"And when he was at table..." (again)

-- I've been talking abut the appearance of Communion tables in churches during Sunday worship.  This all began with my post dated July 14 of this year. -- 

The other stuff on the table, is it “proper?”  Nope.  I would grudgingly give in to the placement of a cross on the table, but if and only if there was no other visible cross in the chancel area of the sanctuary.  If there is a large cross on the wall (or suspended from the ceiling) or even a processional cross up front, the table cross becomes redundant.  And I can tell you from experience that celebrating communion while working around a table cross is somewhere in between inconvenient and impossible.
 
Sometimes we treat the table as an “altar.”  Altar is a terribly misunderstood word in many of our churches.  We sometimes use it to refer to the kneeler or kneeling rail at the front of the chancel.  Some label the Communion table as altar.  Truth be known, many in the church use the term “altar” without clarity or understanding.  A church that has a true altar has a furnishing, usually a solid block without legs that the church situates against the wall at the back of the chancel area.  There it houses Communion elements but nothing else.  If we look at the biblical description of an altar, it is a place where animals are killed and then set on fire as an offering to God.  I honestly can't remember the last time I saw this in a Christian church.
 
This is not a place for full – or empty – offering plates.  The table is not a resting place for stuff when we have no idea what to do with it.  

Again, as I worshipped in a particular church several years ago, the preacher would come out of the pulpit (for whatever reason) and prop his computer tablet on the table and refer to his sermon notes while he stood alongside the table.
 
The way a portion of the church treats the Communion table causes the table to lose its sense of the holy.  It is as if the body and blood of Christ have equal standing with flowers and offering plates.  It causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble…
 
Dr. James F. White was one of the giants of the liturgical movement in The United Methodist Church and beyond a few years ago.  He made an observation that has always stayed with me.  He said, “Show me a church that has an open Bible on the table, and I’ll show you a church that doesn’t use either one.”
 

“Ah, Rick!  All of a sudden in retirement you’ve got too much time on your hands and now you are becoming a curmudgeon!”  Maybe.  But when the church ceases to treat sacred things as holy and everything becomes plain vanilla then we lose an appreciation of the divine.  Please, please, don’t stand for that.  Don’t let it happen. 
 
Lord, have mercy!
Christ, have mercy!
Lord, have mercy!

 

 

"And when he was at table..."

Well, almost everybody who knows me has heard that I am in the very early days of my retirement.  After 51(!) years in the pulpit, I now attend worship from the other side of the chancel rail.  I’ll have to admit that it is different.

I also know that there is more than one way to do things in worship, and one is not necessarily more “right” or “correct” than the other.  I am a decorated veteran of the worship wars so I am aware that one has to make a differentiation between preference and true tradition.

Having said that, I have a couple of observations regarding the church in which I worshipped this past Sunday.  I won’t name names, because I don’t want to get into that sort of controversy.  Rather, let me describe what I saw when I went into this particular sanctuary.  It has a divided chancel – which I much prefer.  On the platform, between the pulpit on congregation left and the lectern on the right stood a Communion Table.  It is an impressive piece of furniture, a large substantial pedestal-type table. It has plenty of room and I can imagine presiding at such a table.  On the table stood a brass cross¸ even as the entire table stands underneath a massive wooden cross that hangs from the ceiling.  There is also a processional cross standing on the platform, though no one carried it in or out for this service.  But, as I say, the large cross sat on the table.  To the worshippers' left on the table was a large open Bible, propped at an upright angle that almost defied gravity.  On the right side of the table was an enormous flower arrangement (at least they were true cut flowers and not plastic).  As the service progressed the time came to receive the morning offering.  After the singing of the Doxology, the pastor took the offering plates and placed them on the table behind the Bible.

I suppose that, at this point, I should distinguish between my understanding of the table and a “worship center.”  Worship center is not an historical part of our worship.  Visuals are vital to our worship experience.  But that includes paraments, banners, flowers and other appointments that we may use in our sanctuaries or worship areas.  Please notice that I describe these elements as “appointments.”  Each of these items make their contribution – individually and as part of a collective – to the worship of God.  They are not “decorations.”  We do not seek to make our worship space “pretty.”  The presence – and absence – of these visuals make a statement about the particular day’s gathering.  And, there are many appropriate platforms for the presentation of these pieces.

That does not, DOES NOT, include scattering the Communion table with all manner of flotsam.  I attended a particular church service during Advent several years ago.  This Communion table housed an Advent Wreath, a creche, flowers, offering plates, Upper Room devotional booklets and a bit more.  I was in this church on a Sunday when this congregation celebrated Communion.  While the Communion table sat on the platform with this hodge-podge of clutter, the church had set up a plastic folding table on the floor of the chancel area.  There they situated the bread and cup.  This church relegated the body and blood of Christ to a subordinate, almost invisible, place in its sanctuary.  (It still gives me shivers.)

So, traditionally what DOES belong on the table proper?  The Communion elements find their place there, of course.  What else?  Nothing.  Nothing else. (I make exception here for seasonal paraments or the traditional fair linen as they almost serve as being a part of the table itself  If a meal table has a tablecloth, that is most appropriate.)  You can make an argument for candles, though freestanding candles at each end of the table would be better.  Parenthetically, we might ask, “Why candles in the first place?”  The madey-uppy answer that those who don’t really know is, “They remind us of the time in our history when the church met in catacombs in order to avoid persecution.”  That is interesting, of course.  But when so many of our churches ignore two thousand years of tradition, why hold on to a vague recollection of a time of persecution?  Do we find ourselves in solidarity with those – historical and contemporary – who endured persecution?  That is not a bad question on which to meditate.

