This is will be a full Sunday! It’s World Communion Sunday, an opportunity for us to remember that, as Christians, we are part of a communion that is much, much bigger than a denomination or a nation. Around the world our sisters and brothers in Christ will gather around tables and altars – some simple, some ornate – and break bread and drink wine (or juice) that is common to their particular land and tradition. They will use liturgies and rituals that express their understanding of what God is doing through these simple elements. Some of those elements and liturgies and rituals will be very different from ours. But they will all express, in their own way, that singular mystery that Jesus invited us to experience when he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Our particular community, bound by our experience of the Lord’s Supper, will remain together after the end of the service for a congregational meeting. The specifics of the meeting are detailed below and a link will take you to the two documents you’ll need to review before the meeting. I want to encourage all active members to attend both worship and the meeting. Our current bylaws set a quorum – the minimum number of active members necessary to transact any business – at one-half of active members.
For the next five Sundays (at least) I’ll be preaching from Luke’s gospel. This week it’s Luke 17:1-10. There are some admitted difficulties with this passage, not the least is that Jesus seems to accept the institution of slavery as normative. This may be one of those instances when we have to confess that the Bible is a historical artifact. Both the writers and the people written about often do not share our values and assumptions. And we should not uncritically overlook those places where the Bible so clearly clashes with our worldview. We might do better if we looked deeply at the text and tried to see where God is speaking some universal truth that does not require our assent to institutions and attitudes that history – and often the Church – has invalidated.
Finally, I want to encourage everyone to consider participating in our Christian education programs for adults. You can read about our offerings below. And if there’s some topic of study or discussion that you are particularly interested in, please let Michael Korak or Tom Byl, our elders in charge of CE, know. We want to provide programs and opportunities that reach as many people as possible.
See you Sunday!
Grace and peace,
Mike