Small Church Communion
Meditations
FINGERPRINTS ON THE CHALICE
Contemporary Communion Meditations
A while ago I attended a wedding at a Roman Catholic church on suburban Long Island. I had never been there before, and when I drove into the parking lot and saw the church, I was stunned. It was huge, almost twice as big as the high school I attended, where our graduating class consisted of 76 students.
Inside it was more of the same. The sanctuary was like a small cathedral and it awed me. It could seat between 1,500 and 2,000 comfortably, and the 125 who came for the wedding were swallowed up in it. The parish newsletter I picked up at the front door stated that there had been forty-one baptisms in the church -- during the month of June! I wondered what it would be like to be a pastor there and to serve Communion on Sunday morning to a small intimate group of 1,300 -- then repeat it at the second mass, and the third, and the fourth.
Let me answer that myself. It would be cold and impersonal. I certainly wouldn't know everyone by name or even be able to recognize most of them by face. As has become the case in many large Protestant churches as well, the focus would not be on true community for the Communion, but on individual and personalized religion -- each person trying to get him/her self right with God. Somewhere in the Middle Ages we got headed wrongly into that direction (individuality); and later, particularly in this century as large churches developed, things got further depersonlized and further away from a theme of community. it's ironic that the more people there are in a group, the less it acts as a community, and the more alone its individuals feel. I believe the small church is the right size for worship and for a common-meal type of Communion together, whether it be at a table or at an altar rail, or even in the pews where we can see each other and nod and smile and touch. I believe it so strongly -- the worth of the small church, that is -- that I'd even go so far as to say that large churches are the wrong size for Communion. I also believe that even in many of our churches -- large and small alike -- we've strayed pretty far from what the communion -- the eucharista or thanksgiving meal -- was all about. And that's too bad, because our small churches are just the right size for experiencing God in community.
Have you ever wondered what the church service might have been like in the early days of the church? Justin, the Christian apologist, has given us a descirption of the Sunday service at his small church in Rome around A.D. 150.
On the day which is called Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the countryside gather together in one place. And the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets [scripture] are read as long as there is time. Then, when the reader has finished, the president [preacher], in a discourse [sermon], admonishes and invites the people to practice these examples of virtue. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers. And, as we mentioned before, when we have finished the prayer, bread is presented, and wine with water [Communion]; the president likewise offers up prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability, and the people assent by saying, Amen. The elements which have been 'eucharistized' are distributed and received by each one; and they are sent to the absent by the deacons [home Communion]. Those who are prosperous, if they wish, contribute what each one deems appropriate; and the collection is deposited with the president; and he takes care of the orphans and widows, and those who are needy because of sickness or other cause, and the captives, and the strangers who sojourn amongst us -- in brief, he is the curate of all who are in need. (Bard Thompson, ed. Liturgies of the Western Church, Cleveland. World, Meridian Books, 1962.)
Justin's description is of an intimate and joyful act of thanksgiving, one done not individually but in community. He doesn't speak of isolated worshipers independently interacting with the priest, each with his or her separate little bland-tasting wafer or mini-cup of juice, never casting a glance at the person beside or behind. Justin is describing a corporate experience here, a Communion of community, the action of an intimate group of believers -- and perhaps non-believers or others struggling to believe or to search out their faith -- who all share together, pray together, live together, and eat and drink and give thanks together. They're active, not passive, in their ministering as the Body of Christ. They have a sense of who they are together as the 'family of God.'
William Willimon and Robert Wilson don't pull any punches in their book, Preaching and Worship in the Small Church (Nashville: Abingdon Creative Leadership Series, Lyle Schaller ed., 1980). In a section praising the latest printed Communion materials they say:
Simply stated, these new services illustrate that contemporary liturgical renewal is taking its cue from the period before the church became big, successful, and respectable;… pompous, dramatic, and extravagant;… Directives for contemporary worship renewal are coming from a church that was then still a family, gathered around a family table, eating a family meal. (pp. 65-66)
If we look at today's scripture reading from the Book of Acts, we can see that the Communion, the Eucharistic meal, wasn't just a 'religious' observance, a separate liturgy in the back of a hymnal; nor was it a separate service printed in a book of liturgies. It was the regular gathering of the small church to celebrate, receive, and pass on the gifts of God. Scripture was spoken from memory or read, concerns were shared, prayers were offered, a sermon was preached, a collection was taken, a meal was shared, and the needs of those who were hurting were seen to.
