Well, I think most of you know that our Bible readings each week come from what’s known as the Revised Common Lectionary. It’s called the “common” lectionary, because it’s the one which most Christian churches around the world follow.
I love knowing that each and every Sunday, Christians around the world –be they Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian or Catholic — are all focusing on the same Scripture readings. I also love that we all follow the same liturgical calendar for dates like Lent and Easter and Advent and many other feast days.
On the first Sunday in October, Christian churches around the world celebrate one of those special days we share in common: World Communion Sunday.
World Communion Sunday is one of the newer dates on the Christian Church Calendar. It began in the 20th Century (1933, to be specific) and, as you can tell by its name, it’s the Sunday is which all the different Christian denominations around the world come together to honor and recognize our communion with one another.
You may find this hard to believe, but there are more than 40,000 different Christian denominations in the world today. Such a staggering number! Why are there so many different Christian denominations?
Well, it seems that over the centuries, different groups of Christians broke off from one another and formed their own denominations because of disagreements.
Some said, “We don’t believe in the Pope,” so they started their own church. Others said, “We believe priests should be able to get married and have children,” so they formed another church. Others said: “We think women should be allowed to be ministers, so they formed another church.”
This is still happening today. As many of you know from watching the news, our friends in the Methodist Church are currently talking about breaking off from one another because of disagreements over accepting gay people in their church.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? We all call ourselves “Christian” denominations, yet we are all so very different from one another, aren’t we?
I am very proud to represent the United Church of Christ, which was formed when four different denominations actually came together. That’s why we’re called the “United” church, but we – like all Christian denominations – are not perfect. We are a work in progress, doing our best to pay attention to the movement of the Spirit, which is constantly moving us forward, never backwards.
Now, although Christian denominations are all so different, there is one thing that we all have common: Jesus. We all love Jesus, right? So, what was Jesus’s wish for us?
Well, we hear it in John 17:21, where Jesus is praying to God, and he says that his wish for us is “That they may all be One.” Those words, in fact, are inscribed on our UCC logo.
Jesus wanted us to recognize our Oneness with one another.
Not let me be clear: Oneness is not “sameness.” Jesus didn’t want us all to be the same, but he wanted us to recognize that we are all Children of One God, brothers and sisters of one another. We are all united in love.
And, to demonstrate that love and that union, Jesus performed a ritual with his disciples on the night before he died: the ritual of Holy Communion.
Now, I remember when I was a boy and I received communion for the first time, I was told that I was eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus. I thought that was really gross and kind of disturbing, but the ritual wasn’t really explained to me very well. What Jesus was doing at the Last Supper was a symbolic ritual.
He took some bread and said it was his body. He wanted his apostles to know that after he was gone, his Presence would still be with them. Then he took some wine and said it was his blood. He meant the life circulating through him would now be in them.
Remember when Jesus said he was the vine and we are the branches? The life flowing through him flows into us. We become one with it.
And, that what we’re remembering when we celebrate communion together. We’re remembering that the Presence and Power of the Christ is with us and within us. Uniting us in love.
We in the United Church of Christ celebrate what’s known as “Open Communion.” That means that it is open to everyone to come up to the table and receive. You don’t need to be baptized or a member or even a Christian.
Not every church is like this, of course.
A few years ago I went to another church for the funeral of a neighbor who passed away, and at right before communion was to be served, the pastor announced that only those who were members of their church could receive. So, even I (an ordained Christian pastor!) couldn’t receive communion in their church, because I was not part of their denomination.
Then there are Christian churches today who believe that everyone needs to be a Christian in order to be saved. We do not believe that in the United Church of Christ. We believe that our friends who are Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist are all children of the One True God.
We honor and respect those who have other names and ways to God, and we acknowledge that their ways are as true for them, as our way is true for us.
The fact is that Jesus wasn’t a Christian; Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist; Muhammad wasn’t a Muslim. They were all teachers whose religion was LOVE.
One of my spiritual mentors, the late Christian Bishop John Shelby Spong, once said: “God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don’t think my tradition defines God, I think it only points me to God.”
So on World Communion Sunday, we are not only celebrating our Oneness with other Christians: we’re celebrating our Oneness with ALL of God’s children.
So let us go forth this day, my friends, to recognize the Christ Light in everyone and to be people of extravagant welcome. And may we continue to build a bigger table together, so that we can invite more and more people to it. For all are worthy and all are one.