A Meal That Levels Everyone

Transcript

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[0:00] And now we'll go to our time in the sermon. And so here's our reading for the sermon is 1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 26. And again, a little bit of the background is we have a dysfunctional body. It's dysfunctional in all sorts of ways, but we're just focusing on how they do meals together. It was common to have a meal at the church, you know, like a potluck, but not like a potluck. Evidently, people brought their own food. And the problem with this meal in Corinth in particular was selfishness. There were actually flaunting of class differences within the body. And so somebody would come with a whole plate of food, and they had good food, and other people had poor food, and other people had no food. And there wasn't this sense in this body that, oh, I should share what I have with somebody else.

[0:56] In other meals, and this is... This is how meals function in that time, not just in Jewish culture, but probably in other cultures too. Meals were events where you advertised how much honor that you had in your family. And so it depended... If you ate with people with the same level of honor, you all had the same kind of food. If you ate with somebody who was of a higher honor than you, then you would sit further away from them. There'd be sort of these rules to let you know where you are and let you know what your place is. But if you had a place, you also wanted to maintain your place. And so if you had the most honor in the room, you wanted to do all these things that reinforced your honor. Now, if you had a lot of honor, and you were sitting right next to a person with low honor, so say you were a large landowner, and you were sitting next to a servant, but in the church, this could happen because the believers were from all classes, right? In the church, a landowner could sit next to a servant, and they have very different levels of honor in the outside world. But in the church, they're... They're equal. But the outside world's culture always is creeping its way into the church. Does that make sense?

[2:04] It happens here, too, in America, right? It's always happening. So the outside world's culture was creeping into the church, and so the person with money or prestige or fame or honor, all those things, was sitting next to somebody with low honor and said, I have to do all the cultural things so that nobody thinks that I'm on the same level as this person. So I have to eat better food than them. I'm not going to share my food with them, because then I'm eating with them, and that puts them... That doesn't put them on my level. It puts me on their level. And if I lose honor, then I lose a lot of stuff. So actually, losing honor meant you lose a lot of stuff. It's interesting. In Norway, and it probably happened in other churches, you can go and visit some historic churches in Norway, and there were little plaques on the pews for your names, and the farmers who had the largest farms got the pews at the front of the church, and the people with smaller farms got to sit further back. Isn't that great?

[3:04] Isn't that terrible is what I mean? It's great in a sarcastic way. Even in the church, we know who's bigger and better. And this is what's happening here. So Paul is like, your meals are very bad. Your meals are reflecting your culture. When you enter the church, you enter into a new culture. We're very countercultural in the church. And so in the body, the distinction, distinctions go away. And communion, then, is very countercultural. And we'll see that communion can be very countercultural for us and for our culture. Now, also, it seems that some people got drunk at these meals. So, I mean, you almost don't even need to say this, but please don't get drunk at church. I mean, just don't do it. Just don't do it. And you can't because we don't serve wine here. But, you know, at some other churches, they serve wine. That could theoretically happen. But we don't serve wine. We serve grape juice. And I think that's wise because we don't want to put anything in the way of somebody that might be tempted by it.

[4:04] So Paul is using the dysfunction around how a confused church does communion to teach about communion. All right? So let's go to our reading, then. Our reading is from 1 Corinthians 11.23. And this is what Paul writes. He writes this, For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had gone, he took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this word. We ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen.

[5:02] So, let's talk a little bit about communion. And today, the general plan is to give an overview of how communion sort of got started. And this is part of it that we just read. What different Christians think communion means. And then what our denomination kind of thinks communion means. And I say kind of, and you'll understand why I'm saying kind of in a little while. And then we'll talk about, you know, what you should do before communion to prepare yourself. And a little bit, we'll talk about whether children should receive communion. The short answer is yes, but there's some things that they need to understand, as Victoria said. And we'll go over that a little bit more too. So, this is more of a teaching sermon, less of an inspirational one. So, I'll try to inspire you as much as I can. But hang in there. Hang in there. There's a lot of information. But some of it's interesting. And you're going to learn a very interesting trivia fact that you may not know. And I'm going to quiz you on it later, okay? So, hang on for that trivia thing, all right? So, for one, we understand that communion is a commandment from Jesus. At the Last Supper, Jesus shares the bread. He shares the cup with his disciples. And he says, do this in remembrance of me.