Doesn't that sound like our usual worship service in a small church? There was nobody off in a corner alone, meeting with the priest or 'president' to drink a little of what some in the later church called 'the medicine of immortaltiy.' No, life and all of life's gifts were of God, Christ was of God, and these were shared in community. The emphases were not on individual penance or individual salvation, but on eucharista or thanksgiving, and on koinonia or fellowship, and on the coming of the Kingdom of God -- all experienced in community.
In fact, in a letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul admonishes the Corinthians for distorting communion by idion diepnon -- 'eating the selfish meal' or 'eating your own meal' -- seeking to stuff their mouths with as much 'heavenly food' as they can, rather than the communal kurakon diepnon or 'Lord's Supper.'
William Willimon, in Worship as Pastoral Care (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), makes a sharp observation:
You have heard it said that the family that prays together stays together. I say to you that the family that eats together stays together.
Could the contemporary breakdown of many of our families be attributed to our families' so rarely eating together?…
Little wonder that love and unity are difficult for us. We cannot share something even so basic as bread.
And if mealtimes are basic for the unity and maintenance of human families, how much more basic is this table fellowship for the family of God. Something sacred happens to people who have shared food and drink.
Wow! That bears repeating. What an incredible thought! 'Something sacred happens to people who have shared food and drink.'
Willimon continues:
All across cultures and faiths, the act of eating together is a universal sign of unity and love. Jesus knew this. One need only recall the progression of meals in the Gospels in which he ate with saints and sinners to be reminded of the centrality of table fellowship and the symbolic power of sharing food and drink… Nor is it surprising to find the early church, when it gathered for Sunday worship, gathered not in the temple but at the table. (Pages166-167)
To you I say this: The small church has been shortchanged of late, sold out in favor of the numbers game and hurt by unfair comparisons to the large church. A terrible, grievous, and unfortunate mistake has been made, because the small churches -- and not cathedrals like the one I was in during the first week in August for a wedding -- are the right size for meaningful worship, for genuine community, for experiential education, for lifegiving support -- in short, for true, intimate, spiritual communion.
I've given you some scriptural and historical background, and I've appealed to you by intellectual argument. But there's more to be said in favor of small churches and community-style Communion. However, it's not intellectual; it's more emotional. It's what happens in a true community on a human level. So let me close with an example that probably could never have happened in a cathedral-size church.
Ruthie attended one of the small churches I pastored in the western mountains of Maine. She was in her early fifties, though she acted more like an eight-year-old. She was described to me as 'borderline retarded.' Ruthie could read haltingly at the most basic level, but she couldn't comprehend what she had just read. She lived with her mother and, because she wasn't capable of taking care of herself, family members and friends in the area would look in on her regularly.
Ruthie loved being part of things, though. And Ruthie especially loved church. At church everybody knew her by name and knew what Ruthie was like.
Each Sunday when it was time to sing the hymns, Ruthie would stand between her mother and her aunt, singing along. She'd have her hymnbook open to the right page, but she couldn't read the verses fast enough to keep up. The open hymnal was so she'd be like everyone else. Usually, though, our worship service would include a song Ruthie knew by heart, and her face would take on this huge, glowing smile, and she'd really belt it out -- always louder than the congregation and in her unique, shrill, off-key voice. Ruthie was definitely a character.
Thinking myself to be an innovative pastor, I decided one day to do Communion in a different, more 'meaningful' way. We usually alternated between going to the rail and having it served in the pews. This time I asked folks to form a circle around the sanctuary and link hands. We would say a prayer and I'd pass the bread around, asking each person to take a piece and wait for the silver chalice to come to them. They were to then dip the bread into the chalice, eat the purple bread, and pass the chalice to their neighbor. It would symbolize Christian unity and sharing and lots of other good things.
Ruthie wasn't there just then. She and her mother were downstairs plugging in the coffee pot and arranging the cookies for the fellowship time that would follow the service. Ruthie loved to do the cookie arranging, expecially if she had those wafers that were chocolate on one side and vanilla on the flip side. That way she could use them whichever way she wanted to make lots of nifty designs.
