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.
