Today is
World Communion Sunday. All over the world, Christians are sitting down at the
table of Jesus Christ and sharing in the meal that he provides for us. And all
those Christians, wherever they live, will affirm that the bread we share is,
in some mysterious way, the body of Christ that was broken for our benefit.
That bread is a symbol of the grace that God gives us through Jesus Christ. Grace,
after all, is what Holy Communion is all about. We don’t earn our way to this
table by doing good works. No matter what we may do (or may not do), God
invites us here because God loves us. And although every time we come to this
table, we remember the first Communion when Jesus sat down to dinner with his
disciples knowing that he was going to die the next day, grace isn’t just a
historical event. Grace is available to us every day: right here, right now.
But I can’t
help wondering if many of us, especially here in a country that is so well off,
really understand what that grace is all about. We are so well off in so many
ways that we fall into thinking that “the good life” is evidence of God’s
grace. But where does that leave us if a fire or a tornado or a hurricane
sweeps away all of our possessions and we suddenly have nothing? What if we are
diagnosed with a debilitating disease? And what about those folks among us who
don’t have a good life at all: the homeless or the mentally ill? Have they lost
God’s grace? Our Christian sisters and brothers in other areas of the world
have something to say about that. Many of them don’t have the kind of prosperous
lives that we do, yet they can easily point to God’s grace around them. They teach
us that God’s grace has very little to do with easy lives and everything to do
with God’s presence in even the most difficult circumstances. Let’s listen to
what some of them have to say. [These stories are from
Nomvula
lives in South Africa. She is HIV positive, and her disease is terminal. Many
of us would look at Nomvula, see a hopeless situation, and wonder what happened
to God’s grace. But Nomvula sees it very differently. She believes that she is
HIV positive “so the glory of God might be revealed.” Nomvula travels from
church to church in her country, defying taboos and the stigma of HIV to
provide comfort to those who are suffering. She even counsels people in parking
lots who are afraid to seek help. Nomvula hosts a radio talk show and writes a
weekly newspaper column. She leads the HIV/AIDS desk of the United
Congregational Church of Southern Africa. In a country where it is shameful to
be HIV positive, Nomvula refuses to stay silent. She believes that God’s grace
is what enables her to continue to speak out. She would tell us that grace
abounds!
Or we could
listen to what Nima has to say. Nima lives in Nepal; and women in Nepal are
second-class citizens. Except in the church. “The church,” Nima says, “is the
only place in my country where I, a woman, am truly welcome; where I, rejected
by my family for marrying outside my caste, am accepted. This is the only group
of people who welcome me in, despite the fact that I have been treated for
mental illness. Even untouchables and lepers are allowed in!” And Nima
considers receiving Holy Communion to be the greatest experience of all,
because it is the evidence of the love and grace that God offers to all of us.
“I am a baptized Christian,” she proudly says. “What a great privilege!” She,
too, would tell us that grace abounds!
Even in El
Salvador where people are executed for their political beliefs, or disappear
off the streets never to be seen again – even in that place, men and women
affirm God’s grace! Listen to this statement of faith that was written by a
peasant woman from in El Salvador:
I believe, Lord, that everything good in the
world comes from you. I believe that, because you preached love, freedom, and
justice, you were humiliated, tortured, and killed. I believe that you continue
to suffer in our people. I believe that you accompany me in the task of
transforming this world into a different one where there is no suffering or
weeping, a world where there is a gigantic table set with free food where
everyone is welcome. I believe that you accompany us in waiting for the dawning
of a new day. I believe that you give us strength so that death does not find
us without having done enough, and that you will rise in those who have died
seeking a different world.
Even in
violence-ridden, poverty-stricken El Salvador, grace abounds!
Paul had the
very same message for the church in Rome. Christians there lived under the
constant threat of persecution from the Roman Emperor. Many of them were slaves
and owned nothing. Even their bodies belonged to someone else. Some of them had
even died for their faith! Most of them had nothing like the “good life” that we
enjoy here and now. But Paul claimed that nothing could separate them from the
love of Jesus Christ: not “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or
nakedness or danger or sword. [Nothing] in all creation can separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-39) Easy life or difficult one,
wealthy or poverty-stricken, secure or at daily risk of death, God’s love is
there. That, my friends, is grace.
In just a
moment, we will sit down at the table of grace – the table of Holy Communion. When
the bread and cup are shared, we will eat just a little bit of bread and drink
just a tiny bit from the cup. And that seems so inadequate, because God has
plenty of grace to go around! Take three or four pieces of bread if you like!
Take twenty pieces of bread! God
doesn’t parcel out grace in little cubes! There’s enough for the whole world
ten thousand times over! As we approach God’s table, I hope that you take a
moment to thank God for love and for mercy and for generosity. Thank God for
the good lives that we lead. (I do every day.) Thank God for all the things
that have gone right for you. But most of all, give thanks to God for the grace
that abounds in any and all circumstances – for you, for me, and for the whole
world.
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