I recently was asked to help lead a protestant worship service at a Catholic nursing home in order to give protestant residents the opportunity to receive communion. The service is only once a month and while I have been coordinating different pastors and musicians to facilitate worship for the last few months, I just recently took my turn leading. 

Songs were sung - focusing on the resident’s favorites. Scripture was read. Prayers were prayed. I offered a brief sermon. Then came time to receive the sacrament - the reason most people had gathered together that day. Due to lingering concerns about the flu and COVID, the nursing home requested that we only serve the host and not offer the cup at this time. 

One by one, I went around to each person present offering them the body of Christ given for them. People received with a variety of postures and expressions, from closed eyes and a smile on their lips to hushed reverence. 

Then came time for our final hymn. As the melodies of “Blessed Assurance” filled the room, a nun who was serving as an aid was quietly flagging me down to come to one of the residents who was situated in her wheelchair right at the front of the room. Her hands, stiff with arthritis, had not been able to grasp the bread and it had fallen out of her hand.

 I quickly returned to the plate, still containing bread and walked back down her, saying that I believed we worshipped a God of abundance, so there is always more to receive in God’s love. I then picked up the piece of bread on the ground preparing to feed it to the birds later in the day. 

Reflecting back on this service, it was a reminder that we approach the sacrament of Holy Communion from different perspectives of both liturgy and theology, but at the end of the day, if I truly believe that this represents the love of Christ shown to us in a myriad of ways, then I am going to help, in any way I can, ease embarrassment at dropping the bread and make a way to receive.

​Theology matters. The way that we worship matters. And if we deny the sacrament due to ability, what is that communicating about the message of Christ that we are called to steward. I don’t know much, but I do know this - in the words of the hymn “what a foretaste of glory divine” and I want that foretaste to tell of the gracious, never-ending, abundant love of God who is for us. Amen and amen. 

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1


    Growing up, one of the first gifts I remember receiving was a white jewelry box. It was just like my mom’s - only smaller - with three tiny white drawers one one side and clear glass revealing hanging necklaces against a pink velvet background on the other. I loved what that jewelry box represented, that I was a big girl now. 
    Only at the age of six, I wasn’t very diligent about hanging up my necklaces. Instead of placing them on the rotating divider, I would often place them all in haste into one large pile. As a result, the chains would become ensnared with one another, until my dad would sit down at the kitchen table with toothpicks, safety pins and a lot of patience to untangle them all. I wish I could say that I learned my lesson each time that he untangled the chains, but it took a long time to be careful enough to hang up each neckless individually. 
    Paul is speaking to the Galatians about not letting themselves become ensnared and tangled up in sin. Does this mean that they had the power to resist sin on their own? No. They needed Christ to be the one to untangle them and set them free. But then they did have a choice to make - would they go back to the yoke of their own ways or move forward with Christ. 
    Like my patient dad at the kitchen table, God is willing to untangle us again and again, but eventually we need to decide if we want to keep returning to life as we knew it - in all of its mess and snares - or if we want something different - a freedom from sin that can only be found in Christ alone. We cannot do the untangling, but we can choose to accept the grace and freedom that we have been given. 


Prayer:
    Lord, thank you for not leaving us in the mess which you found us and inviting us to being transformed by your grace. Amen.