Living Tradition – Living Faith

2 Timothy 1: 5-7 & 1 Corinthians 11: 23-25

Roger Lynn

October 2, 2016

World Communion Sunday

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

Some use grape juice and some use wine. Some use unleavened bread and some use whatever kind of bread they can find. Some do it everyday and some do it once a year. Some understand it to be so holy that only certain special people can do it and some understand it to be so holy that anyone can do it. It happens in beautiful cathedrals and it happens in run-down shacks. It happens in the peace and quiet of monasteries and it happens in the chaos of a battle zone. Sometimes the table is made of hand-carved wood and sometimes the table is made of marble. Sometimes the table is the hood of a farm truck and sometimes the table is a picnic blanket under a tree. The words are in Latin and the words are in English. The words are in French and the words are in Russian. The words are in Swahili and the words are in American Sign Language. Those who come are lifelong Christians and those who come are uncertain what they believe. Those who come are young and those who come are old. Those who come are gay and those who come are straight. Those who come are female and those who come are male and those who come are transgendered. Sometimes it is shared with thousands and sometimes it is shared with two. Sometimes it is shared with intimate friends and sometimes it is shared with strangers. And in the midst of all this wide variety, God continues to meet us and greet us and welcome us at the table.

For 2,000 years the Church has been gathering around the communion table. It is at the heart of where we come from. It helps us know who we are. It is a living tradition for a living faith. We have always been at our best when we focus on the life we experience around the table. We are always in danger of getting sidetracked when we spend too much time and energy seeking to preserve and defend particular details of the tradition. We see this tension revealed in the text from 2 Timothy. Paul, the aging apostle, writing to Timothy, the young pastor, speaks about faith having been passed down from generation to generation. It lived in Timothy’s grandmother, and then in his mother, and now it lives in him. Paul recognizes the vibrant ways in which faith is experienced. It comes alive for us within the context of relationship. It is not something we can simply learn from a book. It must be lived and shared. It is a gift which comes to us wrapped in the lives of those who share life with us. But Paul also recognizes the importance of preserving the tradition. He encourages Timothy to “Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me...Guard the good treasure entrusted to you...”  We are each a part of the living chain by which the tradition is passed on from one person to the next, from one generation to the next. It is important that we be responsible in our participation in that chain. But even that, Paul understands, is not simply a static transmission of facts and information. Timothy is to guard the treasure entrusted to him “with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.”

And so it is that we come to this table. We gather here to share bread and cup because others who came before us gathered and shared and passed on the experience. In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul writes, “For I received . . . what I also handed on to you...” He was heir to a tradition which he then bequeaths to others, who in turn pass it on to still others. Something powerful happens at this table. It is a tradition which has endured for 2,000 years because the experience touches people in some deep and important place in their lives. We return to the table again and again because we recognize that we are, in some mysterious way, in touch with Sacred Presence when we share this simple feast. And because it is a living tradition rather than a static one, the forms and the words and the understandings have changed down through the years and across the span of culture and geography for those who gather at this table. We continue to search for ways to best express what we experience here. We continue to seek the most helpful ways to share this holy moment with each other. You may have noticed that the words I say in presenting the bread and the cup are perhaps not the same as the ones you have heard from others. That has occurred as I seek to remain open to ways of expressing the reality of what we find at this table. If it were simple enough to capture once and for all in a way which could always and forever be understood and agreed upon by the countless millions of people who come to this table, then it probably wouldn’t be powerful enough to touch us so deeply. The experience continues to move me precisely because in the midst of such amazing diversity we continue to gather at the table. As long as sharing the tradition guides our efforts to preserve the tradition, rather than the other way around, then our experience around the table will remain vital and vibrant and life-affirming.

As we take the bread and share the cup, we find ourselves swept up in the midst of a flowing, living tradition which encompasses all those everywhere and everywhen who have ever sought in their own ways to find God revealed in this powerful experience.  And when new life is breathed into our own faith through our participation in this living tradition, then we become links in the chain by which it is passed on. Feel the weight – feel the power – feel the life, as together we gather around this most amazing table.