I have a bit of a communion phobia. It started when I was a kid and told I couldn't take communion unless I understood it. If I didn't understand, God would disapprove--and the insinuation was destruction in some highly public, painful fashion. So on communion days, which fortunately weren't often in the church of my childhood, I carefully thought about the story and hoped beyond hope that God's finger wouldn't hit the smite button.
Weird...I know.
My daughter told me a great story of one of her special needs congregants, a kid, who really wanted to participate in communion. His mother prepared him. He thought he was ready. But as he approached the table, his anxiety trumped his desire and he ran back to his seat.
I get that. Yesterday, in worship with a wonderful congregation around the corner from mine, I planned at least three retreats.
I think God laughs at us...and pulls up our booster chairs, waiting for us to crawl up. Only humans could take grace enacted and make it scary.
Today I have this image of God's table and the welcome I feel as I am drawn to the banquet. Wish I'd been able to hold that image yesterday...but I have the image today because of the struggle of yesterday. When the bread and wine were eaten, the anxiety went away.
I know now that I don't have to understand anything. I just have to pull up to the table and share in the hospitality of a meal to which all are invited, a meal that points to the time when no one will be hungry and no one will be excluded.
Sometimes I need a hand getting to the meal. Sometimes I can be the hand for others. When I stop listening to the bad theology of my childhood, that finger over the smite button becomes the finger in a child's chubby fingers that guides them to where they need to be.
I think that's what it has always been. I'm sorry that for so long I was distracted by the rules of the practice that I missed the remarkable hospitality of the invitation.
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