A sermon I won’t get to preach

One time, long ago, I was asked to preach at my church. It was a small church at the time with co-pastors, both of whom would be gone. Being the first Sunday of the month, the service normally would’ve included communion. But it was skipped because I was not ordained.

I had led communion in small-group situations a few times in the past without any lightning bolts reigning down, but the book would be followed on this occasion.

I’ll never get to preach a communion sermon, but sometimes I think about what I might say if I did. Several experiences, some more directly associated with the celebration of communion than others, come to mind. Here’s a draft of a communion homily.

As a young minister, I was helping plan a weekend retreat, along with a senior minister and a facilitator who was a graduate student in psychology at a nearby university. Though it would be consciously unchurchy, the other minister and I suggested we conclude the weekend with a communion service. The facilitator balked at this. A few minutes later, I suggested our last activity could be sitting in a circle, listening to music and passing around a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. He thought that was a great idea.

Sometimes words aren’t needed.

Yet often we do rely on words, and they can certainly get one’s attention. Another time when the bread and wine were passed from one person to the next — this time in what was consciously a religious observance — my seatmate went off script. We were to say some simple phrase about the body/blood being symbolized as we offered the cup and loaf. Most of us repeated familiar words. My neighbor, however, said, “This is the blood of Christ, who was murdered for your sake.” That surely got beyond the usual ritual and down to the nitty gritty.

The elements are powerful symbols.

But do they have to be bread and wine? At a communion service during a student retreat when I was in college, the minister leading it used potato chips and orange juice. He explained, “Jesus used what was on the table. This is what I found on the table today. Jesus took ordinary items and touched them with significance — just as He touches you and me with significance.”

For that matter, are they merely symbols?

At one time many years ago, I was a member of the same church as the well-known theologian Harvey Cox. Harvey preached one communion Sunday. He reminded us that as Protestants, we see the bread and wine as symbols, while Catholics believe Christ to be present, the elements literally becoming His body and blood. He suggested they were right that Christ is indeed present, though not in the bread and wine themselves, but rather in the act of sharing them with one another.

One last anecdote doesn’t come from a communion service, but from what was nonetheless a communion experience.

Our community and the world were reeling from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A large auditorium on the University campus was packed for a memorial service. As I was leaving I spotted a friend through the crowd. He was one of two Black (a term a few of us were beginning to use at that time) students with whom I had lived in a house during the previous spring semester. My white guilt made me try to be invisible as I slipped away along the edge of the crowd.

He saw me and called out. It was a short hi-how’s-it-going exchange that concluded with his saying, “Well, stop by the house some time. We still have parties.”

I felt he was saying, You are welcome at the table.

If speaking from a pulpit, I would conclude with an invitation to the table, attempting to tie together themes drawn from these anecdotes. In other contexts, I would and do offer no liturgical words, as special people and I partake of whatever food is on the table and in our sharing of it are touched with significance.

I’m glad I went

It was a milestone celebration at a church a plane ride away from my home. It’s an outstanding church, and I was part of it a long time ago. The church has long been known for its active involvement in social justice. Sunday morning is big, but it’s a seven-days-a-week church. It contributed to my theological education for two years.

Part of my role was on-the-job training in campus ministry at an adjacent prestigious university. More visible to the congregation was my guitar playing regularly in “folk worship” and occasional other times. One Sunday a month, the Sunday worship service was one I helped plan. Two other musicians — a pianist and an upright bass player — and I led it. I also participated in myriad meetings, retreats and anti-war protests. I think I was a brash enough young adult to speak my mind in most gatherings. Shortly before I completed my degree and moved away from the area, I preached there one Sunday morning. My “License to Preach and Administer the Sacraments” was granted by that congregation.

I enjoyed the recent celebration. It was good to be back in the building. The liturgy and other activities were appropriate and meaningful. As the history of the church was recounted, a good chunk of it was presented by some of the very people with whom I have a history. They covered a lot of that shared history.

At this point, the cynical reader might expect the insertion of a “But.” Not here, though. It’s more of a “That said. . . .”

I went with hope but not delusion. There were several people still in the church that I remembered from my time there. It would’ve been great if many/most (all??) had greeted me like a long-lost friend. Yet I had visited a couple of years ago, and only two of those remembered me. One was someone with whom I had been close. The other was someone I knew, though not as well as a couple of people who seemed to have no recollection of me. I expected it would be the same this time, while holding out hope that the occasion and my being there for much of the day would jog some more memories.

It was as expected. Everyone was friendly and welcoming. The same two seemed to be the only ones who remembered me, though when I spoke to others, I made a point of saying when I had been there.

Countless times, I’ve heard someone say about some service opportunity in which they’ve participated, “I got more from them than they got from me.” I guess I always realized this to be true about my time at this church. I just wish the score hadn’t been so lopsided.

I knew going in that I was at most a blip on the screen in the long history of a church filled with dynamic individuals. I had just thought — wished rather — that the blip were less imperceptible. It wouldn’t be honest not to admit to feeling some disappointment, yet I wasn’t blindsided.