[6:13] And so, we say to ourselves, so who is he talking to? Is it just the disciples? Are they supposed to keep doing this from time to time? Or is this all Christians? Well, in the practice of the church, we believe that it's all Christians should do this.

[6:27] And so, we say to ourselves, who is he talking to? And you should note that Jesus doesn't just eat the bread and drink the cup in front of his disciples and say, this is for me, you know, you guys should have brought your own. So, already we see that what Jesus is doing in that meal is he's sharing with his disciples. He's sharing what he has and he's giving it to somebody else. And he's breaking bread with them. So, that has this kind of this deep sort of cultural undertones of we break bread together. We share things together. We share. We commit to each other in hospitality, right? So, there's this, there's a gift from Jesus to his disciples. And there's this expectation that they take it together. He gives it to all 12 of them at the same time. He doesn't say, here's a little piece. You go off in that corner and eat it. Here's a piece. You go off and you do this in the private, take it home with you and do it in privacy. No, he says, I'm giving it to you now. It's a gift. And you're all, all of us are now going to eat and drink it together. So, there's this sort of communal. Aspect of it. And that's the important thing that I want to talk about real briefly is that communion is communal.

[7:35] Might be kind of related there, that whole idea. Communion is not an individual act. It's a group act. It's something that we do together because God, Jesus told us to do it together. Now, I'll tell you this and maybe this happened to you or you tried this or you, you know. Sometimes wedding couples ask to take communion at their wedding. Maybe you've been to a wedding where somebody, a couple. Has take communion and sometimes they want to be the only ones to take communion, right? They, they, they want to get married and when they're married, they want to take communion. Just the two of them. Nobody else. And, and I've seen that happen and that's interesting. I, but I wouldn't do it that way as a pastor because I would, I would counsel them. I would say this, this, what you're asking to do. We don't do it that way because this is a communal meal that we share together. It's not just for two people to eat while everybody else. Watches that actually violating how Paul was talking to the Corinthians. Well, isn't it, you know, and, uh, it, it, it also rep resembles a little bit how the Jehovah's witnesses do it. Believe it or not, the Jehovah's witnesses celebrate home and holy communion once a year on Monday, Thursday.

[8:46] And what they do is they get the bread and they cup and they put it on a table and they all just sit there and look at it because they're waiting for one of their 144,000 people. So that's the whole point. They're waiting for one of their 144,000, especially super, super believers to come and take it because they're the only ones who are allowed to take it, which also breaks first Corinthians kind of rules about not eating it in front of somebody else. So I'm, I'm just saying that that kind of misunderstanding has percolated into the Jehovah's witnesses. And then if enough time goes by and one of these 144,000, which there aren't very many of them left, cause they started passing those out back in 1914, um, then they just pack it all up and put it away. And so they, They, if they, if they're not one of the super elect, they never get to take it. They never get to take it. So you got to kind of get to see. So.

[9:37] Then I will go back to the weddings is that a, I would say now if you want really want to have communion, we need to give it to everybody. Cause it's a communal act. But then the problem with that is. That not everybody really should take it because not everybody understands what it means. If you have invited a guest who doesn't know anything. About this. I'm. we we really probably shouldn't give it to them because of what Paul says here you need to understand it you need to understand it and so unless you're certain that your guest list is a hundred percent people who understand what Holy Communion is you probably just shouldn't serve it at a wedding that's my advice other pastors may do other things okay so and this is the same thing is true to a lesser degree for baptism in some circumstances you have to baptize somebody privately in a hospital room they're dying you know or there's nobody else around but ideally baptism is a public profession of faith so it has to happen in front of other people so they can hear the profession right you get the idea and Victoria is going to preach on baptism next week so we're covering both of our sacraments in these in this two week I guess a miniseries on the sacraments now the cultural values of communion challenges

