Ok, someone please explain to me about the phobia that people have surrounding communion. Tonight, I had a note on my desk that someone was not attending church anymore because of the way we serve communion. Seriously? We have thought of everything- we take via intinction, like most UM churches- tear a piece of bread, dip it in the juice, take both elements at once, move on to the prayer railing or back to your seat. For awhile we had each person tear their own piece off, and we got complaints about that. So we switched to just the pastors tearing off the piece of bread instead, which seemed to please people. We even offer the individual bread and little cup option off to the side for people who don't want to receive from the big loaf. And we still get complaints!
I understand in this day in age that people are concerned about germs getting passed around, etc. But I don't really understand the utter disgust and phobia around the communion thing. Communion is not a time to be worrying about germs or other strange things. It is a time to focus on the grace that God gives to us in spite of ourselves. It is a time to gather as a family of faith and to love one another. Not a time to worry about what cooties the person in front of you might be carrying.
We have had a lot of discussion in our young women's Bible study about distractions in worship and how we can overcome the pettiness that church can become and to truly worship and discern what God is saying to us in worship. Tonight we talked about how we are beautiful to God when we truly come to worship and worship with our hearts- not focusing on what so and so is wearing or worrying about the flowers or the flag placement or whether or not the band instruments are covered....or that we don't take communion the "right" way.
How have we gotten so off track? Is there hope for the church?
Lord, send your Redeeming Spirit.
1 comment:
Hi Jill- I'd like to say that it is a unique experience, but I haven't been to a church where there hasn't been some complaints about it. Unfortunately, I do not believe this is the kind of thing logic or statistics will prevail over. One church I attended very obviously had each person but anti-bacterial lotion on before starting communion service. That seemed to reassure most.
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