Order of Service - Script 

for Sunday  October 3, 2021

World Communion Sunday 

Many Christian churches, including our sister church, the United Church of Christ (UCC), participate in a special occasion on the first Sunday in October, a date on which most Christians share in receiving Holy Communion. 

NIUU, Pastor Fred 

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Welcome:  

Come into this circle of love and compassion,

Come into this community where we can dream and

Believe in those dreams—

Welcome to North Idaho Unitarian Universalists where we accept, we support, we transform:  Ourselves, Our Community. Our world.   

Lighting the Chalice: 

Connie

Reminder of the Inner Light

By Gregory David Miller

This fire is a reminder of the light within us all;

the yearning for freedom,

the longing for truth,

the flame of intuition,

the torch of conscience.

We dedicate this service to the remembrance of this Holy Light.

Opening Words: 

Hoping, Trusting for So Many Things

By Katie Kandarian-Morris

Here we have come into this sacred space—

quieter now with our readiness

Hushed voices, hoping, trusting for so many things:

For connection, for communion

For inspiration, for information

For healing, for wholeness,

For words, for music,

For celebration and consolation,

Here we have come into this space bringing all of who we are,

Let us be willing… however we are changed.

Hymn: 

World Communion Sunday video based on "Joyful, Joyful" by Beethoven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQvV6eIUxE

Covenant: 

Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law

This is our great covenant:

To dwell together in peace,

To seek truth in love,

And to help one another. 

Meet and Greet / Check-in  / Joys and Concerns /  Sharing

Story: 

Shared meal

by John M. Buchanan

September 26, 2013

World Communion Sunday is one of the best ideas Presbyterians ever had. The idea originated in the 1930s, a time of economic turmoil and fear and the rise of militaristic fascism abroad. Hugh Thomson Kerr, a beloved pastor in the Presbyterian Church, persuaded the denomination to designate one Sunday when American Christians would join brothers and sisters around the world at the Lord’s Table.

The idea caught on. Other denominations followed suit and the Federal Council of Churches (now the National Council of Churches) endorsed World Communion Sunday in 1940. But though the day is still noted in some denominational calendars and program materials, it doesn’t seem to be considered as important as it once was.

Of course, every Sunday is in a sense World Communion Sunday insofar as many churches celebrate the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. But we do not welcome one another at the Lord’s Table. In some churches, a place at the table is reserved for members only. Some Lutherans exclude other Lutherans. And, of course, Eucharist is restricted in the Roman Catholic tradition (although individual Catholic clergy do not always adhere to their church’s teaching on this point).

I have heard all the ecclesiastical reasons for excluding people from the sacrament. I was once part of a Presbyterian delegation to a Reformed–Roman Catholic dialogue at the Vatican. Our delegation decided to gently raise the issue of sacramental exclusion. We agreed with our Catholic counterparts that the church has been given responsibility for the sacrament. As we pressed this issue, it became clear that we had not resolved disagreements about the nature of the church. Lewis Mudge, a Presbyterian theologian, spoke up: “You’re still saying that we are not a true church, aren’t you?” We remained, for them, an “ecclesial community,” not a church—so no sharing of communion.

I believe that when Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” he referred not only to the Last Supper but to his entire life of teaching, healing and welcoming all—a welcome so radical it scandalized religious leaders. I have never been able to square excluding a fellow Christian from the table and the meal that commemorates Jesus and that conveys, in bread and wine, something of his grace and love and forgiveness.

During a summer stint at a tiny church in Scotland, I had a visit from the pastor of the church in the next village who told me a communion story I will never forget.

He was an infantryman in the British army in World War II and ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. The conditions were dreadful. There was no heat, and prisoners were given a single bowl of thin soup and a small crust of bread daily. Men were starving, sick, filthy and desperate. Suicide was a very real option. All one had to do was run toward the perimeter of the camp and leap against the barbed wire fence. Guards would immediately shoot and kill anyone trying to escape.

In the middle of the night he walked to the perimeter and sat down beside the fence to think about going through with it. He heard movement in the darkness from the other side of the fence. It was a Polish farmer. The man thrust his hand through the barbed wire and handed my friend half of a potato. In heavily accented English he said, “The Body of Christ.”

“Do this in remembrance of me." 

