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Guiding Worship

For those who plan and lead worship events.

The great banquet

by Shirley Yoder Brubaker

The communion table that Sunday morning was set for a banquet—white linen, luminous china, polished silver, goldrimmed goblet. All morning the congregation's eyes had feasted on the setting for what promised to be a sumptuous meal.

I finished the words of institution and stepped aside from my place in front of the Lord's table as members holding trays of sweet rolls and bagels, breads and muffins, cheese and fruit, pitchers of juice came down the center aisle. Soon the table was filled with rich food and drink. Individual glasses, not the thimble-sized ones common to a communion table, were brimming. The host and hostess, he in a tuxedo and she in an evening gown, did a last minute check to make sure the banquet table was perfect.

When all was ready, I pronounced the wonderful, welcoming words, "Look, here is your Lord coming to you in bread and cup. These are the gifts of God for the people of God." And the people of God came with joy, filling little plates with a taste of this and a piece of that, balancing plate and glass, all the while greeting the others they met around the table. I had never witnessed such a joy-filled communion.

What prompted this new way of celebrating the Lord's Supper was the parable of the great banquet found in Luke 14:15-24. In the sermon I had linked this parable with the words of Isaiah 25 about the Lord's preparations for a feast:

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear . . . It will be said on that day, Lo this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.

I also included a text from Revelation 19:

Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready … Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

All summer we had been studying the parables. We had chosen to let Robert Farrar Capon's book Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus (Eerdmans) shape the summer series. During June we looked at four parables of the kingdom, in July we considered five parables of grace, and finally, in August, we concluded the series with three parables of judgment.

This parable of grace about the great banquet allowed us to consider the possibility that like the guests in the story, we may one day look over the guests at the marriage feast of the Lamb and find neither ourselves nor anyone of our social status or from our circle of friends. The welcome Jesus extends is not only to those initially invited, but also to those whom Leviticus banned from worship, whom the religious community had previously excluded at God's command.

At Community Mennonite in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where I was serving as interim pastor, attention had been given lately to who was welcome to come to the communion table. The final congregational position was that the table was for those who had been baptized. But this parable of grace seems to open up Jesus' invitation to others who are not already part of the kingdom.

It seemed appropriate to me that this Sunday morning's communion service reflect Jesus' wide-open invitation to those who do not belong. For us, could that possibly include persons not yet baptized, or those who waver about the cost of faith, or children, or those who don't think they deserve a place at the table? A table full of food, open to all, seemed the only appropriate way to conclude the sermon.

Because communion seems to encompass a variety of meanings, it is important that we as pastors expand a congregation's experience of coming to the Lord's table. Not all communions should be somber events, reflecting only on Christ's death. The understanding of Passover as the initiating event can lead us to see communion as freedom and deliverance. The Emmaus story highlights the presence of the risen Christ in our breaking bread together. Some of our brothers and sisters in the faith have helped us see communion as the community's meal, a celebration of the unity and love we have for each other.

Each variety of meaning allows us to consider new images and rituals. I am a person who loves tradition, so I do not easily forgo the familiar. But I also do not want to become so enmeshed in resistance to new ways of doing things that I miss the grace with which Jesus endowed his table. Given the response of the people at Community Mennonite that Sunday morning, I believe they experienced the grace of God in a fresh way.

Shirley Yoder Brubaker, Harrisonburg, VA, completed her interim pastoral assignment at Community Mennonite Church in November 2008. She is back into retirement mode.