Who is Welcome at the Table of the Lord?

I have recently been doing some historical research into the concept of who is welcome to partake of the table of the Lord at communion after the topic came up at our last elder's meeting.  I was surprised that there are actually three defensible positions that exist in the church.  From most liberal to most strict they are as follows (and I simplify their positions for the sake of presentation because there are nuances to each of them).  Open communion allows anyone in the service who is saved to partake of communion.  Some churches say that those who love Jesus are welcome, or even just those that are seeking God may come.  Using this definition even sincere unbelievers can be included in the table.  Close communion is a middle ground, and restricts communion to those that are saved and baptized, and who are of "like faith and practice", meaning you believe the same things and practice your spirituality in roughly the same way.  In theory a Lutheran could probably come to an Episcopal table, but it is unlikely that a Baptist would (sacramental view versus ordinance).  Closed communion restricts the table to those that are saved, baptized and members in good standing of the local congregation or denomination, period.  So which is right?  Or as it was broached at the elder's meeting, which one is the correct "bible" position?  In theory that sounds good, but in practice it's not so easy to decide since parts of the church hold each of the positions and can defend their practice with Chapter and Verse.

I have practiced my Christianity under each of the three and what I am going to offer now is my own opinion based not on bible verses or even historic church practices, but on what seems to fit the Jesus that I know best.  I know that this may be grounds for immediate dismissal, condemnation for making God in my image and likeness and synthesizing my religion into what works for me.  But sometimes, just sometimes, the old formula "What would Jesus do" works better for me than dogma or doctrine.  And I think that what Jesus would do is say "Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest."  He would choose to eat with open and profligate sinners and tax collectors.  He would break bread saying "I am the bread of life..." while giving it to any that had their hand out.  I don't think that He would have built a fence around His table but would have invited all to taste and see that the Lord and His graciousness is indeed good.

They say we are to worship God in spirit and in truth.  I have worshiped God in truth to the detriment of all else, making every exercise of my faith a division, an exclusion, a marking out, a drawing of lines and deciding what side I am on.  For now, I choose to worship God in spirit, and given the choice between living in truth or living in love, I will err on the side of love.  I for one, am not going to be part of the communion police, deciding who is saved, who is in good standing, who is truly walking in the light.  It's the Lord's table, I will trust Him to sort it out in the end.

The Vagueness of Spiritual Unity

Our church has been chugging through the task of calling a pastor for three years and is finally at the point of calling a settled pastor, in fact his first Sunday was just last weekend so you already know how this all turned out.  But I wanted to record my thoughts on the final dash to the wire because I think it is instructive.  The interim pastor used one of his last Sundays in the pulpit as an opportunity to begin what appeared to most everyone to be a sure-thing transition to a new pastor even though no formal vote had been taken at that point in time.  He preached on calling, and choice, and decision and culminated by urging the congregation to move forward in unity.  But what exactly does that mean?  You hear that call to unity everywhere in Christian circles, but hardly ever see it demonstrated in Christian circles.  What you see is judgment, exclusion, division, endless doctrinal debate, and condemnation (let's dust off that word anathema and put it to good use!).

Does moving forward in unity mean that everyone rubber stamps the selection committee's choice?  Does it mean that every congregational member agrees with the process and decisions that have brought us to this point?  Does it mean that we fully agree that this pastoral candidate is God's exact and perfect choice for our congregation in this time and place?  You can see where that type of preaching on unity can lead to.  The facts of the matter are that not everyone agrees with the selection committee (even they were not unanimous in their recommendation), the process of selection has been too long and flawed from the beginning because of a false sense of loyalty to the bylaws and a near absolute exclusion of the congregation, and after three years the selection committee turned up only one viable candidate, not hardly the clear direction that the church hoped for.  However, true unity recognizes that we, as a church congregation, have come to a point of decision regarding our future direction, and although each of us reads the tea leaves differently, we find ourselves constrained in our choices but still faced with the demand to choose.  And right or wrong, each of us had to vote our conscience with what we had at hand and then move forward together, supporting and not second guessing or complaining about the choice made, whatever side we fell on after the vote.  Real fellowship in the midst of disagreement, difference of opinion, and personal preferences, that marks the unity that must now keep us steady ahead. 