[10:53] for us is the ! individualism that was the challenge back then was class structure honor and shame for us I think communion challenges our individualism and our sense that we can do things on our own and earn all the things that we need to survive and many of you are good earners and a lot of people in this valley are good earners and they can earn enough money and they can buy a house and they can save up enough money that they really aren't dependent on anyone else and that's the American way is I did it and I did it all by myself right but communion is really the opposite right communion says that we're in this together we're taking it together we take it as a communion community and it strengthens us as a community and so when you take communion next week and we're serving it next week I hope that you absolutely understand it as something individually that you're doing but I also hope you begin to start understanding it as something that draws us together as a community it's a thing we do together and it draws us together the other thing that's countercultural for us about communion as I said is it's a gift it's not something we earn it's something we receive freely we don't charge you for communion I don't know if

[12:09] single church that charges for communion that would be sad I mean can you imagine going up there and having to put some money in a machine before the communion comes out it's a gift Jesus says and this is the important thing that's the tiniest phrase but it's all there he says for you this is my body for you it's a gift from him to us and so we don't earn it we receive it with thanks we receive it it's in this it's like just something that we don't earn or do or manage on our own we receive it so communion is something we receive communion is something we take together the question though next is what is it actually you receive when you take communion, right? That's the question. The simple answer, of course, is a little bit of bread in some kind of shape or other. Sometimes it's raised, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's a tiny wafer, and you receive a cup. In some churches, it's actually wine, in our church, it's grape juice, but other liquids will work. You know, water is fine if nothing else can be found. It's okay. But beyond the actual physical things that we receive, what is it that we are receiving? And this is where Christians differ from each other quite a bit. And that, I'm going to say, the first thing I'll say about that is, that is okay. It's okay that Christians

[13:31] don't agree on this. It's quite all right. And the denomination that we're in, the Evangelical Covenant Church, and you should know this, if you don't, I want you to know this, is that we have decided as a denomination that we won't split the church over differences of opinion about the sacraments. So we won't split over what we receive. And that's the first thing I'll say about that. We won't split over what baptism means or how people should be baptized. And we won't split over what communion means, what we receive in communion, what we believe about communion. We don't think communion saves us. We don't think baptism saves us. We think Jesus saves us. Okay, that's really important. So we don't disagree on Jesus. We can't disagree on Jesus. If somebody says Jesus is somebody that we don't think it is, then we would split over that. So we'll split over Jesus, but we're not going to split over communion or baptism. So Jesus saves us. So we don't disagree on Jesus. We don't disagree on Jesus. So we don't disagree on Jesus. So we don't So we don't disagree on Jesus. So we don't disagree on Jesus. So we don't So we don't disagree on Jesus. So we don't So we don't So we don't receive the actual body and the actual blood of Jesus when you receive Holy Communion. That's a

[14:59] little frightening, and children here, I want you to understand this is what your Catholic friends, their church teaches them, and that's, like I said, that's okay, that there's some actually something interesting about it, where they believe that the substance of the bread and the cup are miraculously transformed into the actual, and I'm not saying fake, I'm saying actual, the actual flesh and blood of Jesus, although it continues to taste like bread, and it continues to taste like wine, is actually Jesus's body and blood, and this is a transformation of the substance of those things, and that's called transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is the transformation of substances, which I think is very interesting, right, and we don't practice that here necessarily, although if you chose to believe that, we wouldn't kick you out for it. That's the whole point. Like, you can believe that if you want.

[15:57] Now, here's the trivia part. Sorry, you're gonna perk up your ears. Who knows this word, this phrase, hocus pocus? We all know this, right? You've heard it. Now, who knows where it came from? Did you know it came from Holy Communion? You didn't know that? Okay, so the Catholic priest, he would have a cup.

[16:21] actually have a plate and it would have what we call the host on it, the bread, and he would wave his hands over it and he would say in Latin, Hoc est corpus meum. Hoc is this, est is, corpus, my body, body, meum, my body, that's sort of the yeah, hoc est corpus meum. And that transformed the host that was on a plate from being bread into, this is when the magic happens, okay, this is when the miracle happens. When he says these words, he unlocks the miracle when he says it. Now, if he says it too fast, because he says it five times a day, you know, 365 days a year, hoc est corpus meum, hoc est corpus meum, hoc est pocus, see how it kind of transformed into hoc est pocus? That's where hoc est pocus comes from. That's kind of a cramming together of the phrase that a Catholic priest would say when the transubstantiation miracle occurs. So, you learn something new. If nothing else, you learned about, and so that's, and then so the magician says, hoc est pocus, presto chango, I'm going to pull a rabbit out of my hat, or I just turned, you know, I turned a ribbon into a bird, or I don't know what he does. You know, I still don't know how all that happens. My son, Asher, has watched some videos on how all the magic tricks happen, and I'm like, that's pretty cool, but I don't remember

