Setting the table this Sunday...

We do communion at our church the first Sunday of every month. It's coming up this week. That frequency is just enough to be dangerous. Just enough to open the option of treating it as something commonplace, a ritual that we do because us church type people like rituals. And after all, didn't Jesus tell us to do this?

But there's more to it than just ritual. In a Peanuts cartoon Lucy demanded that Linus change TV channels, threatening him with her fist if he didn’t. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?” asks Linus. “These five fingers,” says Lucy. “Individually they’re nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold.” “Which channel do you want?” asks Linus. Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, “Why can’t you guys get organized like that?” Far too often the church is like of Linus’ fingers. We have amazing potential – we are Christ’s body in the world – but we can’t see to “get organized”. Someone once said that the Christian Army is the only one that spends more time polishing their armor and fighting among themselves than they do actually fighting the enemy.

That’s one reason why communion is so important. It affirms the basic things that we can all agree to. It reminds us of what Jesus did. He came to serve us by giving His life. He died so that we might be forgiven. He rose from the dead to prove that He can transform and empower us. In eating the bread and in drinking the juice we say with believers all over the world that we believe these things to be true, and that we accept this as the only true spiritual nourishment for our hungry souls.

But we also say something else. We say that not only what Jesus did is important, but also the way He did it. He restored us by being broken. He gave us life by dying. In the words of Paul in Philippians, Jesus did

“…nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility (He) consider(ed) others better than (Himself). (He) looked not only to (His) own interests, but also to the interests of others…” (Phil. 2:3-4)

In eating the bread and drinking the juice we say together as one people (along with believers all over the world) – “I believe in Jesus. I believe that my only hope is what He did on my behalf, and that my only purpose is to follow His example.”

This is no empty ritual. The question is, "What do you bring to the table?"