Communion with Strangers
AM Psalm 95* for the invitatory & 22 • PM Psalm 141, 143:1-11(12)
Jer. 29:1,4-13 • Rom. 11:13-24 • John 11:1-27 or 12:1-10
““Let me hear in the morning of thy steadfast love, for in thee I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to thee I lift up my soul.” ”
When I enter St. Paul's on Sunday morning, I wave to my friends, nod to strangers, and kneel to pray. When the bell tolls, I stand for the processional and then settle down to listen to God's word, hoping for something fresh about, as the psalmist says, "the way I should go."
I love seeing the faces in church that I missed during the long months of pandemic isolation. But I wonder just how much I do acknowledge the strangers that I nod to, those people in the pews who aren't "strange" at all, just unknown to me, as I am to them. And as I glance around the congregation during the Gospel reading these days, I realize the numbers of those I don’t know almost outnumber those I do.
Recently, I heard the popular lecturer and author Brene Brown give a sermon at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., about the three things she loves about going to her Episcopal church, and they all had to do with strangers. She loves to sing with strangers. She loves to exchange the handshake of peace with strangers. She loves to kneel at the rail for Communion with strangers.
I love to sing with my friends and family, as I love to shake their hands and get a quick hug from them. And I especially love receiving Holy Communion with those I know and love. So what does Brown's sermon teach me about my own worship experience?
While I work on an answer for that question, I'll offer some words from John Donne, the priest and poet we commemorate in the Episcopal Church today:
No [one] is an island entire of itself; every [one]
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…. From Meditation XVII
When we come together to worship on Sundays, we become something more than a gathering of individuals. We are a community of believers, seeking the way God wants us to go. Next Sunday I plan to pay more attention to my fellow worshipers when I sing, when I pass the handshake of peace, and, especially, when I go up for Holy Communion. We are a family here. There are no strangers among us.
Written by Kay DuVal
Kay has been a member of St. Paul's for over thirty years, but she finds the liturgy, the music, and the warm and welcoming faces around her ever new.