[17:42] any of them. And it ruins them for you. Okay. So, in the Catholic view, transubstantiation, what do you receive? You receive Jesus himself. You begin to identify Jesus completely because what do you do? You take Jesus into your own body. This is really intimate. This is really kind of wild. Right. And if you read John chapter six, which we're not going to go into today and John John John John John John John John John John is my body, and the drink that I give you is my blood, and this, my, you know, he talks about these things. Now, that's not, not everybody thinks that that's actually about communion, so you have to do your own research on that, but it was shocking, and it was this sense that Jesus is saying is that when you are with me, you are really with me, and I am really in you, and you are really in me, like there's this really, this strong connection between us, and so when you receive Catholic communion, you receive Jesus completely. You receive a miracle when you take communion, like it's not a humdrum thing, like there's a daily, hourly, I mean all around the world, there's this what we call the most reliable miracle in the world, because it happens every time a Catholic priest says the mass, which is their, their word for saying, you know, doing

[19:00] Holy Communion, it's the most reliable miracle ever, because it always works, and the bread and the cup are always transformed into a different thing. It's a different substance. So, here's a question. Do we like this? Who here likes it? It's okay if you like it. Is it a little frightening, or is it a little bit beautiful, a little bit of mystical? Do you like it? Yeah, it's, it's powerful, right? I'll be honest, I kind of like it. I'm like, right on, you know, let's believe in miracles. Let's receive Jesus, like let's, if Jesus wants to, you know, like when Jesus washes their feet, he says, you know, unless you let me wash you, you can have no good. I'm part of me. I'm identifying with you. You're identifying with me. When we do these things together, this isn't just some little thing that we're doing. This is a real big deal, and so when Catholics take communion, hopefully their understanding of it is, I'm really, I'm really taking Jesus in. I'm really receiving Jesus in this moment. Okay, now, at the other end, at the other end of the spectrum, we have a movement where a lot of the traditions of the church have been discarded, and there's a heavy, reliance on scripture alone, so that would be the iconoclasm. There were people who went around,

[20:13] and they got rid of all the art in the church because they said, all that stuff is distracting us. All of that is based on tradition. We have scripture alone. They even got rid of the windows in some places, and they just said, let's just read the Bible together, which is great, right? So we, and part of our heritage comes a little bit from that. A little bit of the covenant church has sort of an Anabaptist or iconoclastic, very small influence, but it was kind of part of the mix, and there's this heavy reliance, like I said, on scripture alone, and that's definitely part of our covenant thinking. Like we say, scripture only is the only thing that can guide us. All the traditions of the church are secondary to scripture, right? And here's the thing.

[20:56] Scripture itself does not define what happens in communion. I'll say that again. Scripture doesn't define what happens in communion. Scripture says, take communion. Scripture says, this is a gift from Jesus. Scripture says, take it together, but it doesn't say how often to take it. It doesn't say what exactly you're getting other than a cup and a piece of bread, right? And so the only real scriptural evidence that you have is that there's a cup, there's bread, and there's a gift, and there's a commandment to do it. And so in those groups, like the Anabaptists and the iconoclasts, it may only be taken once per year or once every three months. Like that was the practice in some of the Pietist congregations. They would take it once every quarter, right? Four times a year. And when somebody took it, they might say, well, I guess it's that time of year again. I'm not exactly sure why we're doing it, except we're doing this to be obedient, right? And then we have kind of an interesting issue because even though the church takes it together, it does start to look like an individual act of obedience. Like, I need to do this. And the church maybe says the church needs to do this, right? And so this is also okay, all right? Like I said,

