Loaves and Fishes - and So Much More

It has been a rather eventful week for me at Seneca Presbyterian Church, but not in the usual sense of that word. This fourth week in the season of Lent proceeded rather smoothly. I enjoyed a relatively good balance between study, meetings, pastoral visits, and worship. Our Session gathered for a productive meeting on Monday evening. The greater community of Seneca gathered for worship on Wednesday noon at the home of our Episcopalian brothers and sisters. We saw one member return home from the hospital and another finally made it home after two months of hospitalizations and rehabilitation.

                In the midst of all that normalcy, Wednesday evening offered me two insightful and exciting encounters with faithful friends from our church family. The first was a meeting of worship leaders from our early service – both liturgists and members of the band. The ostensible reason was to reflect upon those worship experiences, tweak anything that needed tweaking, and contemplate the path ahead of us. Right now, that path is focused on our upcoming experiment with the weekly celebration of the sacrament of Holy Communion, an experiment that begins with the Sunday after Easter and will continue through the Sunday after Pentecost, namely Trinity Sunday.

                I shared with those gathered around the table the concerns that have already been expressed about “the experiment”: how observing Communion too frequently can make it seem rote and routine. Those around the table were genuinely surprised. Several come from traditions of weekly observance. They found it hard to believe that such observance could ever become routine. As our conversation progressed, we began to talk of ways we could deepen the experience of Communion for those who worship with us. We talked about adding song – and adding words – opportunities for active participation in the congregational work of worship.

As we talked, I became increasingly aware of how the limited words – and liturgy – that have surrounded my experience of Communion (in both Baptist and Presbyterian traditions) have truncated the sacrament and shortchanged worship.

Just after this meeting, the fellow seekers who gather weekly around the text for the upcoming Sunday convened. As we contemplated the feeding of the multitudes as told in the Gospel of John, the conversation continued. We talked of how we associate Communion with the Lord’s Supper – which inevitably becomes the LAST Supper, which inevitably becomes an experience of somber death and costly sacrifice. Of course, it is. But that is not all that it is. But when we make that all that it is, we rob ourselves of the joy that it also is, and shall be when all the nations of the world will gather around the feast table where Christ himself will be host.

So after this eventful week, I will never approach presiding at our Communion table in quite the same way. I’m not quite sure right now just how it will be different – but it will be.  My starting point will be moving past just Paul’s words of institution that begin “On the night when he was betrayed…” As important as they are, we need to hear more – so very much more.

I welcome your thoughts on just what that might be.