#382. Perfectly timing your communion walk.
Aug 20th by JonI haven’t written about communion before on this site because I was afraid to “ruin” it for people. A number of readers have told me that during worship they find themselves distracted thinking about the ten different hand raising styles or how we can’t clap on rhythm or some other silly idea I’ve written about. So I thought I should leave communion alone. When I told my wife this logic on Tuesday night, she laughed, oh she laughed and laughed.
What she found so funny was my inflated sense of self importance, the idea that I thought my words could radically change someone’s ability to interact with the Alpha and Omega during communion. And she’s right. If during communion, you’ve got a clear focus and open channel to God, nothing I write will change that. But if you’re like me, in addition to talking with God during communion, you’ve also got a running inner dialog that just won’t stop. Here’s what it might look like if you attend a church where communion is distributed by walking to the front and receiving it when you are ready:
“Don’t go up too early, you’ll look way too holy and fake.”
A lot of times, ministers will say something like, “Confess anything that is lingering in your heart. Square yourself with God before you come take communion.” If I sprint up to the front as soon as the communion is available, it seems like I’m saying, “Look at me. I was sinless this week and didn’t have anything to confess! Adios sinners!”
“But don’t be the last to go up, you’ll look like the worst sinner ever.”
If my entire section has gotten up for communion and I’m still sorting through some stuff with God, then chances are the people around me think that I must have kidnapped a bus full of nuns and orphans in another country, fled here to escape the police and am now living under an assumed identity. That’s what I think in my head anyway. “Why is it taking so long for that guy with the unibrow to go take communion? What has that guy done? Yikes.”
“Wait until the people near you go up so you don’t interrupt their chat with God with your exit.”
In Fight Club, Brad Pitt’s character comments on the awkwardness of scooting by someone in the aisle of a plane. He says the dilemma is whether to scoot by with your front or your back. And that awkwardness is only amplified when the people next to you are having a heart to heart with God. “Excuse me, pardon me. I know you’re talking with God, but I need to stomp on your toes for a minute and temporarily put my butt 18 inches from your head as you pray. That’s not distracting is it? No? Good.”
“I hope we’re not drinking out of a communal cup today. Come on little individual cups.”
I know Jesus could heal all of us from the cold that the third guy in line is going to leave on the lid of that cup we’re all going to drink out of, but what if He doesn’t? What if instead He uses His powers to craft a lightning bolt with my name on it because I’m thinking about germs and sloppy four hundredths instead of what the true meaning of the communion is? I am such a horrible Christian.
“Do I have to wait for my wife? Is that a team unity kind of thing?”
I don’t want to be one of those couples that dresses alike. When my wife and I come to the car in the same color shirt we usually have a wardrobe showdown, staring at each other until one of us gives in and changes. I always lose. So when it comes to walking up and getting communion, is that like dressing alike or does it show a united household if we go up together? I mean maybe God is doing something different with her right now. If I don’t wait for her, have I just committed another sin that I have to confess before I go up? If I do go up before her, do I have to tell her “bye?” Is she going to reach out her hand to hold mine while praying and find an empty chair and me up front doing my own thing? Ugh, it’s all so complicated.
It’s been a while since I’ve faced these dilemmas. Our church doesn’t do communion often and when they do, it’s more of the drive thru experience. You sit there, a large silver, spaceship like vessel carrying rings of little cups arrives in your lap. But that’s a whole different post for a whole different day.
P.S. Big thanks to Lauren M. for that fun idea.
Comments
Wow! I never knew that communion was such a big religous deal. It is so personal for me. I have never even felt like I needed to look around to see if I am being appropriate or not. Which is probably not a good idea since I am unknowingly stepping all over people. I just seem to have a knack for making others uncomfortable. Once I was so deep in prayer I got on my knees and knelt at the pew and someone tapped me on the shoulder and told me to get back in my seat. I wasn’t even embarrassed. I just sat back down and kept praying.