 

Meditation: 

More Than Symbol

 

Connie   

 IN ITS FULLEST sense, remembering is far more than the long backward glance of nostalgia, and in its fullest sense the symbol of bread and wine is far more than symbolic. 

It is part of the mystery of any symbol always to contain something of the power of the thing symbolized just as it is more than a mere piece of painted cloth that makes your pulse quicken when you come upon your country's flag in a foreign land, more than a mere sound that gladdens your spirit when you hear someone speak the name of an absent friend. When in remembrance of Jesus, the disciples ate the bread and drank the wine, it was more than mere bread and wine they were dealing with, and for all the tragic and ludicrous battles Christians have fought with each other for centuries over what actually takes place at the Mass, the Eucharist, Communion, or whatever they call it, they would all seem to agree that something extraordinary takes place. Even if the priest is a fraud, the bread a tasteless wafer, the wine not wine at all but temperance grape juice, the one who comes to this outlandish meal in faith may find there something to feed his deepest hunger, may feel stirring within himself a life even more precious, more urgent, more near than his own. 

-Originally published in The Faces of Jesus

 by Frederick Buechner 

 

Sermon: 

This wonderful month of October 

  brings us two holy days, that is special days 

    in keeping with the definition 

      I spoke about a few weeks ago. 

The best known of the two 

  is a favorite occasion for a lot of people, 

    Halloween, also known as Samhain, 

      the high holy day for the pagans among us 

        for whom it is Christmas and New Years 

          rolled into one very special day. 

The other is today, 

  the first Sunday in October, 

    known as World Communion Sunday. 

It is an occasion for remembering 

  that people all over the world 

    are sharing in the sacrament 

      of the bread of life 

        on the same day. 

At first glance,

  it may not seem too important 

    for us as UU's. 

In reality, this occasion 

  has a number of important lessons to teach us. 

First and most importantly, 

  World Communion Sunday is a day 

    to recognize oneness and togetherness 

      for all kinds of people in all kinds of places 

        all over the world. 

While all the kinds of communion are meant to be 

  opportunities to bring people together, 

    the sacrament of bread and wine 

      has all too often become an occasion 

        for pushing people apart 

          because of disagreements 

            about what it means. 

I've told a story about the divisions before, 

  and I want to tell it again, 

    because this particular story 

      has an important part to play 

        in the history of the journey of the UU's. 

A prince and princess in Prussia were to be married. 

Both were devout Christians, 

  and they wanted to share 

    in Holy Communion together 

      as part of their wedding. 

One of them was Lutheran, 

  and the other was Reformed, Calvinist. 

They were told by leaders of their churches 

  that it would be impossible for them 

    to share in Communion at their wedding 

      because there were too many differences 

        in the theology of the sacrament 

          between the Lutherans and the Calvinists. 

You see, Lutherans believed (and still do believe) 

  in a doctrine called Real Presence: 

    the Body of Christ is truly present 

      in, under, and with 

        the Bread of Holy Communion. 

Likewise, the doctrine teaches 

  that the Blood of Christ is truly present 

    in, under, and with 

      the Cup of Wine of Holy Communion. 

Calvinist teaching on the other hand, 

  teaches that the Bread 

    is a symbol of the Body of Christ, 

      and the Wine is a symbol of the Blood of Christ. 

The difference may not seem like much 

  to people on the outside 

    of the respective churches, 

      but the difference is so important 

        that it seems like life and death 

          to believers within those churches. 

As a Lutheran, 

  I saw it as absolutely vital... 

    that is, until I attended 

      a (formerly) Presbyterian college. 

The Presbyterian church 

  is a Reformed or Calvinist church, 

    whose tradition is to speak of the sacrament 

      in symbolic terms. 

It means they would say that 

  the Bread of Communion 

    is a symbol of the body of Christ, 

      and the Wine of Communion is a symbol 

        of the Blood of Christ. 

To me, the use of the word, symbol, 

  to refer to the elements of Holy Communion 

    was anathema. 

Then I learned something new and important: 

My Presbyterian brothers and sisters 

  believed and taught 

    that the bread and wine of Holy Communion 

      are a special kind of symbol 

        in that they convey the thing they symbolize. 

That sounded so much like my own faith 

  that I could no longer think or speak 

    about how wrong they were! 

So, let's get back to the Prussian prince, and Princess

  the Lutheran and Calvinist, 

    who wanted to get married. 

