World Communion Sunday

            This Sunday is World Communion Sunday.  Instituted in the mid-1930s at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA, it was designed to open their congregation’s awareness of the peoples of the world.  The service was to challenge them to envision a table big enough to receive all who would participate in the bread and wine (or grape juice) of the Communion service.  It was to highlight what we had in common, Jesus the Christ, instead of the barriers of language and physical locations.  It was also a call to engage in the mission of the church as emphasized in those years to “spread the Gospel”.

            I first received Communion on World Communion Sunday.  As a result, that image of people from around the world in a continuous procession coming to the Table has never left me.  New Year’s in a different way!

            This year I’m thinking of World Communion Sunday with more troubling thoughts.  Globally, and certainly nationally, we are in a trend of nativism, of isolation.  We hear discouraging rhetoric that we are becoming weaker as a nation because we are trying to strengthen our international alliances.  The talk about border walls and desired mass deportations continues.  There appears to be little or no interest in engaging in the difficult work of diplomacy with the countries of Central and South America.  Books that describe the diversity of our country are on the “banned” list.  We are pulling inward in a false narrative of greatness enforced by power.  Pretty soon our Communion Table will fit in an alcove instead of extending around the world.

            All this inward pull is happening when outward circumstances are shifting the dynamics of the global community.  Winter is just over in the Southern Hemisphere and this past week temperatures reached over 100 degrees.  Climate changes are not just local phenomena of a bad storm.  They are global.  And the result will be climate refugees as some parts of the globe will be uninhabitable.  Those refugees are going to compete with other immigration pushes throughout the world.  This shift in population will impact everyone and will not be conducive to nativism, isolation, or white/English-speaking majorities.

            This is only one of the dynamics at work on a world stage.  It illustrates the challenge such a day as World Communion Sunday gives to the church.  What kind of Communion Table do we want – one that is hidden in the corner or one that extends into the world offering the Bread of Life and the Cup of Blessing to all who seek the hope and promise of Jesus the Christ?

How do we share the bounty of our everyday food?  Do we continue to eat wastefully and consume our agricultural resources and at the same time deny resources to those who have fled their devasted homelands?  Do we glibly continue to say that if someone wants to eat then change their priorities and eat?  The Sacrament of Communion is both where we are fed and nourished spiritually and where we acknowledge we are part of the body of Christ called to feed and nourish and care for all those for whom he died.

            One of the five special offerings of the United Church of Christ is received on World Communion Sunday.  Neighbors in Need helps fund the work of the UCC in the areas of Justice and Witness.  How do we see fairness? Justice?  How do we witness to those whose lives have been turned upside down, survivors of danger we cannot even imagine, God’s Beloveds in their time of need?

Rev. Clara