Do y'all remember back in March and April? Remember when the pandemic first hit? We all thought it would be over soon, right? I personally thought that we were going home for 2 weeks and then everything would be back to normal. Ha!
While I was "safe" at home, my friend, Mollie, started a driveway ministry to feed the hungry because when we were all safe at home, what about the folks who live on the streets? When we were told to wash our hands, what about the people who had no place to wash their hands? Folks were invited to make sandwiches, boil eggs, buy snacks and toilet paper and drop them in my friend's driveway. This project took off because people were looking for a way to do something in a time where we all felt paralyzed! I wanted to make sandwiches but imagine my shock when I signed up for Shipt and placed my first few grocery orders and there was no bread, no peanut butter, nor jelly available in the grocery store. After the first couple of weeks of mass panic buying, I was finally able to purchase all I needed for a couple of loaves of sandwiches each week. I continued to do that for the first 6 weeks or so.
Now where am I going with this especially since the title is God's table? On the first morning I was able to have the supplies and make the sandwiches, I started early - 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. I spread waxed paper on my island. Actually, I washed my hands for a really long time and put on plastic gloves and THEN I spread waxed paper on the island. I opened the peanut butter and it smelled yummy. I then opened the jelly and the smell of the jelly literally brought me to my knees and brought tears to my eyes. Here I was "safe" at home and couldn't go to church, YET when I opened the grape jelly it smelled just like communion. While making sandwiches for those who were hungry, the one who called himself the Bread of Life met me at my kitchen island and reminded me that he is always with us - even in a pandemic. I hope the memory of that smell and that thought will stay with me forever because it was so powerful that morning. God's table smells like grape juice and grape jelly.
Then came the long months of church online. I have never been so thankful for Brian, our senior minister, and so many other staff members who have brought church right into our homes. We have continued to worship the living God while sitting on our sofas, or at our lakehouses (not us!), on our screen porches (yes!), and wherever we might be on Sunday mornings. We always have communion on the first Sunday of each month and our pastoral staff has worked hard to help us celebrate that holy meal while at home. We've used crangrape juice and mini saltines - it works. Don't judge me for the Stella Artois glass. It is one of my favorites because a good friend gave it to me. God's table can include mini saltines and a Stella Artois glass.
Then, this "ad" was posted on social media. Drive through communion. I wanted our family to be in one car and to drive through together but as always happens . . . the best laid plans don't often work out. I was stressed and drove through communion by myself.
Brian, our senior pastor and my friend, met me at the car window. We were both wearing masks. He asked what he could pray about for me and I asked for prayers of peace. I have no idea what words he prayed but I know that God showed up in my car that Sunday morning. Communion-to-go cup with a crappy wafer (I'm sorry - they are really nasty) was the best meal I have had since February. It was a meal not for my stomach but a meal for my heart and soul. It was a meal for my mental health. God's table can be out in the middle of a parking lot.
Last Sunday, was my first Sunday back in the sanctuary of our church. We have to make reservations and numbers are limited. There were around 100 in worship last Sunday. We sang (with masks and spaced far apart) and we prayed and we worshipped together. Our pastors each took a basket of those communion-to-go cups and walked between the aisles and handed each of us the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and it was good. It was so good. God's table can be in the big sanctuary with pastors carrying baskets of communion-to-go cups.
So whether it is the smell of Welch's grape jelly while helping to feed the hungry or crangrape juice with mini saltines or communion-to-go cups with crappy wafers in a drive through or in the sanctuary, the pandemic has made me realize how BIG God's table really is. We try to put human limits on God and we try to understand him with our feeble minds and all the while he is reminding us to come to the table and feast with him. God's table is big enough for all of us. ALL.OF.US.
Sorry, but I had to laugh out loud about the 'crappy' communion wafer. That's exactly how I felt at our first outdoor service, like "What in the heck is THIS?" We've recently begun in-person worship services, but it's a hit-and-miss affair. Only 26 were in attendance yesterday and there's no singing permitted. How will we know how to act when all this is over?
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