Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from October 01, 2006

“An Ever-Growing Circle”

Rev. Patricia L. Liberty

Scriptures:

Mark 9:38-50

A group of new arrivals were being given a guided tour around heaven.  They were wide-eyed as they took in the many expressions of joy and peace that were evident everywhere around them.  At the end of a very long room, a hallway went off to the right.  The tour guide instructed everyone to be very quiet.  She said, “This is the Baptist wing and they think they’re the only ones here.”

As a recovering Baptist, not only can I tell the joke but I can also attest to the kernel of truth that rests in it.  Of course, you can probably substitute just about any religious tradition for the punch line and poke a bit of fun at the denominational triumph that smacks of “My church is better than your church”.   Certainly, heaven is not the only place where it plays out.  Battles between religious conservatives and liberals, the religious right (and I always wonder what’s the opposite of that—the religious wrong?).  I guess they probably like to think so.

We spend a lot of time pointing back and forth but as Candice Chellew wrote in her lectionary blog this week, “No one has the keys to heaven but God.  No one swings wide the door except God.”  We all think we found the key—our beliefs will get us there; our actions will secure our place in heaven and we must, at all costs, defeat and work against those who disagree with us.  For many liberal Christians, the enemy is the religious right.  Battle cries become “Fight the right.  For more conservative Christians, fighting against civil rights for all persons has come to symbolize what will fix what’s wrong with America today.  By pitting one against the other, though, we all lose a truth and it is this:  We are all God’s children and we are called to love one another, not just those with similar beliefs.

Today, Christians all over the world will gather at this table to celebrate one truth known by many names.  In some places, it will be called Eucharist; in others, Communion.  Some will call it the Love Feast.  Some call it the Table of the Lord or the Lord’s Supper.  As varied as the titles are for what we do today, so will be the means by which our sisters and brothers come to the table:  all kinds of bread and wine offered, and the understanding that people and their pastors, priests, and ministers will have of what they are doing is equally diverse.

Some will come forward to receive unleavened bread in the form of a wafer into the palm of their hands.  They may or may not sip from the cup which may be wine or unfermented grape juice or some other beverage in places where grape is unknown.  Some will tear a piece from a broken loaf and dip it into a common cup as we do at Saturday Worship.  Still others, like we do today, will  stay seated in their pews and be served pieces of bread and small individual cups.  Some will gather in the midst of a jungle clearing or forest or at the edge of a river.  Some, today, will regard the bread and the wine after words of consecration are spoken as the actual body and blood of Jesus.  Some will regard the sacrament as a memorial and see Jesus spiritually present.

There will be numerous differences, some quite profound, in how our sisters and brothers around the world view the sacrament.  Some will think that their way of doing it is the only right way to do it.  Some traditions welcome only those who are members of their particular church.  Some welcome very young children, even babies.  It’s as varied as there are people who come to the table.  But one thing we will agree on, in some way, shape or form, is that remembering Jesus is important and that, for all of the things that make us different, the very fact of gathering at the table makes us alike.

Daniel Clendenin writes, “World Communion Sunday affords Christians an opportunity to confess our propensity to exclude people who are different from us.”  As the disciples complained to Jesus about the anonymous healer, “He’s not one of us, you know” so we have a tendency to default to our insecurities about those whom we find strange.  To our own ignorance, fear and, sometimes, our sincere yet uninformed stereotyping.  Instead, he encourages we do well to celebrate the considerable diversity that exists both within and among our Christian tradition.

That is precisely the intent of World Communion Sunday.  Originally, a Presbyterian observance began in 1936.  The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, which is the predecessor body for the World Council of Churches, established Worldwide Communion Sunday in 1940 as a global interdenominational event.  Other denominations, prompted by the impact of World War II, added a special fellowship offering to alleviate world suffering.  The Methodists began their Fellowship of Suffering and Service and our own roots of Neighbors in Need reached back to that time.  In 1971, the name was changed simply to World Communion Sunday.

According to the National Council of Churches press release this week, the day has taken on new relevancy and depth of meaning in a world where globalization often has undermined peace and justice and in a time when fear divides the peoples of God’s earth.  On this day, we celebrate our oneness in Christ, the Prince of Peace.  In the midst of the world, we are called to serve a world ever more in need of peacemaking.

Some from our wider UCC fellowship have taken the spirit of peacemaking inherent in World Communion Sunday to new heights.  Now, if you think it’s hard to get a bunch of different denominations around the same table for communion, imagine how far outside the box and, at least to my way of thinking, closer to the heart of God these observances are. 

Two Muslim women, refugees from Kosovo, baked the bread for communion Sunday at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.  The Rev. Harry Serio ,who’s the pastor, wrote, “It is the most elemental thing we share:  bread.”  The two bakers, who normally worship at a mosque in Allentown, remained with the congregation and shared the sacrament with them, a symbol of their unity as children of Abraham.

Members of the Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Austin, Texas have recently begun standing guard outside a nearby mosque while their Muslim neighbors worship.  It comes after an article in a newspaper reporting that several Muslim women felt unsafe as they walked from their homes nearby to the mosque.  The Rev. Tom Van de Stadt , who is the church pastor, said, “We decided to stand with our sisters and brothers in an act of solidarity in the hope that we might be more proactive than reactive and lead the way in peacemaking.”

This year, there is a happy confluence of tradition for all of the children of Abraham.  Christians today celebrate World Communion Sunday.  Muslims are in the midst of the month of Ramadan, a month of fasting.  The Jewish celebration of Yom Kippur begins this evening at sundown on the fifth day of Rosh Hashanah.  Each, in his own way, celebrates the love of God, the call to faithfulness, the presence of God in the affairs of humankind, the creation, the desire for peace, justice and reconciliation.

The fast of Ramadan is an invitation for faithful Muslims to focus on their faith and to spend less time on the concerns of their daily lives.  They hold a strict fast throughout the day for thirty days.  The fast is broken after sunset each night and is marked by time visiting with family and friends.  Oftentimes, leaders from the mosque are present all day long leading the people in extra prayers in addition to those they say on a daily basis.  Yom Kippur is the most solemn of all Jewish holidays.  It’s a day of atonement when one resolves to live closer to God’s intent.  It is a day of fasting, reflection, and prayer.

Our fellowship around this table is every bit as rich with a varying perspective that each of you bring from the traditions that have nurtured your faith.  But as we come together here in remembrance of one who made something as common as bread holy and something as joyous as wine blessed.  We can remember that we, too, are holy and blessed as ones made in God’s image and called according to God’s purpose.

So come now and gather at the table for all things are ready and this is the table of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.