Everything went smoothly. I started the bread to the left and people took a polite little piece each. Then the chalice got started on its way around, being passed very carefully, because the grape juice was more than three-quarters of the way to the rim. People dipped their bread and ate. We were quiet and solemn -- almost somber -- as if we were meeting clandestinely in the catacombs or doing something of great import to the world.
Just as the chalice got halfway around this large circle of forty people, the sanctuary doors opened and Ruthie stepped through. Her entrance placed her right opposite me. She was caught off-guard by this unfamiliar configuration. I could see the confusion in her eyes. What made it harder was that the woman right beside her had the chalice, and, without thinking, she handed it to Ruthie first thing. Ruthie had no model to follow, so she cradled the silver chalice in her hands. Her face seemed to ask, 'What do I do, Pastor Steve?'
I smiled one of those too-kind, gentle-Jesus, pastoral smiles and tried to prompt her in my mildest ministerial voice, saying, 'The blood of Christ, Ruthie. Take, and drink.'
With that, Ruthie's eyes lit up. She looked down into the chalice, put her lips to it, and drank the whole thing!
Our jaws dropped and our mouths flew wide in disbelief! But by then she was finished. There stood Ruthie Phillips -- empty chalice in her hands, a huge ear-to-ear smile on her face, and a big grape-juice mustache on her upper lip.
But what's important is what came next. The chalice kept going, kept getting passed -- and each person after Ruthie pretended to dip his or her piece of bread in the chalice, then ate it. We joined hands, said the Lord's Prayer together, I said the benediction, and everyone hugged spontaneously. Then we went downstairs for coffee and ate the cookies which Ruthie had arranged, complimenting her on the nice patterns.
It wouldn't have happened in a large church. It happened because we were a small church and everyone knew Ruthie. It happened because of community.
Maybe that simple story says more about Communion than all the arguments, apologies, and treatises ever written. It works for me.
I hope this morning, as we join together for Sunday dinner as the family of God, you'll not be afraid to smile at the deacon who serves you, or to look at your neighbor beside you or behind you as you partake. And when you do, give thanks. For God's sake, give thanks… for that person individually and for the Communion of saints.
Inside it was more of the same. The sanctuary was like a small cathedral and it awed me. It could seat between 1,500 and 2,000 comfortably, and the 125 who came for the wedding were swallowed up in it. The parish newsletter I picked up at the front door stated that there had been forty-one baptisms in the church -- during the month of June! I wondered what it would be like to be a pastor there and to serve Communion on Sunday morning to a small intimate group of 1,300 -- then repeat it at the second mass, and the third, and the fourth.
Let me answer that myself. It would be cold and impersonal. I certainly wouldn't know everyone by name or even be able to recognize most of them by face. As has become the case in many large Protestant churches as well, the focus would not be on true community for the Communion, but on individual and personalized religion -- each person trying to get him/her self right with God. Somewhere in the Middle Ages we got headed wrongly into that direction (individuality); and later, particularly in this century as large churches developed, things got further depersonlized and further away from a theme of community. it's ironic that the more people there are in a group, the less it acts as a community, and the more alone its individuals feel. I believe the small church is the right size for worship and for a common-meal type of Communion together, whether it be at a table or at an altar rail, or even in the pews where we can see each other and nod and smile and touch. I believe it so strongly -- the worth of the small church, that is -- that I'd even go so far as to say that large churches are the wrong size for Communion. I also believe that even in many of our churches -- large and small alike -- we've strayed pretty far from what the communion -- the eucharista or thanksgiving meal -- was all about. And that's too bad, because our small churches are just the right size for experiencing God in community.
Have you ever wondered what the church service might have been like in the early days of the church? Justin, the Christian apologist, has given us a descirption of the Sunday service at his small church in Rome around A.D. 150.
