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Sermon: the Welcome Table by Sally Fritsche Preached at the First Parish in Needham Unitarian Universalist on November 25, 2018

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Sermon: the Welcome Table by Sally Fritsche Preached at the First Parish in Needham Unitarian Universalist on November 25, 2018 !1 Sermon: The Welcome Table By Sally Fritsche Preached at The First Parish in Needham Unitarian Universalist on November 25, 2018 Earlier this year, this congregation celebrated an ingathering water communion, in which we each added a few drops of water from many different places, combining them into one communal pool, a reminder of how we are all connected. Later, in the Spring, we will celebrate a flower communion, and everyone will leave with a single bloom to remind us of life’s constant renewal and its unique worth. We Unitarian Universalists call these ceremonies “communion,” partly because they are, literally, communal acts of fellowship and exchange. But we also call them “communion” because that word in particular carries a deep history, with roots in the Christian ritual of shared bread and wine, and the power of tradition and repetition. Unitarianism and Universalism began as Protestant Christian denominations, and our celebration of various “communions” is a reflection of that history. So, given that this month’s ministry theme is “legacy,” let’s talk about the legacy of Communion. In fact, another name for Christian communion, “Eucharist,” is simply the greek word for “Thanksgiving,” so if any Sunday were a time to reflect on sharing food around a communal table in a celebration called thanksgiving, today’s the day. Unitarian Universalism has most certainly grown beyond its Christian roots, and expanded into something far more inclusive and theologically diverse. Our congregations include Christians yes, but also Jews, Buddhists, atheists, and more, including those whose theologies do not fall easily under just one label. I stand before you as an openly non-theistic minister, something that would not have been possible just a few generations ago, and I stand ready to dedicate my life’s work to sustaining this beautiful and unusual faith community in the world. !2 There are some Unitarian Universalist congregations who do celebrate communion in the traditional sense, with consecrated bread and wine, in remembrance of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. But it isn’t typical among our congregations. We may meet in a church, we may sit in pews, and listen to sermons from ministers wearing black robes. We may sing hymns and say prayers, but for the most part they lack the words “God” and “Jesus.” We’ve opened up space in these traditionally Christian forms to allow everyone to participate. So something like communion, so completely associated with Christianity, and Jesus specifically, might feel like a bit too much. I mean, it’s so Christian. The biblical story of “the last supper,” which led to the practice of communion, shows up in a few different places in the Christian New Testament. The story, as Paul tells it in his first letter to the Corinthians, goes like this: “…the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.” The story Paul tells is a story about a man known to speak in metaphor and riddles, a man about to be condemned to death, who asks his friends to remember him, and to continue on the path they had walked together, even after he is gone. It’s a story told in the context of a brand- new faith community, barely holding on in small enclaves scattered through the Roman empire. A story looking for the unifying threads of belief and practice that might tie these communities all together. !3 There is something… powerful, about knowing that this “lord’s supper” became a practice, carried forward to this very day by followers of the religion that grew out of those stories. I have been a visitor in many different churches where communion was being taken, but as an atheist, I never felt comfortable or appropriate participating. Only once did I ever walk forward and take part, and it was because I was invited. In a nondenominational Christian church I once visited, the minister held the bread and wine, and said with a welcoming smile, “It does not matter where you are in your relationship to the church, or to God. It does not matter how much you doubt or you believe. This is for you.” I felt explicitly welcomed, so I walked forward and accepted the minister’s blessing. And when I returned to my seat, and swallowed the tiny mouthful of bread and wine, I actually teared up a little with emotion. Thinking about the continuity of this ritual over thousands of years, the millions of others who also took bread and wine and thought about what it means to remember someone, and what it means to be in the presence of something holy. The powerful weight of that legacy hit me all at once, and brought tears to my eyes. The experience remains an important and emotional memory to me, and it is with incredible gratitude that I remember the minister’s explicit welcome to all comers, regardless of theological status. Without the invitation and its message of acceptance, I would never have been able to access that powerful and spiritually moving moment. This was a communion enacted as a true welcome table, as an all-embracing ritual of feeding the world, regardless of the borders we put up between ourselves. !4 It is appealing to think of communion as a unifying constant, a ritual and sacrament that ties Christian faith communities together across time and space and even across heretical denominational difference. But in actuality, communion has just as often been a point of difference, conflict, and discontinuity in the history of the Christian world. In fact, each part of what we now think of as “communion” has at some point been the subject of intense controversy and dramatic change over the course of the last two thousand years. It wasn’t until the year 1215 that the word “transubstantiation” was made an official part of the theology of communion, affirming a belief that bread and wine literally becomes the body and blood of Christ. And stirring up a never-ending debate over how exactly to describe the mystery of God’s presence in the practice. Then the Protestant Reformation, and each new denomination needed to define just what exactly was happening when they followed the command to “take and eat,” And needed to think through just who was welcome at the Lord’s Table. The Anglican church changed “transubstantiation” to the “real presence” of Christ in the sacrament, and actually made it illegal for public officials in England to believe in transubstantiation, because the idea that Christ’s flesh and blood was literally being consumed was considered to be “barbaric,” yet their preferred phrase “real presence” was left partly undefined, to still allow for some mystery. Eventually there were further reformers who felt the Lord’s Supper should only be observed as a memorial meal, eaten in remembrance of Jesus the man, but not as a way to commune with his literal presence. !5 What I’m trying to say is the idea that there is some singular, clear, unified practice called “communion” is not quite accurate, and never has been. I know that many of you here today have had your own experiences with Christian communion, for good or ill. You no doubt have your own stories of how it can be sometimes a meaningful bond to something greater, sometimes a tool for excluding so-called sinners and those who are different, and sometimes just an opaque and confusing ritual you were never truly welcomed into. Your experiences are also part of this story. When we consider today how we as Unitarian Universalists feel about the idea of communion, and what types of “communions” we’re going to practice. We need to keep in mind all the vast diversity of what it can mean. Is it unifying or is it divisive? It has been BOTH. Is it simple bread and wine or an unknowable mystery? It has been BOTH. You may be interested to know that our Unitarian and Universalist forbearers also dealt with conflict and controversy over communion. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unitarian Minister and prominent Transcendentalist, actually left the ministry over the issue. The last sermon he preached as minister to his Boston congregation in 1832 was titled, “The Lord’s Supper,” and it laid out his many objections to the practice. Surprisingly, he didn’t find the Lord’s Supper to be too Christian, but too Jewish! Emerson, allowing the anti-Jewish sentiment of his time to influence his thinking, argued that breaking bread and sharing wine is a holdover from the “primitive” “local” customs of Jesus’ time, a ritual for ritual’s sake. Emerson analyzes the passage where Jesus says do this in remembrance of me, and declares “I cannot bring myself to believe that in the use of this expression, he looked beyond the living generation, […] and meant to impose a memorial feast upon the whole world.” !6 Emerson preached this sermon to his congregation and announced that he would no longer be able to provide them with communion. They asked him to leave, and called a different minister. And as for Universalists, influential 18th century Universalist thinker Judith Sargent Murray wrote a catechism to educate young children in theology, and voiced her objection to communion in fewer words and with less bigotry than Emerson.
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