Parakalein

Peace be with you!

Gets, in many settings, a "and also with you" response.

I served communion in a church service recently.  I began with those words and then they came back.  Automatic and genuine feelings filled the space.  Sacred space is like that.  A place for love and peace.  Then I asked then why is is that there is so little peace in the church worldwide and why so much disagreement on the celebration of communion.   I commented that while this is a table of love and peace that calls us to humility, honor, and unity it has been used to divide, demolish, destroy or at least devastate the message of love, grace and peace that is at the heart of the gospel.

The heat of religious arguments about when, how often, why, and what is done in the communion service and who is allowed to participate have created gate keepers, custodians, and managers. The heat has taken over the heart out of the table.  The one, who began this observance and encouraged us to remember him when we do this, lived a life of humility, honor towards all people.  In the heat of the moment Jesus heart was the most open and loving.  We are to be mirror representatives of the essence of the table not the custodians or guardians of the table.

The part of us that wants to be right and make others wrong or at least not as good as us, is at the core of the problem.  It is not about who is right on any particular religious ideology or venue.  It is about being right in our hearts toward all.  Jesus invited the betrayer, the denier, the timid, the poor, the rich and all to the table regardless of anything.

The communion table is to be a mirror into which we see ourselves and a window by which we look at the world.

"Do this remembering Me"  Live in love and peace toward all regardless of anything.