[22:16] this is okay. You can have this view. You can have what we maybe call a low view of communion, a lower church view of communion. What do we think of this? You know, it's just, we just do it because we're supposed to do it. We're just supposed to do it because we're told to do it. Is that a little bit boring or is that the proper way to interpret scripture and stick to the central things? Well, that communion with all these other frills that the Catholics have put on it, those are just traditions. And those could distract us from the word. The word is powerful. The word is where it all is, right? So do you all see how, you know, some Christians would prefer one side and one Christian would prefer the other side? And we've decided not to judge one better than the other, right? But you should. As a church, we don't put anyone out for having one view or the other. Now, that's not all. I talked about the two ends, but there's a middle way. Isn't that exciting? Yes, it is. It's practiced actually in Lutheran churches. And it was actually the practice for a good number of churches that formed our denomination in 1885. In fact, our first president, and I found this in the archives of our seminary's library, I found a tract that he wrote. His name was David Nival. And he wrote about this. And he

[23:30] said he thought this, what I'm about to tell you, was the correct way and that it should be taught to young people. But in the end, our denomination said, well, we're going to do it. We're going to divide over this. So we're not going to have a real official teaching on what it means. Now, this middle way is called not transubstantiation, but consubstantiation. So it doesn't go quite as far as the Catholics. Con is this Greek suffix for the word with. So consubstantiation means instead of the bread being transformed into the body of Christ, consubstantiation teaches that Christ is indeed present in with, so with and under, that's the phrasing in consubstantiation, in with and under the bread. So the bread stays red, but you receive Christ when you take it because he's kind of surrounding it. He's coming with the bread. There's no change of substance. So there's not a miracle in the sense of a physical miracle taking place, but there's an absolute miracle in that Christ is present in that moment. And you receive Christ when you take the meal. Now, I'm going to kind of bracket that and say, well, yes, but Christ is always present, we believe, right? We believe that Christ is with us when we're gathered together.

[24:48] So is it a miracle? Yes, it's a miracle, but do we need that miracle for Christ to be here? No, but this is a promise in consubstantiation, at least, is that then you, like the Catholics, you receive Christ and his gifts, but you don't have this sort of miraculous changing of one substance into the other. Okay, so what do we think of this view? You know, it's interesting. I like it. It's what I grew up with, though, so I'm a little bit biased. You can choose any of these, or of course, look at the scriptures yourself and ponder these things. And there's books that we could give you about this, or you can ask your pastors about it. We could tell you more about it. And you don't have to develop a really deep theology of communion to take it, although I think it's a good thing to understand.

[25:38] I'm going to ask two questions which are related, and I think that comes up a lot, and we kind of teach in communion. Should we confess our sins before taking communion, and does communion forgive our sins, right? These are two questions, and they're kind of related. So now, if we're going to start on one end, if it's just an act of obedience because it was commanded, then perhaps the answer is no to both, because there's no, in this sense, there's no often.

[26:19] We don't have to wait months to be able to do it, and of course, when we do that, we are confessing our individual sins, and that's good, but there's less room for confessing our sins as a larger body of believers, and that's the countercultural thing that I want us to keep looking at as a church, is that we can confess our sins before taking communion. So, I'm going to ask you to take a corporately what our sins are. As a church, as a larger church, as a state, as a nation, we can do those things. Now for the Catholics, absolutely, you needed to confess your sins first. In fact, you couldn't take communion unless you had confessed first. And sometimes you would go and confess on Saturday so that you'd be cleared to take the communion on Sunday. That's an older practice. I don't think they quite do that all the same anymore, but it's open to them, right?

[27:08] But they had this sure and certain hope that after they confessed their sins and received the meal at the mass, that this transubstantiated bread and cup would work this miracle of forgiveness. And the requirement for personal confession has probably been relaxed now somewhat.

[27:29] And you can, in the Catholic church, you can take communion every day. They offer it every day. You can, you know, you can look on the, you can look on the church website and find out when they offer mass. And so priests, they, priests perform holy communion every day, every day, maybe multiple times a day, if it's a larger church. Now, how about the middle view? So again, we have this sense that you can repent and you can confess and you can receive forgiveness at any time. You don't have to come to communion to receive these things. So you say to yourself in the middle of the week, you say, oh, I've sinned. I made a big mistake. You don't need to say, well, I have to wait four days. Before I can have a clear conscience about this. You don't have to wait that long. You can get on your knees and pray a prayer of confession in the moment and be certain of your own forgiveness because Jesus Christ gives it to you. That's his gift. But you know, there is this value in coming as a body and praying together and confessing together what our sins are and receiving forgiveness as a gift. When we do it together as a church, I guess it's a bit of psychology, but it kind of makes it a little bit more real for all of us.

