small, minority group struggling to survive and find their in the world.
often displaced and at the mercy of others.
the tendency was to retrench and insulate themselves against others in the world.
How fascinating that we read their instructions for celebrating the Festival of Booths and see the command to reach out to strangers and to reach across all economic categories in their society.
Their calling as God’s people included reaching out in fellowship to others.
2. Example of early Christian church.
Again, a small group struggling to find their place in the world.
The temptation to insulate and hang on with a few others who believed in jesus until Jesus comes again.
But, Jesus had sent them into the world, so they make plans to go and engage the circumcised and the uncircumcised - they understood their calling to be in fellowship wiht their fellows Jews and the Gentiles .
3. So we go into the world far away from us recognizing we are called to Christian fellowship with our brothers and sisters around the world.
It ought to speak to how we view the world.
2. Into our world close at hand, recognizing we are bound together in Christ, a bond that transcends all the things that divides us.
Move 3: As we come to our Lord’s Table on World communion Sunday, we have a visible reminder of our Christian fellowship.
a. Presbyterians have celebrated World Communion Sunday since the mid-1930s. At that time North Americans were experiencing the economic upheaval of the Great Depression, and many were concerned about the instability in Europe and the possibility of another world war. A group of. Presbyterian ministers met to pray and talk about the church’s role in such a time. Rediscovering the unifying power of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, they reaffirmed that in Christ all Christians are one, regardless of nationality, race, or ethnicity. From their meeting came the first World Communion Sunday in 1936. In the years that followed other denominations began to celebrate this special Sunday.
1. Today we gather with people in this sanctuary;
We gather we people in their homes who join us on livestream.
wE gather with all our brothers and sister in Christ who come to our Lord’s Table today.
2. On this day, I am reminded that the word “Companion” literally means “with bread.” (Martha Spong, “My Companion at Table,” Christian Century, October 4, 2013, electronic version)
3. With bread, the body of Christ;
with wine or juice, the blood of Christ we are joined together by Christ in fellowship.
Conclusion: “What happened once I started distributing communion was the truly disturbing, dreadful realization about Christianity: You can't be a Christian by yourself” Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, Sara Miles (96)
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