A Word from Laura: Saved Together

What’s saving your life these days, other than a mask? This week, I’m counting morning walks, afternoon coffee breaks, training for the Calvary Women’s 5K (who’s with me?), turning off the presidential debate, and holy communion. (No, I haven’t been celebrating communion by myself, although it may feel like that this Sunday.)

In case you’ve never connected communion with saving your life, don’t worry. God saves our lives regardless of whether we share the sacrament. But this week, as we prepare for World Communion Sunday, I invite you to consider how the Lord’s Supper reminds us that we as a world are held together by a God larger than any crisis. As we eat and drink in remembrance of Christ, celebrate that even if you are alone in your space, you are connected with all who share the meal. And because this meal is shared by Christians everywhere, that means 2.4 billion people, give or take a few million.

We Christians in Western cultures tend to see our identities in individual terms; our faith is personal, our lives are our own. But what we learn from our non-Western siblings in faith is that our identity comes from the larger community – the larger communion, in faith terms. No matter how we share the sacrament or what we believe about it, the bread and cup remind me that my life is bound up in the lives of those who are trying to follow Christ, too. The value of any life, including my own, doesn’t come from my own volition or personal worth, but from the God we seek.

These days, especially when I’m wondering why I should get out of bed, or worried about our national leadership, or wistful about serving God in the company of others, communion keeps me grounded in that larger shared identity. We can’t do it on our own. We still need to see each other to remind us that we are loved and called to share God’s love.

Join us this Sunday. We need to see each other to remember what we’re doing. Bring your bread – or crackers, pita, naan, or injera. Fix your cup - of grape juice, wine, coffee, or fizzy water. Prepare to celebrate the meal that helps us to remember Jesus, to “re-member” in the sense of bringing together all the parts of the Body, so that we might find life.

These days, with the news of so much death, it’s easy to forget that God’s creation was for the sake of life. Distant or isolated from each other, we can forget that Jesus did not come to save us as individuals, but all together. And not just Christians, or even just people, but everything together, as a planet. As it is for one, so it may be for all.

Let’s celebrate that good news that still saves us, together.

See you Sunday,
Laura