It is personal for me because once during my conversation with GOD before communion HE healed me from fibromyalgia. It was just me and HIM. We were conversing together and HE asked me why I hadn’t asked HIM to heal me. I will never forget that communion and I will never let another go by without making it about HIM and I.
I have to confess that when I was in youth group we used to snack on communion wafers from the church freezer. Did anyone else do that?
The thing about communion. It is the real thing, and nothing can spoil it. I remember the fellowship with an old saint as he and I prepared the plates, and that set it up very sweetly for communion with God. But, after communion, we do the communion dance. We make a big circle and sing “Blest Be the Tide That Binds”, holding hands for the first verse, and immediately letting go when the second stanza begins. And no squeezy just before letting go. It isn’t allowed.
Two words: Christ Crispies.
Usually my dad says “You may eat” but one time he didn’t and I kept thinking, ‘I can’t eat yet, I can’t eat yet.’ haha.
People have already touched on this, but just to make it official:
You should TOTALLY do a post about the 102349876 different ways we do communion and how confusing it is when you visit a new church. I mean doing communion involves an extremely high level of ninja-like skill and timing.
If you get the elements passed to you, do you eat/drink individually or do you wait? If you guess wrong, you either look like you’re hungry eating early, or you have to gulp down your cracker/bread in a hurry to have your hands free for the next thing.
I’m attending an episcopal church now, and although I LOVE taking communion every Sunday, there’s even more to worry about. Drinking from the communal cup takes 133t 5ki11z, I tells ya. Once I slurped really loud. That was awkward.
I remember back in the early ’90s I was responsible for setting up the communion one Sunday evening. Trouble was, I had no bread, and no money to buy any bread. So I rang the Church secretary and asked if she could send some bread to church with her son for the communion. So he turns up five minutes before the church service starts with a loaf of frozen bread. I had no idea what to do, we always did communion during worship (i.e. first) and this bread was totally frozen – fortunately it was sliced… so I go up to the pastor, while the worship is going on, and say to him – ‘the bread, its frozen!’ He burst out laughing, and said to chop it into little bits (usually people tear off for themselves) and that he’d do the communion at the end of the service. By which point it was defrosted. I personally really enjoy partaking of communion, for some reason my pastor hasn’t done it in months.. he thinks communion is better taken in homegroup settings, which is a pity, as I view it as something that we can do as a church body together.
idea.. new to the site so i don’t know if you’ve posted about it but i always think it’s funny how so many christians look like they’re in terrible pain or sadness while worshiping with their eyes are closed. their brows are all furrowed.. it’s like they’re thinking really hard, all the time.
I don’t have fond memories of communion. Or June bugs. I was about 5 and my older siblings were at a retreat/campout. I was going to get to spend the night with the big kids!! WOOHOO! We had communion around the campfire before the parents left. I had my bread in hand. Here comes the cup. Here comes the June bug!! There goes the grape juice, all over me and my mom.
I didn’t get to spend the night with the big kids.
Melissa – My uncle is a pastor of a Methodist church, and one time when I was at my cousin’s house there was a bag full of those Styrofoam-y wafers sitting on the counter. I promise you, we ate half of the bag. Of course, they have zero taste whatsoever. But for some reason they were strangely addicting. Compelling, even. You are not alone : )
Sometimes I don’t go down for communion at all, just because of the whole awkward feeling about sin and blah, blah, blah you’re talking about. My heart’s not in what the pastor’s saying. I’m not feeling very sinless or repentant. Some days I leave my husband sitting there and just go. Some days he doesn’t go.
I get what you’re saying about having things ruined and taking yourself too seriously. Tim Hawkins has “ruined” a couple of things for me, but in a good way. The whole Hedge of Protection? I burst out laughing now anytime I hear someone pray that. What are we THINKING?
Funny, funny responses. And Kellie, I love your testimony. I worship like you…I’m not hung up on how others are doing it. When I go to another church, I just ask them how they do it. People love to talk about their rituals.