Six Weeks in the Pulpit

Once more I dust off the mea culpa as I log in and realize that even I have not been back to this blog since May.  For shame.  I might properly blame it on summer, or at least summer in Vermont.  It's all too short, you see, and there are a lot of other things I would rather do related to the outdoors rather than the internet, but it's time to get back to business.  Sunday's at church or listening to the week to Christian radio usually provides sufficient fodder to get a short blog going, but for the past six weeks I have had the privilege to hold the pulpit at the United Church of South Royalton as we went through that interim period between our interim pastor and our new pastor.  That made me an interim, interim, I guess.  What it reminded me of was spiritual giftings that have laid dormant for a long time and were finally given an opportunity to be used in a powerful way.  I know that we give a lot of lip service to recognizing spiritual gifts and allowing them to be used in our congregations, but that may be all well and good for spiritual gifts like hospitality or giving or service, but just where does someone with the gift of pastor/teacher find an outlet?  But that's a side issue for now.  I once again realized the following from my experience:

• Proclaiming the word of God intensely focuses it on your own life, you must first be changed by it or have it real inside of you before you can truly share it.
• The word of God is living and powerful, and when rightly divided and used can reach into the heart and soul of the congregation.
• Preach Christ, and Him crucified, and people will respond better than they will to doctrine (that leaves a soul dry) or judgment (that leaves a soul without hope).  As my wife Kathy always admonishes me when I have a chance to enter the pulpit, "Tell me about Jesus".

I garnered a lot of atta-boys from my six weeks of preaching that helped to confirm again my gifting and calling.  But I wanted to close with the one that meant the most to me.  One woman simply said that she had started taking notes in church again.  What I had to say meant something to her and was worth remembering.  No higher compliment could have been given.

Dry Bones

My church has been talking about being in a time of spiritual dryness.  I am puzzled by this because I have not really notice any difference in the church over the past year.  Now that could mean that I am spiritual dead and unresponsive myself, but I somehow do not think that is the case.  Over the centuries spiritual dryness has been defined as feeling separated from God, from lacking a sense of power or purpose in prayer, of going through the motions in our spiritual pilgrimage but lacking real conviction of the eternal.  And there has been multitudes of counsel for how to work through those times.  But how do we know that we are in those times?  Is it declining church attendance, increased family problems in the congregation, decreased giving, lack of motivation to serve?  I still don't know how to gauge the times of spiritual rain and spiritual dryness.  After all, maybe it is just the created ebb and flow of life.

I don't live each day in great spiritual revelation, I do not see miracles happening everywhere around me, my way is not made sure by warrior angels going before me, I do not sense that I come into the throne room of God when I go to church.  But I do my best to be present for those that interact with me daily, I try to be aware of my wife and her needs, I make time for the grandchildren when they come over, I offer a full day's effort for a reduced day's pay at work, I get up each day to confronts its challenges, and I go to bed each night trying to lay down anything that has clung to me from the day's activities.  And I firmly believe that even though my days are predictable, unimaginative, and sometimes downright tedious, that they are lived as faithfully as lies within my power in the presence of God.  They used to call that mundane, from the Latin word for world, mundus.  And it is set against some spiritual ideal of the heavenly realm.  That is where the conflict lies.  We might theoretically be seated in the heavenlies with Christ, but we live day in and day out in a world that is slightly askew and does not yet see Christ reigning over all things.

The challenge is to know the presence of God in the mundane and not just label the tedious times as spiritual dryness.  Solomon said that God has already put eternity in our hearts.  It's hard to imagine spiritual dryness and eternity dwelling as room mates.  I can count on one hand the times that I have really, really felt the hand of God in my life, but that does not mean that I am unaware of Him through the majority of my really tedious days.  We are too quick to hang labels on life when God does not meet our expectations.  I think it is just time to remain faithful in what we do with our lives, and persevere in whatever circumstances confront us.  Life has always been for me one step after the next, it's time to move on.

A Personal Struggle

I am in the midst of my own slightly past mid-life crisis as I confront the biblical ideal versus the day to day reality of my spiritual journey.  I think everyone comes face to face with this crisis point more than once in their journey.  The biblical ideal constantly bombards me as I listen to Christian radio, to bible preachers with a secure ministry, and to those whose lives are pretty well settled out and secure and love to remind me that God has a wonderful plan for my life and I just need to wait on His perfect timing and way.  But what I struggle with is this internal conflict.  I believe with all my heart that I have been given the spiritual gift of preaching and teaching, that I can cut to the heart of the biblical text and proclaim it in an understandable and powerful way.  This is not an inflated view of myself, too much external confirmation from unrelated third parties has proven it over the last decades of practice.  I further acknowledge that such gifts are part of the work of the Holy Spirit, a charisma from God.  But here is where the conflict begins.  I face the question daily of why God would make me thus and so and then not also give me opportunities to use the gift He so obviously put within me.  I am not arguing with the potter about why He made me this way, I'm just asking why He made me this way and then has put me in the back of the storeroom to gather dust.

My spiritual friends counsel me to wait on God's perfect timing, but my heart tells me to pursue options, to not wait for a door to open but to knock on any door that I happen to see in front of me that has a chance to open.  It must be nice to have your life's vocation fully match your spiritual expectations.  I am not yet there myself.

Reflections on a Sunday's Worship Experience

I have never been a "Lone Ranger" Christian, forging a path on my own, and thus each Sunday usually finds my wife and I settled into a pew in a local church.  I don't necessarily like it, but there is something inside of me that says, for better or worse, that salvation is a communal experience and it is worked out within the body of Christ.  But every Sunday is instructive because of the questions it raises within me.  I used to be quite dogmatic, and quite comfortable with fixed forms that never vary.  Suffice it to say that neither of those descriptions fits me quite well.  So here are the thoughts that played inside my mind during this past Sunday's worship experience.

