Friends, Holy communion is truly a “meal at home.”  See the column below. Have a great week!  Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #861

May 16, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Home Cooking

By Bob Walters

“Do this in remembrance of me,” – 1 Corinthians 11:24

Have you been out to eat, lately?  It’s expensive, isn’t it?  As I write this on Mother’s Day weekend, I’m reminded that Mother’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year in the restaurant industry. “Let’s give mom the ‘day off’ and take her out to eat.”

Most moms just roll their eyes.  A lot of moms cook at home that day anyway – better to cook than rely on the culinary talents of your family.  Grocery prices are up, too, but a meal is still cheaper at home with the family.

But, economics don’t rule our heart.  Even when we take mom out to eat, our first consideration is not the cost but the love and the gesture and the remembrance of all the love our moms shower on us, always.

When we take communion at church, we then, too, are gathered for a meal at home with the family – our church home and our church family.  We gather together in love and faith and fellowship and sincerity, remembering Jesus, worshiping His name, examining our faith, meditating on God’s glory, seeking His wisdom, experiencing the true indwelling of the holy spirit … not one of us is thinking about the “bill” for the meal – how much does this cup and bread “cost”?

Our knee jerk Sunday school answer likely is: “It cost Jesus His life!”  Well, yeah … but that’s incomplete.  Consider three things in life that one really cannot buy.

One is your family – you are just born where you are. You do not buy it or choose it.  As you grow you can impact your family, but coming into this world, “which family” is not a menu choice.  And a mother’s love is not something that has a price tag.

Another thing you don’t “buy” is your nation.  You can grow and move and choose where you live and adopt whatever culture or lifestyle or climate you fancy, but your family and your nation, ideally, are functions of love.  Here you are.  We pay taxes and interact in a government and cultural system, but we’re not buying our nation.

The third thing we don’t buy is faith, or to put it another way, we do not buy – cannot buy – the salvation of God’s love.  Oh, we can tithe and serve and donate and study and lead and shepherd and love, cheerfully and with grace … and almost everybody swoons about how Jesus “paid a price” for us, but we are not buying our faith. We are loving in the name of Jesus, and saved by the name of Jesus.

On that same note, we are not buying God.  God is love, and on those communion elements we hold, we do not see a price tag or a menu price. In church, our minds, properly, are on the enormity of God and of God’s love, on the grace of Jesus and the presence of the Spirit, on the joy and peace of our faith, and on our fellowship as Christians, in Christ.  We remember His perfect sacrifice, and His command to love God and love others.  We share His truth freely, gladly, and constantly.  No charge.

That is the communion of our Lord, and the communion of our faith.  When we eat God’s meal with God’s family, we think not about the bill and how much to tip; we think about the love of the person who provides it; we remember our Lord and Savior, the loving person of Jesus Christ.

It is the loving ultimate in home cooking.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) often sneaks in this instruction that Jesus “paying a price” is a modern, consumeristic, quasi-biblical metaphor that diminishes our deep sense of the love and grace of Jesus, but satisfies our constant, imagined need and rationale of payment for services rendered. That is not what Jesus did; Walters is sure of it.