The Community At Communion

THE COMMUNITY AT COMMUNION

I love it when a parishioner asks a question!! Jerry Nichols sent me an email recently when he noticed that Trinity had changed the schedule for Communion! Not only did Jerry impress me by wanting to know the reasons behind this decision – I was also impressed that somebody actually reads the newsletter!! So here is Jerry’s question and my response for this week’s blog!

QUESTION: I was curious as to why there is a rescheduling of Communion to only Holy Days.

ANSWER: History gives precedent to celebrating holy communion according to the church calendar – not the secular one. When the Protestants broke away from the “Mother church” they had to decide whether to keep communion on the “everytime basis” or go to another system. Some elected to keep communion the center of worship (Lutherans, Episcopalian, Anglican, Disciples of Christ, to name a few) – others elected to have the sermon/message/lesson as the center of worship (Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, etc.) For those churches, the decision arose “but then when do we celebrate communion?” The decision was different from denomination to denomination, but primarily those churches looked at the church calendar and celebrated communion on some schedule that recognized the “high” holy days (some are higher than others!). Members of the Anabaptist persuasion (Church of the Brethren, Mennonite, Baptist, etc.) chose to limit the celebration to only a few times a year in order to make it more meaningful – and for some, to include the FULL expression of Jesus’ command to serve one another by also embracing a feetwashing ceremony at the same time. Each group began to “tweak” the communion ritual to meet their own needs.

For instance, as a denomination the UCC says “everyone is invited to the Lord’s table.” However, that “everyone” generally refers only to baptized believers. In some churches, however, that rule is being relaxed – but it has not become the “standard practice” even in the UCC. (At Trinity, we make no distinction – EVERYONE is invited to celebrate communion – but Trinity may be unique as UCC churches go.

Other denominations have other rules: only those who are members of that denomination may partake or of that specific local church or only those in “good standing” which generally means that the person hasn’t been party to some “sinful” circumstance such as divorce, or they have regularly attended worship or confession or have supported the church financially. All of these can play a part in whether or not one is welcome at the Lord’s table!

It was also common practice for churches to record whether or not a parishioner took part in communion when it was offered. The historical records of our church include great books of carefully recorded dates and names of all of those who took communion every time it was offered. It was also a practice (and may still be practiced!) that when one visited a church other than ones own and took communion, that a card was sent back to your home church saying that communion had been offered and received by the parishioner on such and such a date! Then the record book could accurately show that detail. Why was this important? Because a non-communioning member could be stricken from the membership rolls and although that doesn’t sound like too big a deal today, there was a time when that eventuality struck fear into the hearts of believers! What if you died and you weren’t a member of a church? What if you died and you hadn’t had communion for weeks or months or even years? What would happen to your immortal soul? These are not questions that need to be answered for those of us who are today’s UCC where God’s grace is great enough for even the most wayward of us – but for some, these questions had eternal consequences – thus the record keeping!




As time passed and faith groups evolved and changed, some communion rituals became less rigid – others, more – and some changed the “schedule” based on circumstances other than biblical ones!

At Trinity in the mid-1990s when our current location was established (and at both of our founding churches for decades previous) the schedule was based on the church calendar – communion was celebrated at the juncture of the holy seasons of the church year and at the important “anniversaries” of iconic Christian events – Christmas Eve, Easter, Maundy Thursday to name a few. That means that communion is celebrated approximately 9-11 times a year, depending on the way the calendar falls and which holy days are recognized.

It was a fairly sure bet that attendance at a given worship service increased if communion was offered (remember all that recording keeping?) So some smart clergy and savvy church counsels looked at the budget and determined that if they ADDED communion on the first Sunday of every month in ADDITION to all those “holy days” – why, we could pick up more cash in the offering plate!! And that is exactly what Trinity did in the late 90’s when attendance was down and the church was experiencing some really severe problems.

Now I don’t know about you – but “more money” is a lousy reason to celebrate communion if you ask me!! Changing the communion schedule to those important days in the life of the church gives me (or any pastor) a “hook” to hang the communion on!! It gives us a REASON to be coming to the Lord’s table – which is meaningful, I think – rather than “it happens to be the first Sunday of February!” Now, to be fair, we have added a few communions where there are no holy days – one in the summer, for instance… but that’s because there is a long “dry spell” in the church calendar during the season of Pentecost.

So that’s the (long version) reason why we recently changed Trinity’s communion schedule! I’d love to answer any more questions (theological or not!) – so why not give me some ideas for future blogs!

Blessings,

Rev Nan