Communion
I can be outraged by the church (which I mentioned in my last post) and still cherish it. Remember, I’m a “both/and” person who holds my opposing views and emotions in tension. They are interwined like threads of a cloth, each giving strength to the other. I am repulsed and I’m drawn. Whenever I walk into a church building, I have simultaneous feelings of hurt and fondness, pain and peace, despondency and hope.
There are many reasons for my outrage and hurt. On the other hand, people of faith have also offered me genuine compassion and grace when I least deserved it. I have shared the deepest secrets of my life with fellow believers, and they did not reject me. Remarkably, they accepted and loved; they embraced and encouraged. To share intimacy of the soul with other human beings is, for me, the true nature of the Church, and I’ve experienced it in my life. I am drawn to that possibility. Do I experience it often? Honestly, no. But the possibility is enough.
Yesterday in worship, I shared communion with people, most of whom I didn’t know. Yet, I did know them. In the taking of the bread and the wine we confessed our shared hope and our shared need of forgiveness. We communed in the symbols of worship. Yes, I am often outraged at the Church. Yet, it is in the Church (when we are fully being God’s people) that I find peace for my soul.
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