great flourish. After the elders distributed the bread and the cups, I collected their trays like a veteran, neatly stacked them, and launched into the prayer after communion. Despite my gusto for this prayer, I do remembering having an uneasy feeling that something was wrong.
One of the elders interrupted my prayer by whispering urgently, “Andrew. Andrew. Andrew!” When he finally had my attention, he pointed, first to himself, and then down towards the rest of pew to the servers who sat with puzzled looks. Then it dawned on me that I had forgotten to serve the servers! I was able to suspend the prayer abruptly and distribute the elements. Though embarrassed, I was grateful for the elder’s timely interruption. While the liturgy did not flow as smoothly as I had rehearsed all week, I would have deeply regretted leaving anyone out of the Lord’s Supper.
After the service, most people made passing references to my mistake with gentle amusement in their eyes. I was happy to laugh with them. In reference to that memorable beginning of my first Sunday, we joked that at least my microphone had worked correctly. I think that people appreciate the fact that I am not easily ruffled and can make the best out of my slip-ups. Perhaps such blunders are endearing because they show a human side of a pastor. Over the course of my first year, I heard several approving comments relating to the fact that I am not “too big for my britches.” This culture values modesty.
On a deeper level, I had just preached a sermon about hospitality as a spiritual discipline. Just before I forgot to serve the elders, the body of Christ celebrated our belief that Jesus is the Great Host. Since our risen Lord invites us to his table solely by grace, we ate and drank together as sinners—as people who make mistakes. If this is part of the human condition, then maybe such “mistakes” are really more like opportunities to practice the kind of hospitality that Jesus practiced. Maybe we are modeling for one another the belief that there is nothing that can prevent us from coming to the Lord’s Table—nothing that we could do, or not do, to forfeit our savior’s gracious invitation.
Holy Communion is ultimately about the grace of God. We refer to the Lord’s Table, not Andrew’s table nor New Dublin’s table nor even the Presbyterians’ table. It does not matter if you practiced all week to get the Words of Institution exactly right but flubbed the liturgy or if you came late to church and forgot to bring the grape juice. If the point is that we are all invited, then we witness to this hospitality by welcoming one another. We extend grace to others because Jesus first extended grace to us.
I take a great deal of comfort in the message of grace found at the Lord’s Table. Yet there is a scandalous aspect to practicing radical hospitality in Jesus’ name. It is one thing to talk about worshipping together despite our silly mistakes. But what about the wife whose husband is cheating on her? Is he still invited? Is each spouse involved in this gut-wrenching and heart-breaking situation invited to the same table? What about families that have been torn apart over inheritances? Are both sides of the dispute, even if one is clearly at fault, invited to eat the same bread and drink of the same cup? Such questions provide a challenge for us to live as the body of Christ, even as we break bread in remembrance of him.
Jesus once told a parable about an older brother who was fuming mad because his father threw a grandiose feast for his younger brother. This prodigal son had made many mistakes in a land far away. By his own estimation, he was not worthy to be considered a member of the family, much less the reason for festivity. That was certainly the opinion of the older brother. Still the father throws a celebration for this prodigal and then goes to his other son who was bitterly angry out in the cold fringes of the party’s light. The father lovingly said, “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found” (Luke 15:32).
It is striking to me that Jesus ends his parable with these words. What a scandal he places before us! Since the elder brother does not respond to his father, the same question falls into our laps. How might we witness to such grace in our communities today?
For my first communion service, I borrowed an idea from one of my seminary professors, Paul Galbreath. I encouraged the congregation to pray the Great Thanksgiving liturgy with their eyes open.1 When I prayed from the Lord’s Table, I was able to lock eyes with them. In the exact moments of my first communion prayer, I was mostly in my own head, thinking about the words I had memorized and so carefully practiced ahead of time. As I have reflected on the experience, however, several faces have come to mind: the smile on her face, the tears running down his cheeks, and the look of pride in my parents’ eyes. I treasure these memories of those different faces as snapshots of the scandalous yet beautiful belief that Jesus invites us all to the same table no matter what we are feeling or have experienced beforehand.
In the following weeks, the snapshots of those faces during the prayer became living portraits of people’s lives. I learned that many people received some kind of “first communion” on that Sunday. They ate the bread for the first time without a spouse or for the first time as an expectant mother. They drank from the cup for the first time as an unemployed father or for the first time as a homeowner. Yet no matter what we have done or what has happened to us, the elements of this meal are always the same. With our open eyes fixed on our Lord’s Table, we can see evidence of God’s unchanging love in the breaking of bread and the pouring of the cup. Like the father of Jesus’ famous parable, God “sees” us no matter how far off we have traveled and invites us to the feast (Luke 15:20). For all of the “first-timers” who come to the Lord’s Table, I pray that they will look to these constants to provide a sense of comfort.
Our open eyes can help us with the scandal of grace as well. Like the older brother, we are confronted and challenged by God’s hospitality. In light of what God has done for us, we can learn to see one another other as members of the same family of faith despite our mistakes, errors, and sins. As we pray with our eyes open, we are inspired to practice hospitality. Since we eat at the same table, we should take the time and invest the energy to help during the transitions of the all “firsts” and “lasts” in our lives.
I preached about hospitality that Sunday morning when I served communion for the first time, but I learned about hospitality when I brought communion into homes during the following week. I discovered that hospitality is about sharing strawberries and iced tea before the breaking of the bread and pouring of the cup. When sharing home communion, I found out that there is a great deal of laughter beforehand and sometimes there are tears afterwards. As a result, my prayers are less formal and more personal in someone’s home.
I had to abandon my well-rehearsed communion script in other ways as well. The personal experience of home communion naturally leads to personal exchanges between the pastor and those who receive the sacrament. For instance, one gentleman abruptly interrupted the liturgical prayer to ask about my wife’s new job. On a different occasion, a matriarch of our congregation repeated the Lord’s Prayer with me, but then kept right on going after the “amen,” adding words of thanksgiving for the people of her beloved church. Often a parishioner spills grape juice down his or her shirt while struggling to drink from those tiny glasses. I break off smaller pieces of bread so that the elderly communicant will not accidentally choke, and sometimes I place the food directly in his or her mouth. Thank God for all of these improvisations! Our sacrament does not take place in a vacuum apart from shaky hands and short attention spans, just as the body of Christ cannot be contained by the four walls of a particular church. Neither is the difference between pastor and parishioner so rigidly defined as it can appear to be during the celebration of a sacrament in Sunday worship. All of us are sharing real bread, real juice, and real fellowship together. Whenever and wherever we partake of Holy Communion, the point is that God will be real to us.
In the beautiful text about the journey to Emmaus, the two travelers cannot recognize Jesus on their own (Luke 24:15–16). God must come to us in order to be revealed. Grace is the first cause; and yet there is a task for us. We are to practice hospitality by insisting that even strangers join us around our tables (Luke 24:29). Because God first invited us, we must go to people
