During the spring and summer, I completed my field research for my doctoral studies.  This research consisted of five different group interviews.  My area of interest is hospitality.  In particular, the hospital of God as it is experienced and practiced at the Lord’s Table.  One of the questions that I asked was “Describe your earliest experiences of the Lord’s Supper.”  One’s earliest memories.  Another question that I asked was, “Describe how your participation in the Lord’s Supper took on a new meaning in your life – either a point in time or over a period of time.”

Think back to your earliest memories of being around the Lord’s Supper, whether you were taking part or watching.  I was watching.  I was going to church since before I was born, though my memories aren’t pre-natal.  For some reason, the Sundays that stand out the most were ones that we spent in the Gaspe region of Quebec in the summertime.  We would go there as a family for a month, and my father would preach at a local church in a little town called New Richmond.  It’s maybe because it was different than my usual Sundays growing up in Humber Summit Community Church that they stand out in my memory.  I remember my father holding up the bread and the cup and asking, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not our partnership in the blood of Christ?  The bread that we break, is it not our partnership in the body of Christ?”  I remember sitting beside my mother and looking up at her.  She would have her eyes closed.  Praying earnestly, you could see it.  I would watch as she would break a piece off the loaf of bread that would be passed along the pew.

I didn’t know a lot, but I knew that this was a big deal.  These were significant moments.

Fast forward around 40 years.  I was a couple of years into my own pastoral calling here at Blythwood, and we were gathering around the Lord’s Table in the Friendship Room here at Blythwood.  When you are leading in worship, you can get caught up in the logistics of things (are the ushers in place, are my sermon notes in order, do I have the right sermon notes, are the slides good).  This may lessen your own feeling of participation in worship together.  I remember that morning we heard a guest soloist sing “Amazing Grace” right before the Lord’s Supper.  I felt my heart strangely warmed, and I felt like a co-invitee (not a presider or facilitator) to the table along with everyone else in a whole new way.  I was there.  I was invited.  I was accepting the invitation.  This feeling has stayed with me ever since.

The Eucharist.  The Lord’s Supper.  The Lord’s Table.  Communion.  We call it different things.  We practice it in different ways.  Daily.  Weekly.  Monthly.  Twice yearly.  It’s one of what Baptists call the ordinances – things that Jesus told us to do.  The other is baptism.  “Do this in remembrance of me.”  This communion Sunday, I want us to consider the significance of how we encounter the hospitality of God at this table.  We heard Peter write “Be hospitable to one another without complaining” (1 Peter 4:9) not long ago.  The hospitality (literally love of the stranger) to which we are called needs to be rooted and grounded in our own experience of the hospitality of God.  We encounter the hospitality of God at this table. 

We remember.  We don’t simply remember the past, but we are re-membered in the present.  We also look ahead at what is to come.  Let’s ask for God’s help as we consider God’s word for us this morning.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

²³ For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for^[a] you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ ²⁵ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ ²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

We’re looking at the past, present and future significance of our gathering around the Lord’s Table.  We start with a look back.  We commemorate – literally bring something or someone to mind together.  We remember Christ’s birth and life and death.  We can go further back than that of course.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  We remember the cross together because it has ethical implications for our life together.  Someone has put it like this, “We fix our gaze on Jesus’ self-giving as one of the principle compass points by means of which we chart our course toward newness of life… It is an invitation into a life growing in faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection and love…”  Looking to the cross clarifies the answer to the question “How then shall we live?”  as we seek to live together in a way that honour’s God’s unfathomable costly love for us and death on our behalf.

Our seeking together to live in such a way that honours Christ brings us to our present encounter with him at the table.  Just as Jewish celebrants of Passover identify themselves with those delivered from bondage in Egypt, so we identify ourselves with those who encountered Jesus around the Last Supper.  This is a mystery.  This is a wonder.  “This is my body given for you” and “This is my blood shed for you” mean something beyond our ability to explain or reason away.  Let us simply approach this encounter with awe and wonder and reverence.  Christ is in me.  I am in Christ.  Christ is in you, dear sister or brother; you are in Christ. 