Worship versus Music:  There are certain people in our church that love to sing.  They always bring their instruments when invited anywhere and they would be more than happy to spend the entire church service singing.  They also dominate our praise team and spiritual life committee.   I noted this again when we began ten minutes late because they could not quite end the "pre-music" on time.  This in itself was only a minor bump in the road, but this Sunday was also one of those Sundays in which we have an organist present.  Did I mention that this particular organist has been exploring all of the nooks and crannies of our pew hymnal, resulting sometimes in songs that only she can play and that our pastor can sing.  What all of that confluence of musical preference worked in me was reuminating on the proper use of music in church services.  If we are trying to foster a heart of worship, a sense of awe in God's presence, and our active participation in acknowledging His great works on our behalf, shouldn't we be more in tune with the congregation in the pews rather than our own preferences and practices?  No matter how good a hymn may be in terms of the message it conveys, if no one can sing it, why play it?  Or if people tune out of the pre-music when it starts to run over its alloted time and go beyond its intended purpose, what is accomplished when you finally do come to the real music of worship?  There is a place for "special music" or solos, but I instinctively feel they have to be the exception, not the rule.  There are already too many things in church services that make us spectators rather than participants, music should not be added to the list.

Holy Spirit:  We sing a lot of songs about revival and letting the fire of heaven fall on us, but I often wonder what would happen if it really did?  We want the Spirit of God to be present but the scripture clearly states that He moves where He wills, just like the wind.  And that movement of wind is a vivid picture.  When I think on it I feel it speaks of action, of movement.  The Spirit of God moving as a wind is not intended to be a breeze that makes us comfortable, but as a driving wind that moves us much as a ship moves under sail.  Now it is possible to move contrary to the wind, sailing close to the wind they call it, but it is much easier to generally move in the direction the wind wants to move.  It seems like a no brainer, but we spend much time asking to be moved rather than just gauging the wind and throwing ourselves into it.

Christian Concepts:  We say a lot of things as Christians (things like the joy of the Lord is my strength), but what do we really mean by that or even more importantly what do we experience by it?  We use words like joy, love of God, fellowship, unity, forgiveness, worship, and grace almost every Sunday but there seems little evidence that any of those things are really present and active in us.  They remain just concepts that have little power to change anything until they can really be expressed in application.  The usual response is to quote a scripture or two that seems to promise them or endow them on us, but I confess that I rarely feel joyful, I have a hard time understanding what God wants of me in worship, and many times there is no deep feeling of love that constrains me in church either towards God or my fellow congregants.  I think sometimes we enjoy expounding concepts because it appears to lift us out of the mundane existence of the world, but what is wrong with just being yourself, being present, and participating at that point where your faith is capable of touching God?  I think our gatherings would be much more authentic if we stopped being so evangelically correct in our practices.

Reflections on Christian Practice

I don't have much to make into a substantial blog entry, so I am combining some of the recent reflections I have made during the recent Sunday services I am in attendance at.  These practices are, I think, common to most American Christian churches.

When God Says No:  I wonder why we have to make up reasons to explain why God does not answer our prayers.  Recently in church and on the Christian radio I have heard person after person explain the reasons why God may not be answering our prayers, but they all seem lame to me.  It's time to recognize that life is hard, the effects of the curse are still very visible and present among us, and the Kingdom of God has not yet come in power.  The idea that our unanswered prayers are in the "Not now" tickle folder maintained in heaven just waiting for the time that they can be addressed seems absurd.  I have asked many things over my years of spiritual journey, only a very small amount have really been answered.  It does not take anything away from God to admit this, I still ask.  The success rate when you don't ask is pretty self explanatory.

The Wonderful Plan:  How often have you heard that God has a wonderful plan for your life?  I hear it at least once a day on the Christian radio in various forms.  But what I keep wondering is if God has this wonderful plan for my life, if He gives me all these gifts and talents to make that wonderful plan happen, why does it seem that He fails to give opportunity for the plan to come to pass.  It especially seems that people that are successful in ministry always say this, but I wonder if they would continue to run the party line if they were just a common Joe without all the glitz and position the ministry gives.

Voice Inflection:  I recently noticed that we raise our voices, inflect our words differently when we pray.  Do we think that this adds power or conviction to our prayers?  I remember the story about God speaking, not in a hurricane or fire or earthquake, but in a still small voice, and I think that if the still, small voice was good enough for God to be heard, it should be good enough for us.

I would give anything if we could just strip away all of the accumulated Christian baggage we have picked up along the centuries and just get back to what is essential in our relationship with God.  I have said this many times but it continues to remain true.  I don't know what the real church should look like, but I can easily spot what it should not look like.  If I ever find it, I will let you know.