World Communion Sunday

Those of you who were here last week know that we began our annual stewardship emphasis last week. The emphasis continues today as we celebrate Worldwide Communion Sunday. Since every Sunday is communion Sunday for we Disciples, World Communion Sunday may make little difference to us. But it is an important day in the life of Christ’s church, because in many congregations that receive communion monthly, quarterly, twice a year, or once a year, today is a day that churches in this city and beyond will break the bread and pour the cup in remembrance and thanksgiving. So we celebrate along with them.

We celebrate because the communion table is where we find hope and strength for our spirits. The readings for today are letters from Paul, one to the young pastor Timothy, the other to the congregation in Corinth.

The letter Timothy wrote to Paul is lost to history, but we can imagine that he wrote to tell Paul that while he has done all he can to establish the church, things are nevertheless difficult. Maybe Timothy has written to Paul, “this ministry is not working out the way we planned. He has put adds in the local paper, sent out teams to invite people to church, offered Bible study, worship and fellowship activities. He is working as hard as he can.

“There are folks here who are teaching something other than what I’ve been trained to teach. I want to come home Paul. Send me bus fare or tell me what to do”. What Paul tells him helps him and helps us know what to do as we persevere in ministry and as we leave this table today.

First, remember this is not our table anymore than this is our church. We are stewards of this table, just as we are stewards of this building and stewards of the ministries to which God has called us. It all belongs to God who has trusted Timothy with the church at Ephesus just as we have been entrusted with the church here today. So while we come to this table with joy, we also come to it with respect and with a sense of its importance. The congregation I grew up in is one that has always taken communion seriously. When it came time for communion, the lights were lowered, a solemn hymn was played, and communion was served by male deacons in dark suits, dark ties, and white shirts. They understood the seriousness of Christ’s table, and they were and are faithful stewards of it.

Second, as we break bread together and drink from the cup together, we honor those mentors, coaches, teachers, and role models who show us how to do things. They encourage us when we are down, and they help us form our faith and our identity.

Paul was Timothy’s mentor, but not the only one. Central to the young pastor’s life were his grandmother and mother. Timothy is the third generation of his family to know Christ. His spiritual heritage is strong. Paul knows that and he uses what he knows to say to Timothy, “Remember who you are and what you have. You can weather this storm. Your family’s faith is strong, and they have passed it on to you. It is a sustaining faith, hold on to it.

As we leave this table today, we can hold onto the faith passed down to us by claiming it as our own.

Empty pews, the scramble for new leadership, the struggle to acquire the resources we need, the cry, “why don’t our children come to church the way they used to”, is testimony to the fact that not every inheritance is claimed. They want to claim their faith but they haven’t found a place to invest it. I wonder if we can be that place? We want to be a church that feeds the spirit of every person that walks through our doors. We want to be the church that tells of the love of God, the compassion of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. We want to be the church that is committed to justice and hope. Let’s open these doors, invite the world in and celebrate when they arrive. However, we cannot share what we do not really possess. God has given us love and grace in abundance and has asked us to share it. It is ours to give away, but first we have to take it as our own.

So if you haven’t already done so, take ownership of your own spiritual growth. The church can provide the tools – classes for learning, worship for praise and reflection, fellowship opportunities for building community, outreach for mission and ministry, evangelism for growth. We can present it – but we each have to claim it for ourselves.

Third, as we leave this table, we leave understanding that God has given each one of us gifts, and God wants us to use our gifts generously. Some of us can name our gifts, others of us are discovering them, they cry to be used or they will wither. Timothy had become discouraged to the point that his gifts for teaching and preaching were little more than glowing embers. “Here is what you do”, Paul says, “stir up the gifts God has given you” (KJV), Paul says. “Rekindle them, put something in them that will bring them back to life. “Fan into flame the gifts of God that are in you” (NIV).

“Paul was not implying that Timothy had been negligent. But he wanted Timothy to know how great were the gifts that had been given too him and how important it was for the future of the church that these gifts be owned, embraced, acted upon, and embodied” (Interpretation series. I & II Timothy and Titus. Thomas C. Oden. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989, p.31). Do you have a longing to stir up a gift that has gone unused for a while? Is there a desire in you to begin again something you used to do? Don’t let that fire die. Rekindle the gift that is in you.

Fourth, remember that using the gifts we have received, honors God. The gifts we use for God help us claim the gifts God has given to us. So while these are fearful times, as we wonder and worry about the state of the world, the state of our health, and the state of our loved ones. But God has not given us a spirit of fear. Instead we have been given the gift of power, there are things we are able to do to transform our church. We have the spirit of love, we can invest our whole being passionately, joyfully, mutually in each other, and we have the gift of self-discipline – we make choices every day about how we will live. Rekindle the gifts.

Fifth, as we rekindle the gifts, we can take from this table, all that God has entrusted to us. We can look out for the world, and for the church, and for each other.

Timothy was a young man in conflict; the church in Corinth was in conflict too. Here is the problem: there were folks in the Corinthian church who were so sure of their own righteousness that they had become arrogant and insensitive to the needs of others in the church especially when they shared a meal together.

Remember, the early church did not observe the Lord’s Supper as we do. It was not a special part of the worship service for them. Instead they shared in an agape meal, an after church that was for the church feast of love and fellowship after the worship service. Bethel Christian Church in Indianapolis has a potluck dinner after church every Sunday. What they do is in the tradition of the meal Paul writes to the Corinthians about, but the Corinthians have forgotten why they have come to the table, and they do not know what to do when they leave.

So the sixth and most important thing we do as we leave this table is to remember why we came to it in the first place. In this cup, and in this bread we remember that Jesus gave himself for the church and that none of us is a church all by ourselves, we are one body, one church in praise of the one Lord and Savior of us all, Jesus Christ.

But some among the Corinthians had forgotten that and were using the agape meal to impress their friends and exclude poorer church members. They were displaying pride instead of Christian hospitality. Some ate till they were stuffed and drank till they were drunk, others had little or nothing.

Imagine if at one of our fellowship dinners, only a few people could sit down and everyone else had to stand. Those of you who have seats eat the best food, drink the best wine, and use the best dishes. Everybody else stands and watches while eating mediocre food off paper plates. It was the custom of the day, but Paul expects better of the church (Interpretation. First Corinthians. Richard B Hays. Louisville: John Knox Press. 1997, p. 196-197).

Paul will not condone such behavior, so he offers a better model. Remember what Jesus did. Remember that he gathered at a meal with his disciples, took bread and making no distinction among them, he gave thanks, and broke it, and said, it is my body for you. He did the same with the cup symbolic of his poured out blood.

We are stewards of this table, keepers of a sacred feast. Our communion table sits at the end of the center aisle, at the foot of the cross. It is central to our worship, whether our service leads to communion as it will today, or whether we observe it earlier in the service so that what comes before prepares us for communion, and what comes after is our response.

Whenever we come to this table, we come knowing that it is not our table. It is Christ’s table, and he invites us to gather around it, to eat and drink and take our leave, filled in spirit to do his work in the world. As we come to this table and as we take our leave of it, may we gather in the name of the one who breaks the bread, pours the wine, bore the cross, was raised from the dead, and who will return in the fullness of God’s time.

We approach this table at the invitation of God through Jesus Christ, we leave it to serve God and God’s people. “Together met, together bound, by all that God has done, we’ll go with joy to give the world the love that sets us free, the love that sets us free” (“I Come With Joy”, verse 5. Words by Brian Wren. Chalice Hymnal, #420).

In the meantime, we claim the gifts and remember the one who is the giver of every gift our spirit has. And as we do, may Jesus Christ be praised. Amen.