The Ones Who Aren't Here

 I and so many others are frantically preparing for General Conference, that once-every-four-years United Methodist meeting that we had to postpone due to COVID. At this meeting, delegates determine church policy for the next four years which will order our shared life and ministry.

I love my friendships across The United Methodist Church. There is an orientation to life and faith that we share as United Methodists that has fostered deep and lasting friendships for me. But oddly, as I sit in prayer for the upcoming meetings, it is not the faces of my friends that rise up within me nor the issues the delegates will tackle. Instead, the names and faces of those who have left the denomination are the ones that swirl with the Spirit in the space of my prayers.

Even though we held deep differences—in particular about the role of lgbtq+ people in the life and ministry of the church (and even though their beliefs have been soul wounding to so many of us) I can’t help feeling the void their departure has left.

This is in part because I do believe in the power of our sacraments. It is through baptism and communion that we come to experience God’s generous grace. The bread is broken, but we are together made whole. The water we place on our forehead to remember our baptism reminds us that God loves us and claims us, but not we alone! Through these experiences, we are united with others, whether we like it or not. They are our kin in Christ and we are theirs.

Because of this experience, I can’t “other” another. I can’t dismiss them. I can’t pretend they don’t exist. I can’t wish for a church without them in it.

The Church’s witness is lessened when we are unable to live gracefully among ourselves. Our diversity ought to be revered as a blessing that opens us more fully to the image of God that is imprinted on humanity. It isn’t easy work. It is hard. Really hard. We have to be willing to be changed by our encounter with another. But this is what leads us all to a holier and more whole place.

I look forward to the ways the Holy Spirit will show up at General Conference, and the people we will be at the end of our time together. But today, I am sitting and reflecting on the ones who won’t be there.

The Oneness of Christ's Table

It was a requirement, when my sisters and I were growing up, that we were in our seats at the kitchen table for dinner. It didn’t matter where we were or what we were doing, my mother was firm that we would be present for supper. However, while my mother expected us to be at the table, it didn’t mean we had to say good-bye to the friends we were playing with. Our friends were always invited to eat over and our table of four often held 6, 8 or even 12. And somehow my mother was able to do a “loaves and fishes” miracle and make our meatloaf or pasta feed everyone present.

I realize this early experience of the table has shaped how I understand coming to Christ’s table: everyone is invited, and there is always room for one more.

Tomorrow, we celebrate World Communion Sunday. Christians around the world will gather before a table and with outstretched hands reach for the bread and cup as they recall Jesus’ words, “Do this in remembrance of me.” And as the grain of the bread mingles with the sweetness of the cup, a holy mystery occurs: we are made one in Christ. Divisions of nation, language, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, and race fall away as we become the Body of Christ, no part unlovely or unneeded, no law or polity able to compete with Jesus’ invitation: “Take, eat, do this in remembrance of me.”

Oh, how we need this reminder in these days of division. Our human tendency to erect walls of who is in and who is out, of distrusting those who aren’t like us, breaks down in the breaking of the bread. We are reminded of this in I Corinthians 10: 16-17

“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.”

Don’t hold yourself back from coming to the table tomorrow. There is a place for you! And as you raise the cup to your lips, who else is there with you? Who is receiving this gift from God not only in your own church but in other churches around the world? What does it mean to you, that you are made one with them in this meal? How does it inform your living?

Come To The Table of Life!

It has always befuddled me when people would tell me that their least favorite Sunday was Communion Sunday. What would make someone dislike this sacred meal, a table set for us by a Holy Host? Some have said they didn’t like getting up out of their pew to stand in front of the congregation. Others have been deeply honest and said they didn’t feel worthy.

I love this meal for so many reasons: at this table, as I have knelt down and felt my forearms slide into grooves worn down by countless others who have knelt in the same place with arms outstretched, I become aware of how the meal connects me not only to those in church that day with me, but with generations of people who have come before me. I have been reminded that this meal is offered freely to me, that I am to come as I am. In spite of feelings of inadequacy, the ways I feel I have fallen short of following in the ways of Jesus, the things I am ashamed of, the wounds I carry, the flaws I cannot face in myself, there are arms outstretched, waiting to greet me at this table to remind me that I am loved even with all of these feelings. Through this meal, I find myself offered a holy wholeness. At this table, my deepest longing for a relationship with God, to know and be known by my Creator, is fulfilled.

Tomorrow is World Communion. Christians from around the world will be reminded of the vast cord of connection that unites us through communion. As we break the bread and pass the cup, we will enter into the holy mystery of this meal. Ordinary foodstuff will be infused with meaning and become extraordinary. Hands will be extended to receive this food, and more than a physical hunger pain will be assuaged. A spiritual hunger will be brought to the table, a hunger for relationship, hope, healing, forgiveness and wholeness. In the holiness of the moment, as we meet Christ who has been waiting for us at the table, all will be filled.

Don’t hold yourself back! Come to the table with all of who you are! There is a place meant only for you. Come, and be received by the One who seeks to offer you Life!

Whose Table Is It, Really?

It has been sobering to read about Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin banning Sen. Patrick Kennedy from receiving communion. Tobin has justified his action by stating that Kennedy's political positions--specifically around reproductive rights--go against the teachings of the Church and therefore he should not receive communion.

I hesitate to call this a pastoral act, because there is nothing pastoral about refusing someone access to communion. The communion table does not belong to the Roman Catholic Church, it does not belong to Bishop Tobin. It is Christ's table.  Can Bishop Tobin be so presumptuous as to speak for Christ about who can come to the table?

Communion is a means of grace, meaning that God works through the sacrament to impart saving love that has the power to transform human lives.  To politicize the table and withold this means of grace from someone is a form of ecclesiological cruelty and spiritual violence. 

In 1996, I was a participant in a Reconciling Ministries Network worship service held at The United Methodist General Conference.  This service celebrated the ways that God works through all God's people, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, and provided spiritual support for those who were working for the full inclusion of all people into the life and ministry of The United Methodist Church.  I was one of the communion servers.  Hundreds of people came to the worship service, and as I offered the bread and cup to one worshipper after another--many co-workers in the movement for justice as well as many I did not know--I found standing before me, with hands outstretched to receive the communion elements, Mark Tooley, the director of UM Action of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).  The IRD is a right-wing thinktank based in Washington, DC that has stirred controversies in primarily three denomonations: Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and United Methodist. The IRD criticizes the churches' social witness, particularly around lgbt rights, women's reproductive rights, and environmental justice.  The IRD tactics seem like they have been written from a page of international espionage, and in fact, Mark Tooley is a former CIA analyst.

I had read many inflammatory articles by Mark Tooley about church leaders I have long admired.  I have also been attacked by Mark.  So imagine my feelings when Mark appeared before me, to join in the communion meal. Here was one who, like Bishop Tobin, seeks to limit God's grace to an "in" group.  As he stood before me, I passed the bread to him, and offered him the cup of salvation.

That meal has made a huge impact on me. There have been times when I have wanted to demonize Mark for the pain he has caused me and others who disagree with his understanding of church. But I can't forget that Sunday afternoon service, and the meal we shared together.  I am reminded that Christ's table is large enough to include both of us, and that it can even hold the tension of our differences.  God is so great. At Christ's table, our ideological and theological differences are stripped away as we recognize around the table our sisters and brothers--children of God who struggle to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. We often mis-step, but at the table we are welcomed and fed so that we can rise from our knees and resume the spiritual journey, nourished by the grace of God.

Why would we want to hold anyone back from this meal?