There were various political considerations 

  as well as the personal faith matters, 

    but the end result of the controversy 

      came in 1817. 

The Prussian Union Church was formed, 

  a merger of Lutherans and Calvinists in Prussia. 

As highly conservative religious people will often do, 

  many Lutherans resisted the merger. 

Some of them moved to the U.S. 

  and founded the LCMS. 

On the other hand, 

  many people who were part of the United Church 

    also come to the New World, 

      and they became an important part 

        of the history of faith in the U.S. 

The Evangelical and Reformed church, 

  as the Prussian Union Church was known 

    more widely than just in Prussia,

      merged with the Congregational Church

        of New England, 

          the church of the Puritans 

            as it moved forward in history. 

The Congregational church is clearly an ancestor 

  of our own Unitarian Universalist tradition. 

The newly formed, united church

  became the United Church of Christ, the UCC. 

We UU's are not part of the UCC, 

  but in New England, the UCC 

    is nearly indistinguishable from the UUA. 

World Communion Sunday 

  is an important part of the story. 

Now, various Christian groups, 

  regardless of their expression of faith 

    about the Sacrament of Holy Communion 

      recognized their oneness in their participation 

        in Communion on World Communion Sunday. 

Depending on our own inner attitudes, 

  our faith can bring us together 

    rather than causing us to divide more and more. 

I had an experience in a presentation by a rabbi 

  that taught me the lesson of oneness in faith 

    between Christians and Jews. 

(I use the word “experience” 

  Rather than just “hearing” the presentation 

    Because it was a profound moment in life 

      That wrought a change in me.) 

Speaking of his own faith in God, 

  he said he believed God is in 

    the covenant making business. 

God was in Moses on Mt. Sinai, he said, 

  making a covenant with Israel, 

    and God was in Jesus on Mt. Calvary, he also said, 

      making a covenant with all the world. 

This sharing of his own faith was so much like 

  what I believe 

    that I could no longer see Jews and Christians 

      as other than participants in different expressions 

        of the same faith. 

Similarly, a bishop in the Lutheran community 

  to which I belonged 

    once spoke of India 

      as a nation with millions of unbaptized believers. 

You see, Hindus belong to a religious faith 

  that receives teachings from many sources, 

    and many of them believe in Christ 

      as well as their own gurus. 

If we think in these terms, 

  Hindus are very much like us UU's 

    in their willingness to receive ideas of faith 

      from many different sources.     

As UU’s we receive ideas of faith - 

  - not only from our heritage in the Christian tradition - 

      But also from traditional forms of pagan, earth based spirituality 

        And from other religions such as Islam and Judaism. 

So it is that the faith of others - and our own, too - 

  can be a part of bringing people together 

    instead of pushing us apart. 

We as UU's can take part in the process 

  of bringing ourselves and others together 

    with World Communion Sunday 

      as we take part in the simplified experience 

        of a sacrament of remembrance. 

For this very reason, 

  I'm asking that we take a piece of bread, 

    a cracker, or a cookie and share it. 

Shall we break bread? 

We remember. 

("Re-Member"- We put back together in our hearts and minds - including people and experiences in spirit, to be with us in community through this "remembering" action.)

It's up to us to decide whether or not to participate 

  in this super-simplified form of communion, 

    and what kind of bread we use. 

Even more importantly, 

  it's up to us to decide 

    what (or whom) we remember. 

As we do so, at the very least, 

  we are remembering the act of doing this together. 

As such, 

  our remembrance includes our human oneness. 

World Communion Sunday is a holy day, 

  a special occasion, 

    to remember that we are already 

      one with each other, 

        and we can and will become more so. 

Amen. 

So let it be. 

Blessed be. 

Congregational Response 

Offering Information 

Our Charity of the Month:

Safe Passage

Violence Prevention Center

"Safe Passage not only helps survivors, we work toward reducing violence through prevention education. We provide individual and group programs that teach ways to recognize domestic violence and how to safely intervene and help."

NIUU

P.O. Box 221

CDA ID 83816

 

Extinguishing the Chalice and Closing Words: 

By Robin F. Gray

Connie 

Ours is a communion borne of words and welcome. 

Fred 

Our communion finds expression in caring and commitment to our highest ideals. 

Connie 

Our communion lives on in our hearts though this sacred hour has ended.

 

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