Communion: ordinary or extraordinary?
How much for granted do we take the symbols of faith? I've been working on my sermon for Sunday and will be preaching on Communion, "The Mysterious Meal." It has been interesting to read from the United Methodist Church's statement in This Holy Mystery as well as John Wesley's Sermon The Duty of Constant Communion. What strikes me isn't that they differ but in how similar they are.
As much as has been stripped away from worship, our tradition holds we take nothing away from Communion. In fact, it is one of the two most important 'means of grace.'
I have found Communion to impact deeply people's lives as well as my own. Communion is much more than just a mere symbol to the Christian Church. But what about other symbols and lesser traditions? What other symbols of faith have been taken for granted? What of stained glass? Icons? Incense?
There is so much more mystery in the world and opportunity to see God in the ordinary than I think we realize. I've been excited and renewed by reflecting more on how Jesus took the ordinary and made it extraordinary. It might be He is ready and wants to do the same for us today and in worship this Sunday.
Here's to the ordinary!
May I Ask:What ordinary event or thing recently made you pause and reflect? Why?May I Suggest:Pick something today like brushing your teeth or turning on your computer and make it "holy" time. Give thanks to God for that moment and event and invite God to make it extraordinary!
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3 comments:
I love "This Holy Mystery". It's great, and free throught the UMC website. I love the part that talks about the greek word for rememberance, when Jesus says "Do this in rememberance of me". It says that word doesn't refer to a mere physical remembering, but rather a mystical rememberance, where we are afforded the opportunity to enter into Calvary. Anyways. blah blah blah. I wish we had Communion more often, and talked about what it means more. So rock on with your sermon this week!
We do tend to have communion once a month, except during the "High Holy Days" (Lent and Advent, mainly), when we have it each week. I think "This Holy Mystery" is a great document, pointing us all toward the mystery that is the Incarnation - not a simple, formulaic, proof-text kind of thing, but a wild, untamed, unknowable mystery...but one that is to be discovered in community, as when we gather around the table. I never feel closer to my sisters and brothers than when we are gathered around a table, whether that be a formal communion table or a simple shared meal.
i have been reading 'velvet elvis' by rob bell and he makes the same point that brandon noted about nature of 'rememberance'... he made the comparison (of intensity) to jews 'remembering' the holocaust... when we take communion, there is a level of participation at calvary... a sense of ownership... even a sense of the agony that Jesus bore on the cross... and it all points us to what it meant... the reason for it all... restored relationship with Daddy God. when we have this kind of 'rememberance', it certainly puts things into (or back into) perspective.
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