Communion Will Never be the Same

It’s a big year for Lutherans – the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. So it struck me as significant that I was invited to participate in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada’s National Convention in July. I was privileged to present a sermon, and honoured to serve communion alongside a Synod Bishop.

At the 450th anniversary of the Lutheran’s Augsburg Confession of Faith in 1980, the Lutheran World Federation – representing 95% of Lutherans globally – invited Mennonites to join their celebration. Mennonites responded that it was difficult to celebrate a confession that condemned us for our views on theological matters such as infant baptism, even though the centuries-old memory of Anabaptist persecution had faded. But that invitation led to a 30 year reconciliation process, culminating in 2010.

As I stood before a full sanctuary of Evangelical Lutheran believers, the weight of responsibility descended upon my shoulders. I felt the eyes of a great “cloud of witnesses” observing. There I was; an Anabaptist leader about to help serve the Lord’s supper to Lutheran worshippers; those with whom we were in such harsh disagreement with centuries earlier.

Reconciliation is not an easy task. Though we'd all like to think that it's as simple as "let's kiss and make up," true reconciliation is a lengthy process. It involves truth telling. It includes admissions and confessions. It requires the non-defensive discipline of acceptance. Telling the truth can feel freeing to the one speaking. Hearing the truth can weigh on the one listening. But there is no reconciliation without this exchange.

For nearly 500 years, Anabaptists have borne martyrdom from a variety of persecutors. We have felt the weight of living out our beliefs. We have wrestled with the guilt of living safely and in peace while others risk their lives and take up arms. I wish I could say that in nearly 500 years we have learned how to express conviction without feeling like enemies to others, but long-standing patterns are difficult to break.

In this single act of reconciliation, of inviting me, an Anabaptist, to serve communion, Lutherans accepted our divergent understandings as an equal expression of love for God. Being invited to offer communion was not a statement of agreement. It did not mean that we are all of one mind. But it did acknowledge that we serve one God. We come to the same source of mercy and forgiveness. We go to the same place for redemption and restoration.

This provides Anabaptists with a huge challenge. Can we accept disagreeing viewpoints as equal expressions of love for God? I fear that we have not even been able to do so among ourselves.

"This is the blood of Christ shed for you." These are not words of entitlement. These are words of recognition. They acknowledge a fact – whether we like it or not; whether we agree with it or not.

In offering Eucharist to the Lutheran family, the feeling of being surrounded by a huge cloud of Anabaptist witnesses affected me more profoundly than serving communion has ever done before. 

Where Are You church?

With our increasingly secular Canadian society I have always been thinking that people have disregarded the church. However this assumption has been challenged for me.

This spring I have been asked to participate in a Justice Tour developed by Citizens For Public Justice and the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC). Together with Susan Johnson,  National Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada and Karen Hamilton, General Secretary of the CCC, I have been listening to community leaders across Western Canada express their hopes and frustrations in regards to Canada's engagement with poverty and climate justice. It has been a moving experience. Whenever people share the concerns of their hearts, it is impacting. 

This is where my assumption of secularization has been challenged. I was not surprised to see young adults engaged in the conversation. I was not surprised to hear their passion about issues of poverty and climate justice. I was not surprised to receive their criticism of church leadership. However, I was not prepared to experience the tone of their message for us as church leaders. 

From Vancouver, Edmonton, and Saskatoon across six forums, I heard accounts of community action. I heard of new collaborations. And I heard a growing lament. I heard young adults lament the lack of church presence in their struggles of addressing issues of poverty and climate justice. Many of them acknowledged that it was because of the church that they were currently engaged in these activities. The church taught them that God cares about the poor. The church taught them to love their neighbours as themselves. The church taught them that part of worship is caring for neighbour and the earth that we all share. That is why they were so disappointed to experience the church's absence in the concrete struggles of advocacy and actions seeking social change. 

I heard our young adults express a deep lament. They want their church with them. They want to be part of a faith expression that lives out the values they have been taught by their faith. But while they struggle for social change they look behind them and watch the church in a comfortable embrace of a society that benefits the advantaged. While they stand in solidarity with indigenous communities they witness the church avoiding indigenous peoples. While they stand in solidarity with the poor they witness the church maintaining distance through impersonal charity. 

Our young adults are not very interested in maintaining the current form of church. In that, they are aligned with secular society; it isn’t interested in carrying on the current form of church either. Our young adults are compelled to be engaged with care for the poor and the earth. In that, they engaged with the Spirit of God. 

Our young adults have not disregarded the church. Our young adults are missing the church. Many of our young adults are ready to take serious the expectations that God has for the People of God. And they long to be accompanied by the church in their efforts. 

I was prepared to hear people say; "we really don't care about the church." Instead I heard a resounding question of deep lament: "church, where are you?"

Perhaps that is the question that has resulted in a growing secular society. When the church truly remains aligned to the activity of God's Spirit it will never become irrelevant. 

In May, the Justice Tours will continue in Kitchener, Halifax, Montreal and Ottawa.