Delivered on January 28, 2024.
So it’s my tradition after the prayer of the day to bring a message to all of God’s children. And I want to talk a little bit about communion with you. Earlier this week I had a conversation with a friend who is Episcopal priest. That means she’s a pastor for a different flavor of Christianity known as Episcopalian. Lutherans and Episcopalians talk about Jesus in very similar ways which is why there are Episcopalian priests serving as pastors in Lutheran churches and Lutheran pastors serving as priests in Episcopal churches. But we tend to emphasize different things – and what we emphasize might be why the Holy Spirit brings us into faith traditions we didn’t grow up in. She wanted to know what I would do if we ran into a certain situation – and the question is so good, and so practical, I thought we’d talk about it to.
So let’s go up to the altar and look at what we use for communion. Go to the altar. Unwrap everything. We have bread – and gluten-free wafers. We have individual cups filled with red wine and white grape juice. If you look at what we have here and you look at the folks here at church – do you think we have enough to serve everyone? Yes. I think so to. So later on, we’ll all stand up and I’ll share some prayers over the bread and drink and we’ll talk about Jesus being this bread – not as a metaphor but really this bread because Jesus says he is. It’s an odd thing for Jesus to say and the bread or wafer will taste exactly as bread and wafer. But it’s a promise he makes and a promise we trust cuz Jesus is with us all the way.
Yet let’s use our imagination. What would happen if I spilled all the drink? What would happen if I dropped the bread? What would happen if we didn’t have enough bread and drink for all the people who were here? What would we do? Get more! We would go to the sacristy or the fridge or the altar guild room and get more. But all that bread and drink wasn’t here when we said the words and said the prayers. So what would we need to do? Would we need to stop feeding people and go through the prayers again? Accept answers.
Here’s where our Lutheran focus comes into view and it has to do with something Jesus says. When Jesus was talking to his friends, offering bread and wine – he said this was “for you.” And that’s what we emphasize. Jesus offered love and grace, his body and blood, his very self on the Cross – for us and for the world. Jesus loves you. Jesus died for you. Jesus showed what loves look like for you. And when we serve communion – that’s for you. So we wouldn’t need to say the prayers again or chat or anything like that. We would just do what Jesus did and offer it to people who need to know they are loved and valued no matter what.