[28:40] Like, and when your pastor says, you know, this is a gift that's for you, you're getting it, this is good. So there's this emphasis on receiving Christ as a gift and it's, it's a holy meal. And what we do, so what I think is the right thing to do in almost all of these is that is we do need to prepare our hearts to receive this meal. And Paul warns about this a little bit in the reading of the book of Acts. And he says, you know, we need to prepare our hearts to receive this meal. And Paul warns about this a little bit in the reading of the book of Acts. And he says, somebody who doesn't understand what it means, because they can't take it in the proper way if they don't understand what it is. So our advice when it comes to communion on Sundays, when you come on Sunday, next Sunday, we're going to serve it, is come with a sober mind. It's a serious event. It's a thoughtful event. You come grateful for the work of Jesus on the cross and you come ready to receive the meal. And so for an adult, this would mean you make a mental review of all the ways that we fall short. And if they're egregious or if they're noteworthy, you would name them to God or even to another person ahead of time. And you can do that. If you have an

[30:13] accountability partner or somebody you confess your sins to, that's a great thing to do. It's a great spiritual practice. And you confess to God or to another person this desire and this commitment to turn away from sin and that you have a living hope that Christ is the source of forgiveness and new life. And so you come to the meal next week with that in your mind, as an adult. And that's the right way to receive the meal, I believe, is that you receive it in seriousness, receive it in understanding that your sin is washed away in the meal. Of course, it's washed away at other times, but the meal in a very specific way washes your sins away. Now for a child, and there's a few children here, praise God, I'm really glad for that.

[30:58] And this is for parents who have younger children too. I would ask a child, I would ask that child, if they understand, right from wrong. That's the beginning. If they know when they break rules their parents give them and why it's good to keep their rules. Not because your parents' rules are arbitrary, but because your parents' rules are good for you and they give you a good life. And then if they understand that about their parents, do they understand that God also gives rules as one of the many great things that we receive from God in life. God's rules are good for us, right? God's laws are good and valuable to us. And if they understand that, they're going to understand as well that we break God's rules and we want God to give us a second chance. I mean, this is language a child would probably understand better, that God wants to give us a second chance and we want to hear that God loves us and that God will forgive us and forget that we broke the rules and we don't have to feel guilty about it anymore. Then they are ready to, if they understand all of this and they understand that the meal represents this, that they are receiving this forgiveness from God and they come to God and they are ready to forgive us. And if they understand that,

[32:05] come to the meal thinking about their own shortcomings and wanting to change and repent in some way, confess, then they're ready to receive it as well. And sometimes children see everybody else getting food and they don't get it and they want it. And that's normal. I thought when I was a kid, my whole family, I was the youngest, my whole family went up and they received communion and they ate it. And I'd say, bring me back some. I want a cracker. Because, you know, you're a kid, you see your brother and sister have some food and you want it too. It's not fair. And I said, it's not fair. But, you know, my parents were smart. They're like, well, this is now, since you're so interested in this, this is an opportunity for us to teach you what this means. And you're not ready yet, but we're going to, every time you say that, that means that you're kind of interested and there's a moment to teach you something. And eventually in time, they'll get it all together. And then you say, let's do your first communion and make a big, make it special and say, let's, remember this day, even invite family if you want and say, you know, so-and-so is going to have their very first communion today. They finally understand it and, you know, they're

[33:15] ready to go. And depending on the child, I think first communion can take place between the age of three and nine. It depends on the child. It depends on what they understand. It depends on their interest. It depends on a lot of things. So children are different. And so I don't have a hard and fast rule. Now there are some, there are some churches that are giving communion to infants. I'm not there. You know, I'm just not there. It's okay. You know, but I don't, I don't think that quite makes sense, right? Because I don't think an infant can grasp all those things, right? But I think a three-year-old is right on the cusp of all these things. Maybe a very precocious two-year-old, but let's not turn communion into a competition because then we're back to the problem with the Corinthians. You know, I'm going to trot my young, really young kid up there and go, well, look, I'm, my family's really awesome. See, I, no, don't, that's not what communion is for. It's not for creating distinctions. It's for the unity of the body and it's for receiving from God. So how do we offer communion? Okay. We don't offer it like Catholics and we don't offer it like iconoclasts. In other words, we don't have a teaching of exactly what you

