BLOG––Encouraged by Faith

I'm so proud of my son Scott Kenney for coming up with such a thoughtful communion meditation.  He delivered this on May 5, 2019, at East Side Church of Christ in Colorado Springs.

 

“Welcome to the Table of the Lord. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

 

As I look around the room, it occurs to me that I don't know 95% of you. If I were to bump into you at the store, I probably wouldn't know you are an Eastsider.

 

But that's the remarkable thing about the Table of the Lord. In this church, and in many others like it and unlike it, God calls and gathers his people to him, and he never asked for anyone else's approval. He didn't run it by me before he brought you in, nor did he ask you if I'm allowed to be here. We are all here this morning because God called and gathered us to commemorate the resurrection of Christ.

 

Think about the word 'remember' for a second: a member is a body part, of which we all have several, or so I have been told. The prefix 're' means to do it again. So to 're-member' is to put the body parts back together. It”s reintegration, reconstitution.

 

This isn't just semantics; when we come to the Table of the Lord, Jesus sustains us with his flesh and blood. These aren't just metaphors. We don't use these words to try to explain how something else happens; the reunification of the body of Christ is actually happening right here, right now, and it happens every Sunday all over the world, and it's happening right now in heaven around the throne of God, where we're going and where we actually stand right now. We live in Revelation chapter 4, folks. This is holy ground because God Himself is here.

 

Around this table is the only place where the rich wait on the poor. Remember Paul talking about that? Around this table is the only place where the poor don't resent the rich. That changes things! The haves and the have-nots come together around this table, being seen together in the same place at the same time, in complete reliance on Jesus Christ, in complete hope in the promise of his resurrection. The lonely find community here. Orphans and wanderers find families. Even Jesus said, 'My brothers and sisters are the ones who do the will of God.' Here are my brothers and sisters! My family is here, wherever two or three gather in the name of Jesus Christ to praise Yahweh for the gift of the Holy Spirit and for the promise of the resurrection.

 

Welcome to the Table of the Lord ...”