Let’s hear more of Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 10:16-17:

¹⁶ The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? ¹⁷ Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

There is a communal element to this meal that is not to be missed.  This is one of the things we were missing greatly when we were unable to gather.  This is why I like to share communion with a big loaf of bread.  We who are many are in body, just as the bread is one loaf.  Unity of spirit, humbleness of mind, sympathy, tenderness of heart.  Together.  Love for one another, together.  Another NT image for the church here.  One loaf.  In our sharing the bread together and encountering Christ together, we ourselves become a visible sign of our unity in him.  This is why I like to call the communion table our family table.  The family table is an important place.  It's where we share life together.  It’s where we celebrate together.  It’s where we mourn together.  It’s where we are sustained together. 

This is our family table, family of God.  We are knit together here as the people of God.  I have heard people say that they have no greater sense of being surrounded by the “great cloud of witnesses” as they do when gathered around this table.  Say something here about missing being together during COVID the fact that some people are sharing online in solitude and we pray that you have a strong sense of sharing in the body of Christ and that if you’d like some of us to visit and share communion with you, we will do that.

Our final reading is a description of the event to which our gathering around the Lord’s Table points forward.  We read about it in John’s vision of Revelation.  It’s described as something celebratory and joyous.  A marriage feast! 

⁶ Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunder-peals, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns.⁷ Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; ⁸ to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure’— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

⁹ And the angel said^[c] to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God.’ (Rev 19:6-9)

When we gather around this table, we proclaim Jesus’ death until he comes, and we pray, “Even so, Lord Jesus, come.”  The return of our King, the kingdom of heaven come in all its fullness, the renewal of all things is near.  It may be near chronologically.  It may not.  We don’t know.  It is near theologically, in that it is the next part of God’s salvation plan.  Someone has used the image of the hinge of a door to describe where we stand as followers of Christ.  We stand at the hinge point between this age and the age to come.  We remember Jesus’ death.  We remember his promise that he is with us to the end of the age.  We remember that Jesus is the ground of our hope.

We may think of our gathering around the Lord’s Table as a kind of dress rehearsal for the marriage supper of the Lamb that John described.  It’s helping to prepare us for the day that’s been described like this: “… the presence of God permeates and illumines all spaces… and all people walk by his light, seeing everything clearly in the light of God and of the Lamb.  Wealth is no longer seen to be more valuable than the shalom and dignity of each and every person.  The quest to gain power over others is laughable, as we together in the light of the Servant Messiah… The gates of the city are never shut (Rev. 21:25) for every division between an ‘us’ against a ‘them’ has been overcome…”

Like any act of worship in which we take part together, the Lord’s Table is not solely for our benefit.  The question that we must be asking ourselves is, “How is our gathering at the Lord’s Table making us people who reflect the hospitality of God when we go from this place?”  How are the words that we are hearing and the actions that are going on here influencing our words and actions when we are sent from this table?  How is our praise of God here at our worship around this table spilling over into our lives?  Someone has called this “doxological living” – doxa meaning glory or honour or praise or worship.  This kind of doxological or “Lord’s Table Living” is worked out not by us alone but by the Holy Spirit in us.  This is why that we pray as we’re sent from the table “Send us from here in the power of your Spirit to live and work for your praise and for your glory.”

I don’t need to illustrate this when I say that we live in a world that is increasingly divided and polarized.  When we come to this table together, each of us is experiencing something in common – and that experience is grace.  This common experience of God’s grace strips away the things that would divide us.  Not one of us is worthy in and of ourselves to be here.  Not one of us deserves to be invited here, yet in the infinite grace and mercy of God, we are invited.  We may differ in how outwardly respectable or put-together or not put-together or needy we look.  At this table, however, we are reminded of our commonality – our need for the grace of God – our need for the unmerited favour and mercy of God. 

This need for grace extends to every person and situation that we encounter as we go through our days.  Lord’s Table Living asks the question in each encounter: “What does grace call for here?”  What does mercy call for here? 

Five-year-old me wasn’t exactly sure what was going on around the Lord’s Table, but I thought it was a big deal.  As we gather today and in days to come, may the significance of this act continue to cause us to remember, unite us in our present, and look ahead to what is to come.  May our gathering around this table continue to inform all our living through the Holy Spirit of God, and may these things be true for all who hear these words. Amen