On the day which is called Sunday, all who live in the cities or in the countryside gather together in one place. And the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets [scripture] are read as long as there is time. Then, when the reader has finished, the president [preacher], in a discourse [sermon], admonishes and invites the people to practice these examples of virtue. Then we all stand up together and offer prayers. And, as we mentioned before, when we have finished the prayer, bread is presented, and wine with water [Communion]; the president likewise offers up prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability, and the people assent by saying, Amen. The elements which have been 'eucharistized' are distributed and received by each one; and they are sent to the absent by the deacons [home Communion]. Those who are prosperous, if they wish, contribute what each one deems appropriate; and the collection is deposited with the president; and he takes care of the orphans and widows, and those who are needy because of sickness or other cause, and the captives, and the strangers who sojourn amongst us -- in brief, he is the curate of all who are in need. (Bard Thompson, ed. Liturgies of the Western Church, Cleveland. World, Meridian Books, 1962.)
Justin's description is of an intimate and joyful act of thanksgiving, one done not individually but in community. He doesn't speak of isolated worshipers independently interacting with the priest, each with his or her separate little bland-tasting wafer or mini-cup of juice, never casting a glance at the person beside or behind. Justin is describing a corporate experience here, a Communion of community, the action of an intimate group of believers -- and perhaps non-believers or others struggling to believe or to search out their faith -- who all share together, pray together, live together, and eat and drink and give thanks together. They're active, not passive, in their ministering as the Body of Christ. They have a sense of who they are together as the 'family of God.'
William Willimon and Robert Wilson don't pull any punches in their book, Preaching and Worship in the Small Church (Nashville: Abingdon Creative Leadership Series, Lyle Schaller ed., 1980). In a section praising the latest printed Communion materials they say:
Simply stated, these new services illustrate that contemporary liturgical renewal is taking its cue from the period before the church became big, successful, and respectable;… pompous, dramatic, and extravagant;… Directives for contemporary worship renewal are coming from a church that was then still a family, gathered around a family table, eating a family meal. (pp. 65-66)
If we look at today's scripture reading from the Book of Acts, we can see that the Communion, the Eucharistic meal, wasn't just a 'religious' observance, a separate liturgy in the back of a hymnal; nor was it a separate service printed in a book of liturgies. It was the regular gathering of the small church to celebrate, receive, and pass on the gifts of God. Scripture was spoken from memory or read, concerns were shared, prayers were offered, a sermon was preached, a collection was taken, a meal was shared, and the needs of those who were hurting were seen to.
Doesn't that sound like our usual worship service in a small church? There was nobody off in a corner alone, meeting with the priest or 'president' to drink a little of what some in the later church called 'the medicine of immortaltiy.' No, life and all of life's gifts were of God, Christ was of God, and these were shared in community. The emphases were not on individual penance or individual salvation, but on eucharista or thanksgiving, and on koinonia or fellowship, and on the coming of the Kingdom of God -- all experienced in community.
In fact, in a letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul admonishes the Corinthians for distorting communion by idion diepnon -- 'eating the selfish meal' or 'eating your own meal' -- seeking to stuff their mouths with as much 'heavenly food' as they can, rather than the communal kurakon diepnon or 'Lord's Supper.'
William Willimon, in Worship as Pastoral Care (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), makes a sharp observation:
You have heard it said that the family that prays together stays together. I say to you that the family that eats together stays together.
Could the contemporary breakdown of many of our families be attributed to our families' so rarely eating together?…
Little wonder that love and unity are difficult for us. We cannot share something even so basic as bread.
And if mealtimes are basic for the unity and maintenance of human families, how much more basic is this table fellowship for the family of God. Something sacred happens to people who have shared food and drink.
Wow! That bears repeating. What an incredible thought! 'Something sacred happens to people who have shared food and drink.'
Willimon continues:
All across cultures and faiths, the act of eating together is a universal sign of unity and love. Jesus knew this. One need only recall the progression of meals in the Gospels in which he ate with saints and sinners to be reminded of the centrality of table fellowship and the symbolic power of sharing food and drink… Nor is it surprising to find the early church, when it gathered for Sunday worship, gathered not in the temple but at the table. (Pages166-167)
To you I say this: The small church has been shortchanged of late, sold out in favor of the numbers game and hurt by unfair comparisons to the large church. A terrible, grievous, and unfortunate mistake has been made, because the small churches -- and not cathedrals like the one I was in during the first week in August for a wedding -- are the right size for meaningful worship, for genuine community, for experiential education, for lifegiving support -- in short, for true, intimate, spiritual communion.