[34:23] receive. You have to decide for yourself what it is. Okay. We don't have an official path, but I'm going to ask Steve to put up our call to worship again. And we said it this Sunday, as a kind of a exercise. And next Sunday, we'll say it too. I know how, I think you did it. So you see here, ah, there we go. Your steadfast love has been ours for generations. Through Christ, you brought us out. Now this is from our covenant hymnal. So this is, you could say this is one of the closest teachings that the church itself has on holy communion is this thing. And now there are other places. There's no doubt, definitely. I can show you some other resources, but since this is a little bit of our teaching on holy communion. So through Christ, you brought us out of the abyss of death and into the light of eternal love. So Christ is this redeemer who brings us with joy and thanksgiving. We proclaim our salvation. We remember Christ's death and resurrection until he comes again. As the apostle Paul said in our reading today, as you do this, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. As we break bread and share the cup together, may Christ be present with us. Oh, interesting. Are they, is this a good thing? Is this a good thing? Is this a good thing?

[35:35] Is this the covenant consubstantiationist? A little bit, a little bit. It's in there. Okay. But it doesn't have to be right. Christ is present with us and may the spirit bind us together as Christ's body in this world. Do you see that language? The spirit is active in this and that communion is a thing that pulls us together as a body as well. In this world though, there's this sort of the sending aspect of it too, that now is washed and cleansed people. We go out into the world as, as a body, as a spirit, as a spirit. And so we're ready to do the spirit's work in the world. So I'll ask Steve to kind of hide that again. Hey, look at that. So, um, yeah. Uh, I, so what does the covenant teach? The covenant teaches that we're not going to disagree about this and get angry at each other. The covenant teaches that you need to read the scriptures and make up your own mind about what this means. But I think in general, the, the, what we can say is that you receive a gift in this meal. You proclaim the Lord's death in this meal. You do it together. You don't do it alone. It binds us together as a body. And I'll add my own interpretation on it too, is I would say, this is a place where you can reliably hear that God loves you and forgives you. And this is a

[36:56] good place to check your heart before you take it so that you do your own inventory of yourself. We set aside a time, a time where you can do what you want to do. And you can do what you want to do. And you can do what you want to do. And I'm a place for you to confess in this space before you receive the meal so that you receive it in a worthy manner. And since that language is in the text, that's also what we teach because we teach what's in the text is that you should come to this meal with a sober. And thoughtful and grateful heart and receive this wonderful gift. But on the flip side of this. And sometimes I think this is where we need to work on it is when it's over. We need to celebrate. Okay. So we. Come. with seriousness, but we need to exit this meal with joy because we've received this great gift and we need to celebrate it too. And so every now and then, but I don't do it often, at the end of communion, I say, hey, let's clap. You know, I haven't done this in a long time, so maybe next week we'll do it. Say, let's clap because we've received this great gift. Let's celebrate. And then, you know, kind of the cheers break out, which is great because we want. So if you want to learn more, you can come talk to your pastors and definitely you need to make up your own mind.

[38:06] I'm a little worried now. I'm thinking about it like, have I left you with more questions than answers? You know, but maybe that's what a good teacher does from time to time. But we can talk more. So this is what you receive when you receive communion here. And this is as far as I can go with you on this road, unless you want to talk to me in private or Pastor Victoria, and we can speak about it more. Well, that's it. So I'm not going to say, you know, the sermon is over, but maybe the lecture is over. I hope you learned something new about Hocus Pocus. Exciting. All right. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this meal that you give us. Thank you that next week and this whole week that we have to prepare for it. Next week, perhaps it will have a deeper meaning for us as we've learned these things today. And Father, we just thank you for what we receive, that we receive Jesus, that he's present with us. And we pray that you bless the rest of this. In Jesus name. Amen.