I read I Corinthians 10 and 11 and wonder often if the way I partake of the Lord's Supper is how God intended for this memorial feast to be.
Is it really possible in the 2 or 3 minutes we spend in taking the bread and juice to examine ourselves?
At our church here in Guntersville, we pick the thimble sized portion of grape juice out of the tray and pass the tray on, and put the little cup in the provided holder on the back of the pew in front of us. At least we're able to take our time to drink the juice.
But what about the churches who pass the tray and the people have to put their used cup back in the tray? Sure it saves time in clean up, but does that give you time to examine yourself?
I know that in our modern time constraints of church service, we have about an hour to cram in all the worship aspects, or people start to get upset. We'll spend 30 minutes on a sermon, and 20 minutes singing a song, but only a few short moments on this memorial feast. I don't know about you, but I spend more time than that eating a snack pack of pudding.
I suppose its all in how you approach this "feast", but let's face it, the deck is stacked against you when you confine the parameters of it in a set amount of time. When I remember something, I like to talk about it with others, but when was the last time you talked with someone during the communion time?
I don't see the Last Supper as a time when everyone buried their hands in their faces and closed their eyes in reverent memory and thought. I see them discussing the life of Jesus, possibly weeping together, or celebrating together.
Does anyone else think that there are aspects of the worship service we do that aren't exactly how God intended it?
4 comments:
I have felt the same way and have often wondered the same thing. And I know that you and I are not the only ones. I recently taught a class on Sunday morning concerning the aspects of worship, and our class (pretty much as a whole) agreed that we do not spend enough time preparing ourselves for the Lord's Supper. I am reminded of the churches in Scotland any time I consider this subject because they made the Lord's Supper, not the sermon or even the singing, the focus of their worship service. I think it is something that can be changed when brought to the minds of the faithful.
Yeah the churches in Scotland did a great job of that, even if it did mean just one cup!
Sometimes I wonder if communion has become just another tradition with us -- we're commanded to do it on the first day of the week, so we do it then, and that's it. We've fulfilled our requirement to do it, so let's move on to the next item on the agenda, which is 2 more songs (stand for the 2nd one), then the sermon.
I went to Catholic school for one year (I was in 6th grade), and they had Mass usually 3 days a week. To the Catholics, communion is very special and a sacred time, and devout Catholics will go to Mass 3 or 4 times a week (or more -- sometimes more than once in one day) to be able to participate in it. I don't know if that is such an unbiblical principle -- after all, don't we read that that 1st Century church broke bread (a reference to communion, I believe) "as oft as they came together"?
I think we need to stop looking at what we do during "church" as items to be marked off a checklist, and rather we need to incorporate them into the worship that every moment of our lives should be. It's something I struggle with quite often, because it's the mindset I was raised with, but I think it's a challenge our generation needs to take on as we become leaders in our congregations.
Maybe our idea of "church" itself is not the way God intended it. Were we really meant to get up at an inconvenient hour and sit and listen to one man talk down to us? Or is real church a late Friday night talking about life with a few friends out by the water, playing guitar, and screaming out into the night? Isn't it more about fellowship in the truest sense of relationship?
Emily Dickinson: "Some keep the Sabbath going to church..."
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