I discovered recently I have two old blogs. This is from one of them. Like the funny Bible acronyms I thought it would be worth reposting
1. Praying as the bread and wine goes around.
This is one all Christians do. It's a time when we come to reflect on all the amazing things our God has done for us through His Son Jesus Christ on the cross. It is also a time for personal reflection as we look back on our week to see if there is any un-confessed sins, or bad feeling between us and a brother or sister in the Lord. We sort out these things with God in that prayer time.
What I notice about it though is, seriously, is that actually the best time to bow your head and close your eyes? This behaviour puts the person beside you through a mini dilemma. This dilemma, 'do I wait for them to finish praying or interrupt their personal time with God. What if they aren't ready to take the bread? What if they are in the middle of confessing their sins to God when I tap them on the shoulder and then their taking of the bread without a clean heart is just adding to the sins they'll have to confess later? I always find it tough to know either way what to do. Normally you go for the interrupt because there is a limited time given over to the breaking of bread in the service, but even though that logic wins out you sometimes feel as if you shouldn't tap them on the shoulder.
(if you haven't thought about this before wait til next time you're in Church and the person beside you is praying as you come to pass them the bread, you'll become very conscious of having to tap them on the shoulder after reading this).
One of the other things with this issue is the having to tap them. Here you are holding a basket/plate of bread (sometimes cut into little pieces) and you have to tap the person that's five seats away to get their attention so they will take the bread from you. You look around, everyone seems to be praying and it is the quietest the Church has been all morning. You now have to get that bread to that person without making too much noise.
I've found that very few people will actually stand up from their seat and walk to the other person, that is too public and attention seeking. So instead we do this edging thing where we move over one chair closer and lean in with the bread and make a wee noise in hopes of catching their attention. This never works though and so you have to lean in further to tap on the shoulder while balancing the bread precariously in the other hand, praying it doesn't fall. Finally we get it to the next person and sigh a sigh of relief (who would have thought this Communion thing was so hard right?)
Maybe the Catholics and Church of Ireland got it right, in their Churches you walk up to the front to take the bread and wine from the priest/reverend. (ok doctrinally the RCC hasn't got it right what with all that transubstantiation malarkey) but credit where credit is due.
The other way Churches do it is people walk around with it from person to person. That can be embarrassing when someone doesn't put money in the collection which came first though and so I would suggest completely avoiding that method.
My last observation on praying during breaking of bread is: have you ever seen those people who start praying when the bread is about five people away from them? They see it coming and automatically start praying and you think 'look at this guy, pretending to the person beside him that he's all spiritual.' What else could it be though? If they really wanted to pray they would have started when the rest of the room did. Why wait until you have only about thirty seconds to actually make yourself right with God before the cup reaches you? That might just be me though, maybe I normally have so many sins to confess that it takes me longer (I do it in the car on the way in to MSH or before I stand up in PCG (which do the walking to the front thing).
Or else maybe other people just find it scary to come into the presence of God on a Sunday morning in Church where they have been worshipping Him for the past hour and a half or so. But I don't think so I think I'm sticking with my original hypotheses on the people who close their eyes and start 'praying' five people before the bread gets to them, they just want to be seen to be praying.... a little like a Pharisee but probably not as bad
No comments:
Post a Comment