When I retired after nearly 40 years in parish ministry, I was not looking forward to having free Sunday mornings. Or getting away from the life of the church. (Not having to go to Conventions, however, is a big plus!)
I was looking forward to just receiving holy communion. Mostly coming up to the altar from the pews.
As an ordinary communicant I was longing to have— how can I say it? -a little leisure during the communion time.
What was I hoping for?
1st
For time while in church to “go into myself.” Time to take my mind off what’s going to happen next; or what’s printed for me to say. A moment to stop . . . thinking and notice what’s happening inside me.
The hymns,, the Bible verses, prayers- and even the sermon can drop little seeds into the agitated or possibly calm pond of my soul.
2nd
I longed to move, walk, from where I stand and sit in the congregation to the Altar for the Sacrament. “Goin up there like I have all my life” was how my mother used to talk about it. That sticks with me. Of course, we rightly bring communion from the Altar to those who are no able to walk up there. That has its own beauty. Or beyond the Sunday Eucharist, to bring this to the home or sick bed, or hospital.
But the simple action of our service that “going up to join the others” is such a big moment of both personal and common action. It’s very intimate, and we are all doing that together, too. I’m grateful in retirement to get to walk up here, too.
That’s also so Biblical. God’s People move- across the Red Sea, into the Promised Land to enjoy the Bread God gives.
And there is more. To meet God and the Body of Christ of which I am a member is not only what happens at the service. Before the service, too. The old idea is that communion on Sundays involves personal preparation the day or two before. We’ve forgotten that. Here’s a practical thing to do: ask myself when this past week did I feel close to God? Just remember and imagine that. Then say something to God about it.
And also, when this week have I felt far from God? What’s the story about that? The service always gives us a public prayer of confession. If we come to that after stopping, even for 15 minutes on Saturday night, to seek a little more self-knowledge , then when we say that prayer together, then sometimes , well, we have wings!
The prayer after communion is also a moment to prepare for ahead of time also. We are sent from this Table. Into what? I learned about this brining communion to lots of folks at home or in the hospital. Often we use the prayer that we all know from church. I love the phrase “send us now into the world in peace.” We all go out into some mission, or ministry to others beyond the church doors. That’s righty the primary thing. But when somebody is mostly at home now, does not go out to do some “active ministry,” what then? Many times saying those words with a person at their dinning table or the living room furniture, what then? We are always sent by Jesus in the Eucharist. Always. Into the new. the next day, the possibility that I might learn something or change. Or, sometime, that I might be sent to no new day in this world, but to Jesus in heaven. It’s all the same, really. Jesus gathers us, feeds us. We, like Peter, cannot go to anyone else but to Christ. And into the same kingdom we name at the beginning of the service. The new life, the new day.
No wonder it is so precious to us.