But that is not why candles find their place on our tables.  It does harken to a piece of church history, although much more mundane than systematic persecution.  Why does one place a lit candle anywhere?  To provide light.  In a time before overhead fluorescent electric light fixtures, the officiant or celebrant at the Communion table required light in order to lead in the liturgy.  Why make something difficult out of something easy?

I'll have a little more to say about this soon.

The peace of the Lord be with you.

A Bible reading with some size

In a previous post, I observed that we are currently involved in the Revised Common Lectionary’s (RCL) Cycle B.  This year’s Gospel lessons come primarily from the Book of Mark.  But, in the month of August, the RCL directs us instead to the Gospel of John.  Again as I pointed out earlier, the Fourth Evangelist has no yearly cycle of his own.  Instead, the Lectionary scatters selections from John throughout the three-year rotation.  When it does so the RCL tends to employ the John readings over several consecutive Sundays.  The Lectionary avoids having isolated readings from John appear from time-to-time.  Instead, these larger blocks of material give the church an opportunity to consider a larger sweep of ideas over several weeks’ time.

 The format of the RCL is to give the church suggestions for manageable selections of scripture for consideration in Sunday worship.  While there are exceptions, the Gospel lessons don’t usually run more than about twenty verses per week.  When we consider the Fourth Gospel, we find that it resists this carving up into segments.  Chapter six moves around the Sea of Galilee geographically.  But, as a narrative, it is one long piece that requires our consideration. 

The entirety of the chapter is seventy-one verses in length.  That alone makes it prohibitive as a single reading.  (Besides everything else, “Let us stand for the reading of the Gospel,” would be met with more than a little grumbling over a lesson of this magnitude.)  Chapter six is not one long miracle story or parable.  It begins with the feeding of the five thousand and the narrative of Jesus walking on water.  Following these stories there are a series of questions to which Jesus offers replies.  These responses provide a kind of commentary on the opening action.  These reflections take up the remainder of the chapter.

The basics of bread
As we move from week to week, we find an ongoing theme throughout the chapter. That is the appearance of bread. Jesus multiplies the fish and bread in order to feed five thousand men, in addition to any family members they may have brought along. Jesus spends no little time talking about the importance of physical nourishment. We need “our daily bread.”

Bread as the Word of God
But Jesus’ observations do not end there. He goes on to make a transition in referencing bread not only as a staple of our diet, but he also refers to bread that nourishes beyond the meal table. He speaks of “the bread of life” as being the teaching of God. God’s instruction preserves our spirits in the same way that table bread preserves our bodies. Jesus is a master of taking well-recognized objects and using them to teach truths about the Kingdom of God. At various places in John’s Gospel. Jesus talks of birth, water, bread, vines, sheep, shepherds, and gates to help you and me comprehend something of the nature of God’s Kingdom. So, when Jesus moves his conversation from the bread that we make with our own hands to the bread that comes down from heaven he challenges us to use our understanding of the former to incorporate the truths of the latter into our spirituality.

Bread as the Body of Christ
That would be a good lesson in and of itself. John could have shut the teaching down there and we would have an enormous truth to ponder.  But Jesus does not leave things there.  He re-interprets “bread” yet again.  This time he gives it a Eucharistic understanding.  “Eucharistic” or “Eucharist” refers to Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, or whatever title you may use to describe the Sacrament of the Table.  There is no account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in John’s Upper Room story.  Jesus washes the disciples’ feet.  He identifies Judas as his betrayer – if only obliquely.  He predicts Peter’s three-fold denial.  He offers a long farewell discourse before praying his high priestly prayer.  But words about bread and wine and “Do this in remembrance of me” are nowhere to be found. 

 That’s because Jesus has already done it.  He has done it in chapter six.  While much of the Jewish community has made its way to Jerusalem to observe the Passover, in this chapter Jesus is in Galilee, and there he offers his own meal to the people.  Look at the language: Jesus took the food, blessed the food, gave the food.  This is Communion language.  Even if it does not appear in the context of the Upper Room, the language is the same: 

“In the night in which he was betrayed

Jesus took bread,

and when he had given thanks,

he broke it,

gave it to his disciples,

and said ‘Take, eat. 

This is my body which is given for you. 

Do this in remembrance of me.’

Likewise, after supper

he took the cup,

 and when he had given thanks

he gave it to his disciples,

saying, ‘this is my blood of the New Covenant,

poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. 

Do this as often as you drink it

in remembrance of me.’ ”

 

The last portion of chapter six interprets bread, which Jesus has already cast in terms of physical nourishment and the Word of God, as the Eucharistic body of Jesus. 

 This all happens pretty fast.  True, the chapter is over seventy verses in length.  But looking at where the discussion of bread started and then contemplating where it ended, that is a lot of ground covered pretty quickly. 

 Jesus’ teaching does not receive universal acceptance.  In fact, talk of eating Jesus’ body prompts a large number of people to withdraw from Jesus.  Jesus is OK with that.  He has drawn a bold line in the sand and understands that just everybody is not ready to cross over to his side.

 Even though we take five weeks to move from the feeding of the multitude to the desertion of the crowds there is plenty to digest on the way (no pun intended…).  I fear that often our consideration of the Bible takes the form of single verses or even fragments of scripture.  While there are certain nuggets of truth that are worthy of our study, it is more often the case that we require a knowledge of what has gone before and what comes after – the context – before we can achieve any real comprehension of scriptural teaching.  John six is a text with some size.  It has length and breadth.  It has layers of meaning.  Even in a month we will not discover all the layers of meaning that this chapter holds.  But we can give it our all.  The word of God deserves nothing less.