I've given you some scriptural and historical background, and I've appealed to you by intellectual argument. But there's more to be said in favor of small churches and community-style Communion. However, it's not intellectual; it's more emotional. It's what happens in a true community on a human level. So let me close with an example that probably could never have happened in a cathedral-size church.
Ruthie attended one of the small churches I pastored in the western mountains of Maine. She was in her early fifties, though she acted more like an eight-year-old. She was described to me as 'borderline retarded.' Ruthie could read haltingly at the most basic level, but she couldn't comprehend what she had just read. She lived with her mother and, because she wasn't capable of taking care of herself, family members and friends in the area would look in on her regularly.
Ruthie loved being part of things, though. And Ruthie especially loved church. At church everybody knew her by name and knew what Ruthie was like.
Each Sunday when it was time to sing the hymns, Ruthie would stand between her mother and her aunt, singing along. She'd have her hymnbook open to the right page, but she couldn't read the verses fast enough to keep up. The open hymnal was so she'd be like everyone else. Usually, though, our worship service would include a song Ruthie knew by heart, and her face would take on this huge, glowing smile, and she'd really belt it out -- always louder than the congregation and in her unique, shrill, off-key voice. Ruthie was definitely a character.
Thinking myself to be an innovative pastor, I decided one day to do Communion in a different, more 'meaningful' way. We usually alternated between going to the rail and having it served in the pews. This time I asked folks to form a circle around the sanctuary and link hands. We would say a prayer and I'd pass the bread around, asking each person to take a piece and wait for the silver chalice to come to them. They were to then dip the bread into the chalice, eat the purple bread, and pass the chalice to their neighbor. It would symbolize Christian unity and sharing and lots of other good things.
Ruthie wasn't there just then. She and her mother were downstairs plugging in the coffee pot and arranging the cookies for the fellowship time that would follow the service. Ruthie loved to do the cookie arranging, expecially if she had those wafers that were chocolate on one side and vanilla on the flip side. That way she could use them whichever way she wanted to make lots of nifty designs.
Everything went smoothly. I started the bread to the left and people took a polite little piece each. Then the chalice got started on its way around, being passed very carefully, because the grape juice was more than three-quarters of the way to the rim. People dipped their bread and ate. We were quiet and solemn -- almost somber -- as if we were meeting clandestinely in the catacombs or doing something of great import to the world.
Just as the chalice got halfway around this large circle of forty people, the sanctuary doors opened and Ruthie stepped through. Her entrance placed her right opposite me. She was caught off-guard by this unfamiliar configuration. I could see the confusion in her eyes. What made it harder was that the woman right beside her had the chalice, and, without thinking, she handed it to Ruthie first thing. Ruthie had no model to follow, so she cradled the silver chalice in her hands. Her face seemed to ask, 'What do I do, Pastor Steve?'
I smiled one of those too-kind, gentle-Jesus, pastoral smiles and tried to prompt her in my mildest ministerial voice, saying, 'The blood of Christ, Ruthie. Take, and drink.'
With that, Ruthie's eyes lit up. She looked down into the chalice, put her lips to it, and drank the whole thing!
Our jaws dropped and our mouths flew wide in disbelief! But by then she was finished. There stood Ruthie Phillips -- empty chalice in her hands, a huge ear-to-ear smile on her face, and a big grape-juice mustache on her upper lip.
But what's important is what came next. The chalice kept going, kept getting passed -- and each person after Ruthie pretended to dip his or her piece of bread in the chalice, then ate it. We joined hands, said the Lord's Prayer together, I said the benediction, and everyone hugged spontaneously. Then we went downstairs for coffee and ate the cookies which Ruthie had arranged, complimenting her on the nice patterns.
It wouldn't have happened in a large church. It happened because we were a small church and everyone knew Ruthie. It happened because of community.
Maybe that simple story says more about Communion than all the arguments, apologies, and treatises ever written. It works for me.
I hope this morning, as we join together for Sunday dinner as the family of God, you'll not be afraid to smile at the deacon who serves you, or to look at your neighbor beside you or behind you as you partake. And when you do, give thanks. For God's sake, give thanks… for that person individually and for the Communion of saints.