Still, it was good to be in a place with a lot of great memories. To see faces still recognizable despite the years, even if mine wasn’t recognizable to them. To recount the illustrious history of the congregation and to see that the characteristics that drew me to them are still at work today.

I enjoyed the personal memories that flashed through my mind. I was able to share a couple of these verbally with one person or another. Yet feeling more like a welcomed guest than a returning family member, I found I was taking in the festivities primarily from a third-person point of view. I know and appreciate that for many there it was first-person.

To resort to an overused cliche, it was the hand I was dealt. So I played it. I was just glad to be in the game. It was a learning and a growing experience.

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Note of possible interest: This is the church to which I referred in “Wearing Your ‘Sunday Best’” when I said, “I was a young adult, in a church where people wore anything from jeans to suits or dressy dresses, when I realized that one of the negative things about Sunday morning in the past had been the hassle of getting dressed up.” For this recent occasion, I was the most dressed up I have ever been in that church building — dress pants, button down shirt and sports jacket, along with my black sneakers and, of course, no tie.

Wearing your “Sunday-best”

On Easter Sunday, the newspaper had a feature story on “Sunday-best” clothes. An on-line search reveals that it is a popular topic. It was especially appropriate on Easter because of the tradition of getting and debuting new “church clothes” on that Sunday. The article discussed this tradition, bringing back memories for me.

Our family tradition included picking out our new clothes some weeks before Easter, then putting them on layaway. For any not familiar with the phenomenon, layaway meant the store set the clothes aside for you until you made enough interest-free payments to equal the total cost. This allowed someone on a tight budget to spread the payments over more than one paycheck. Or for those tight-fisted with money, it eased the pain of parting with the whole sum all at once.

In those days, it was important to dress one’s best for church, and a little more so on Easter. That has changed in many circles, notably in those of my experience. I still see some individuals dressing a little better on Easter. I used to have a green sport coat I wore only on Easter — because I got tired of being asked if I’d won the Master’s every time I wore it on any other Sunday. When I got one of those comments even on Easter — to which I’d said, “No, it’s Easter. New life and all” — I stopped wearing it then, too.

I was a young adult, in a church where people wore anything from jeans to suits or dressy dresses, when I realized that one of the negative things about Sunday morning in the past had been the hassle of getting dressed up. And the discomfort of being dressed up. Now I could throw on whatever in a couple of minutes and not be distracted from the spiritual experience by itchy pants or choking ties.

I rarely wear a tie for any occasion. I do wear a sport coat to church and certain other places in the cooler months. It’s not so bad without a tie, plus I like having all the pockets. I generally wear my “dress jeans” — i.e., they are black — and my “dress sneakers” — also black. (I have always hated shoes. I prefer to be barefooted. So I wear the least uncomfortable possible.)

It’s just a personal choice, but I don’t wear shorts to church. I have no problem, though, with others who do. Similarly, I do not wear sports team clothing to church. Some people do. That’s their prerogative.

When I appeared as a choir member in a Playmakers Repertory Company production of “The Christians” in early 2018, we wore robes, making pants leg + shoes visible to the audience for only the two or three steps between the stage door and choir loft on our entrance and exit. Our costuming instructions were “Wear church clothes. No jeans or sneakers.”

I was amused, since my church clothes include jeans and sneakers.

Characters as humans

Early in 2018, I was a supporting character in a Playmakers Repertory Company production of “The Christians” by Lucas Hnath. The drama is set in a mega church, complete with choir, which is on stage for about 2/3 of the play. I sang in the choir for 10 performances.

There are five main characters. As created by the playwright and presented by the actors, they are all full-dimension human beings. I found in each things with which to agree and to disagree. All were sincere individuals struggling with their beliefs.

Some people who saw the play missed a lot of what it offered because they chose to see the characters as flat.

The action centers around some changing beliefs about heaven and hell that the church’s pastor shares from the pulpit and the fallout therefrom.

For one friend, generally open-minded about most things, mega church means religious right. He wrote the pastor off as “a Billy Graham,” showing little (or no) interest in what happens to him and those around him. There’s some irony here in that the new theology the pastor espouses is not something Rev. Graham would believe in. Also, Billy Graham was never pastor of a mega church. But such distinctions don’t matter when one deals in stereotypes.

Another friend, who is Jewish, dismissed the whole play with “I’m of another persuasion.” It angered my wife, who also is Jewish, to hear this. This same man, I am sure, would never, ever dismiss a drama about African Americans because he’s not of that race.

The theological themes raised were not issues that only Christians ponder. Further, one doesn’t have to focus on the theological questions. They play works as a study of relationships and personal issues. Some who have little or no use for religion may have tuned out a compelling human drama.

During some performances more than others, there would be those in the audience who would laugh at lines that were not funny. Did they just not get the seriousness of what was going on? Or did they not care to? This was during a time when the pastor is being taken to task. Perhaps some in the audience figured, “I’m glad to see this Billy Graham mocked.” Maybe others, conversely, held on to the conservative view from which this man departed and thus were glad to see him put in his place.

In either case, they were flattening his character and that of the person questioning him.