Dear Jared,
Did I ever tell you about the church member who became a United Methodist because of our Open Table Communion practice? By the time I knew her, she had been a United Methodist for a decade or so and was a leader in the church. She was so Methodist that I assumed she had always been Methodist. Imagine my surprise when I asked how she became a member of this particular United Methodist Church, the one I had recently been appointed to serve, and she said, “well, it’s all because of Communion.”
“Really?” I asked. I don’t know about you, Jared, but this is not usually the response I get to this question.
She told me about her upbringing in a different denomination, one that limited worship and baptism and communion to the adult members of the church. She happened to be visiting this particular United Methodist Church one Sunday morning, and when it came time for Holy Communion the pastor issued the invitation that United Methodist pastors extend every time we gather at the Table.
“Christ our Lord invites to this table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin, and seek to live in peace with God and another. This is Christ’s table,” the pastor said, “all are welcome to come to this table and accept this open invitation to grace.”
This woman watched in awe as children walked and skipped and meandered down the center aisle from children’s church, eager hands extended to receive the bread and to dip it into the cup. And after the children filed through the line, the adults followed, one by one, reaching out their cupped hands to receive the sacrament.
“I was crying,” she told me, in her southern drawl, “when it was my turn to come forward, to follow the children to Communion. Because my husband and I knew we wanted kids, and we knew we wanted them to belong to a church where they could be fully themselves and completely welcome and valued for who they are, no matter what. It was the children receiving communion at the open table that made me realize this is where we belong.”
Jared, I’ve been pondering your letter about Re-Meandering United Methodism. I’ve especially been mulling over the “5 Emphases for Following Jesus as a United Methodist” that you offered: Grace, Holiness, Connection, Wholeheartedness, and Service. My mind has been circling that first emphasis for days and days, lingering on that mysterious, miraculous concept: Grace.
If you ask the United Methodists I know how they would describe what makes our theology stand out, the first word most of them will utter is grace. It’s one of the hallmarks of our tradition, this idea that God loves us and saves us and guides us though we have done nothing to earn or acquire such divine care. GRACE: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense is the acronym I use to explain grace in a nutshell whenever I’m teaching young people. And I love it when I have time to dig deep into the various kinds of grace John Wesley defined for us Methodists. Prevenient Grace, God’s loving actions on our behalf before we can even recognize them or respond to them. It’s the mysterious movements of God that lead us home. Justifying Grace, that grace offered to us when we realize how far we’ve fallen from God, how desperate we are in need of forgiveness and rescue, healing and new life. And Sanctifying Grace, the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts transforming us more and more into reflections of Jesus.
Grace in all its manifold mystery is the heart of United Methodist theology, and our practice of the Open Communion Table is a vivid expression of the grace we profess.
Jared, do you remember in seminary when we learned about the ancient debates over who can receive this sacrament? Or those early church debates over who is worthy enough to consecrate and serve it? If a corrupt priest consecrates communion, is it an invalid sacrament? What if a flagrant sinner receives communion, is that person cursed for daring to reach for the body and blood of Christ? I know the debates continue today, with different denominations discerning different requirements for this sacrament.
But I’ll tell you, every time I get to stand before my church and offer those same words that we offer each week — “Christ our Lord invites to his table ALL who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin, and seek to live in peace with God and one another…” — I am overwhelmed with gratitude. ALL is a powerful word. A word of generous, even daring, hospitality. It’s a word that encompasses the whole spectrum of human experience, of ages and races and languages and histories and beliefs and failures and regrets and hopes. ALL.
I love that when we gather around the Communion Table, remembering Christ’s last supper, we invite ALL the various kinds of disciples, in all phases of their faith journey, to taste and see the goodness of God. Just like Jesus offered the bread and juice to Peter, knowing he’d soon deny his Lord. Just like Jesus offered the elements to Judas, knowing the betrayal that was quickly approaching. Just like Jesus offered this grace to the doubtful Thomas, who didn’t have everything figured out. None of the disciples were worthy of that first grace, none of them knew the theological significance of what Jesus was doing, and Jesus opened up his table nevertheless, freely offering himself to those he loved. Divine hospitality in its breathtaking glory. Grace upon grace.
I’m reminded of the fact that John Wesley called Holy Communion a “converting ordinance,” meaning he saw it as a means by which God transforms people’s hearts and lives, a way God draws people into faithfulness and discipleship.
Wesley saw Communion as a sacred tool God uses to draw ALL people to God’s self. Through this sacrament, Wesley taught, God meets folks where they are in their faith. As long as they come with humble hearts, seeking after God and God’s grace, God will extend God’s prevenient, justifying, or sanctifying grace to their longing hearts, whichever is needed most in that particular moment for each particular person.1
It’s like the parables Jesus told about the feasts in the Kingdom, open to not just the privileged and the righteous and the wealthy, but also to the sinners and beggars, to the ill and lame and outcasts.2 The hospitality of our Open Communion Table is as generous and daring as the hospitality of God’s Kingdom.
Were you ever involved in Open Table Ministry while you were in seminary, Jared? For me, it was the highlight of each week. Every Wednesday I left the hallowed halls of the University and drove my VW Jetta to the outskirts of town, to where the unhoused lived in tents in the woods on the edge of the latest shopping district development. There I parked on a frontage road by a storage unit, near a deli and a sporting goods store and a bike shop and an Old Navy. Amid the hustle and bustle of suburban shopping, dozens of us erected pop-up tents and set out tables and unpacked pots of chili and cornbread with tea and brownies. Folks wandered up the frontage street, appearing out of the woods or hopping off a bus or hiking down the long highway, and meandered to the table spread before them, open to all, truly ALL. Rich and poor, addicts and teetotalers, young and old, church folks and the spiritually curious and the spiritually wounded - together we sat in camp chairs with heaping bowls of food on our laps and we ate and talked and laughed and shared stories and commonalities and hopes and dreams.
Then we’d circle up for prayer, for communion, and the hospitality of the meal extended into the hospitality of faith. Jesus was present. Jesus was transforming hearts and lives, mine included. The sweeping hospitality of lunch built a safe haven of faith, where ALL felt valued and cared for, where ALL could pray and seek and listen and learn, and I’ve rarely witnessed such a beautiful expression of our United Methodist concept of grace.
I find myself wondering, as we try name those core, essential practices for following Jesus as United Methodists - might we embrace the spirit of our Open Communion Table and apply it as a way of life?
Hear me out: when we live as people of the Open Table, when we live as walking, breathing, talking expressions of grace, the hospitality we emanate becomes a means of grace in itself for the people we encounter. Through us, through our daring, generous hospitality of spirit — valuing, loving, welcoming, seeking to understand the people we encounter — don’t you think those around us will gain a better understanding of the mysterious, unbelievable grace of God that is freely given to them? Imagine that! Imagine how our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, our churches!, might change if we embody the Open Communion Table hospitality so fully that through us people can imagine the Kingdom of God in all its fullness - a Kingdom where ALL are welcome, where ALL are valued, where ALL who honestly seek after God are found and forgiven and freed.
What sort of world might emerge if we truly embodied the ALL of Open Table grace, if the daring hospitality of Jesus was essential to our expression of faith?
Thank you for reading my ramblings on grace, Jared (and you too, dear reader). I’m curious, how do you interpret our Open Communion Table practice? How do you see our United Methodist emphasis on grace materialize in your church, in your life?
Grace upon grace, until next time,
Laura
Check out this article to read more: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/blog/world-communion-sunday-2013-and-communion-as-converting-ordinance
Luke 14:15-24