August 11, 2014
Self-Service
I experienced an interesting
communion service on Sunday. The individual emblems were placed on two tables
on opposite sides of the auditorium and after the meditation the presenter went
to one of the tables and helped himself to the bread and the juice. When a few people
left their seats and went to the opposite table I assumed they were going to
serve the congregation, but they too helped themselves. I caught the eye of the
man who gave the meditation, shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrow
questioning what to do and he motioned for me to help myself. After I returned
to my seat I noticed people gathering in groups of three and four. Taking communion
together, they held hands and bowed their heads prayer. Eventually everyone
returned to their seats and we continued with the rest of the worship service. It
was touching to see people gathering in groups of friends and family units
while sharing the emblems. However, it’s unfortunate that a ceremony meant to
bring us together as a body of believers is more focused on biological families,
than on the family if God.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----We are born into a world which falls far short of perfection. Sometimes I think the fact that people send their interests towards the Lord at all is rather incredible, let alone that they get anything relatively right. But we can be sure we’ll never get it completely right until He makes us right. I think our efforts please Him. And that is from my touchy-feely side.
-----However, there is also an objective, rational side. Things can always be better. The fact that this world falls far short of perfection is also the fact that there is a lot of room for improvement. That’s where the argument over who gets to define the improvement ends improvement’s possibilities.
-----I have a good friend who seems to run his life quite well along the thought of, “Keep it simple, stupid.” You well know one of my favorite expressions is, “Life is complex.” It isn’t simple. Although DNA is constructed upon a very simple principle, the information it encodes is highly complex and voluminous to boot. And that’s just one quick example. God’s Word is also a vast complexity constructed around a simple principle. Often, to bring a solution home in simplicity it must first have been assembled from life’s complexities.
-----I think communion is this way. The primary thing about it must be meaning. But since communion is a reality instituted by God, its meaning must also really be what He meant. The simplicity of finding that is only in where to look: the Scriptures and the souls with whom you commune. The scriptures are relatively complex, and the souls commute any relativity of that complexity into certainty. Yet the Scriptures tell us to welcome His souls (Rom 15:7) and honor them (Rom 12:10), moreover. Since God is no longer here in personal and individual body to show us how to do communion so that it best conveys what His Father meant, we have to stab around in the complexity without stabbing the souls.
-----Like you didn’t, I do not see the distinct advantage of bringing communion back to the people of our best acquaintance. Yet I can see some advantage. It is with them that the greatest feelings of fellowship are had. Since we only get a minute to demonstrate deep fellowship, that’s convenient. Neither are the bitty little cracker squares nor the snifflet of grape juice exactly the bread and wine of dinner the Lord used in that first communion. It is eating with one another that acknowledges fellowship with one another. If those emblems can be representative of that meal, the participation with familiars can be representative of full fellowship, as well. It’s all gesture. And that’s neither simple nor complex; it’s sensible.
-----I am thankful for my friend’s adhesion to keeping it simple, stupid, though I reject this kiss. I often call myself stupid, fully recognizing that no one who acknowledges the Lord is stupid. Furthermore, the reason solutions must reach towards simplicity is because people so misunderstand anything not brought forth from their own complexities. So, as your commentary demonstrates, simple solutions do not cover complicated situations, whereupon I offer an altered and bit more constructed kiss: keep it sensibly smart.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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