My husband was raised Catholic and recalls that while prepping for first communion, he asked his teacher questions about the transmogrification (sorry, can’t remember the right word) of the bread into Christ’s body. Well, you know how little boys are…the questions kept coming and finally came around to, “If I ate it, then got sick and threw up on the floor, would it still be the body of Christ so the Priest would have to clean it up?”
No more questions after that one!
Sandy
We don’t go up for communion either, but I was STILL laughing hysterically at this one…I can just visualize it.
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The silver spaceship comment had me rolling… Loved this one. We don’t have to time our walk in our church though. But we do offer about all the ways you can do it without a common cup.
Early (casual..our code name for contemporary) everyone comes up by rows. They can 1. receive communion by intiction.. pull off a hunk of bread.. dip it in the juice and eat the elements at that time.
OR
at the same time option 2 is available..you can come forward eat a piece of bread and pick up a shot glass out of the silver space ship and drink.
OR
at the same time option 3 is available.. you can come forward, eat a bread chiclet and pick up a shot glass out of the silver space ship and drink.
OR
at 11:00 traditional service you can sit a la drive through and wait on the silver space ship to arrive in your lap along with it’s smaller satelite sister ship carrying the bread/chiclets.
Option 1 here is eat a bread chiclet and take a shot glass out of the silver space ship…hold the glass..
OR
break off a piece of bread and take out a shot glass from the silver space ship..hold the glass.
We then say aloud our affirmation of faith and we partake of the cup (the little shot glasses) at one time.
I heard this part (the unison cup) is somewhat new from some older parishioners just last night as little shot glass holders had to be made and affixed to the back of the pews so everyone would have a place to put them once they have received the cup.
I think this is a wise choice as I think I might get confused at times with all those little cups in that big space ship and accidentally pick one up that maybe someone else just didn’t do a good job of finishing off properly.
I think we do a very nice job of offering a wide variety of options for communion in our church..we’re not little but we’re not huge. Actually pretty amazing now that I think about it…
We liked to mix things up at our church. One Sunday each elders stood at the front along with his wife, consisting of about 8 couples. The wife held the platter containing the pre-pulled bread. The husband held an urn with the grape juice. The pastor explained the process. However, I could hardly contain myself as one woman got her bread from the wife and put it in her mouth as she was moving toward the husband, remembering too late that she needed to dip it in the juice. She pulled it out of her mouth, dipped it & moved on. Only a few were aware of what had happened. We never did it that way again.
Our church seems to switch it around from the going up to take your communion or having it passed to you. At least I don’t usually have to worry about passing by people in the aisle since I usually sit in the back.
A woman I know calls the spaceship thingy a holy hubcap. I like that.
We pass the spaceship… the hardest part of which is doing the hand off. Does that little old lady with the pencil-thin arms REALLY have a grasp on this 300-pound platter? C’mon, grannie, use both hands! Both hands!
When do you let go? Too early and it’s communion kabluey. Too late and you look like you’re hogging the blood of Jesus. It’s kinda like high-stakes Jenga… It’s okay if it crashes, just not on my turn.
why don’t you all do communion often?
thank you for the “fight club” add in!
“and now a question of etiquette . . .”
This is only mildly related to the post (which was more than a little bit amusing, but at my church they just pass a plate of crackers and lil’ cups, so the only thing to worry about is not dumping 50 lil’ cups of grape juice into the lap of the person sitting next to me — those trays are HEAVY)…oh, I was talking about something. Rite rite.
So I wanted to mention that, I am not sure where the “get squared up with God before communion” thing comes from. I had a communion dinner with my friends and we read all the passages about communion that we could find — all the stuff about making sure you take it in a worthy manner, et cetera. Confession never comes up, but respect for the memory does. I think communion was not meant to be a “clean-up” time but it got tangled up with that idea somewhere along the way.
Weird o_O