For the last three or four years of my pastoral career, I served communion every week at worship. At first, some people weren't sure about the change from monthly to weekly. Some thought it was too "Catholic," as if the Roman church held a corner on the market of the Lord's Table. Some were afraid it would cease to be special, that by receiving communion every week it would lose its significance in people's minds and hearts. It took a bit of convincing for people to see that we don't find worship less significant because we do it weekly. I reminded them that Jesus told his disciples "as often as they do this," not "as seldom as they do this." Gradually, it caught on, and now I believe our people would miss it if we were to go back to a mere monthly celebration.
Growing up in a decidedly non-liturgical tradition, I never really got the hang of leading liturgy well. I've participated in services where the high liturgy almost swept you up in the drama and movement of it all. I've also attended way too many services where the liturgist bumbled his or her way through it, or where there was an attempt to modernize the liturgy to make it relevant. I can't remember a single time when these attempts weren't dismal failures. I love liturgy done well. It's like the wind that lifts the wings of the spirit to the very throne room of God. Sadly, I've only occasionally participated in liturgy done well. Which is one of the reasons whenever I've served communion, it's in an abbreviated form. The other reason it is abbreviated is to allow time in the service for praise, prayer, and proclamation of the Word. It all takes time, and finding the right balance can be difficult.
Tonight Linda and I had the opportunity to attend a worship service where at the end communion was served. The pastor told of her recent ordination which granted her the privilege of serving communion anywhere, and of how significant this has been in her own life. She led the congregation gathered through the full United Methodist liturgy for the Lord's Table, and while some had difficulty with it, I enjoyed it immensely. I was struck by one feature of the liturgy that often gets short shrift in the abbreviated services: the forgiveness of sins. Since this is at the heart of communion, one would think that it would get a lot of attention whenever communion is served, but that isn't the case. We live in a culture that works especially hard to deny or at least ignore the reality of sin; we excuse it, rename it as a disorder or disease, find several good excuses for it; but we don't name it for what it is and deal with it decisively.
One of the results of this is we have churches filled with Christians who love Jesus, who want to serve him, but live under such nagging unnamed and therefore unforgiven guilt that as surely as if they wore literal shackles they are bound from worshipping freely or serving faithfully. To be exhorted to confession and to hear repeatedly proclaimed in the liturgy that God in Christ has forgiven us is a powerful thing. Then to actually physically receive the elements is like driving the nail home. Tonight, God met me at the Table. It was not an emotional occasion, but it was powerful to hear the words, "You are forgiven," and then to receive the sign and seal of that forgiveness in the Eucharist. I am grateful tonight for the very real forgiveness offered in the liturgy on the basis of Christ's sacrifice of himself for our sins on the Cross. It does not get any better than that!
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