A Most Sacred Moment

The church was silent except for the occasional sound of plastic communion cups being returned to their trays and deacons moving from pew to pew. The quiet was broken suddenly when four year old Amanda shouted, "I want some refreshments too, mommy." How do you tell a four-year-old that it's not refreshments but a sacred act of worship?

After worship Amanda's grand mother and I took her back to the church kitchen where we gave her a piece of the communion bread. It was a stale hard cracker.  Amanda's reaction was a turned up nose and "Why do you eat that?" After the bread she had no desire to try the juice.

          Our communion service every Sunday is for me the most sacred part of the Christian worship service.  In fact it is the one part of Christian Worship that is different from the other two religions that worship God. The elements of our worship service are very much the same as a Jewish synagogue except for communion and reading the New Testament.

Understanding what we are doing is as important as why we are doing communion. It is not the actual bread and cup but the condition of our awareness when we eat and drink that makes the difference in how sacred that moment is for each of us.