This upcoming weekend, we’ll celebrate World Communion Sunday, which oftentimes reminds me of our honeymoon to Italy, starting off in Rome to see the usual tourist spots of the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica, along with the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps; but the actual relaxation and awe-inspiring serenity didn’t really take hold until we got to Venice…a whole ‘nother culture in comparison to the Eternal City of Rome.
Then came that Sunday morning, a week after we had gotten married, and we decided to go to the English-speaking congregation of St. George’s Anglican Church. We could have gone to St. Mark’s Basilica with its fair share of Latin and Italian thrown in for the more authentic Venice experience, but I guess we had reached our broadening-horizons threshold a bit by then.
Nevertheless, we went to this much smaller church on the other end of the canal, and being the hospitable church people that they were, they did their best to make us feel at home and asked about us, and soon enough word got out that I was a pastor; and even sooner still I was asked to help distribute Communion with the Anglican priest. This was not part of the honeymoon plans by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a memory I will never forget: just as much as the ceiling in Sistine Chapel or the massive crowds that filled the streets just for the possibility to catch even a glimpse of Pope Francis only a few months into his papacy. However, there was just something about being part of Communion nearly half-way around the world.
Now this church was not filled to the brim like it was at St. Mark’s on the other side of Venice. It was not an overwhelming feeling that I experienced that day, but instead it was…humbling. Before I was asked to help serve, I wasn’t put through any intense questioning as to my stance on theology. I didn’t have to show any credentials before the priest agreed to it. It was just…a given that we were part of the same ministry in the United States as they were in Italy, not to mention between Lutherans and Anglicans.
And it wasn’t as if they celebrated Communion overly different from the way I had experienced. It didn’t feel more or less sacred, but just as holy as it was in the churches I received Communion in in this country. And I could tell that not based on how the priest spoke the liturgy or moved his hands around, but just the facial expressions of all those who came forward; that it meant something to them just as much as the rest of us.
So, when I was blessed to speak the words of “the blood of Christ shed for you,” to each of those people, some who lived in Venice for years and some who were just stopping by from all different places in the world: I had no idea who any of them were. I had no idea what their story was, or what their faith journey was like, but Jesus knew, and that’s all that mattered. God knew them intimately far, far away from the place I considered home, far away from where I knew God was alive and well. Evidently this God is in full operation all over the world, including in the outskirts of a long sought-after tourist destination.
So, with this World Communion weekend, we do this for a reason; a reality check, if you will: not so much for God, but for us. To be mindful of just how vast this God truly exists, and just how much this divine love covers the entire face of the earth. After all, there are people out there in this world who need God just as much as the rest of us. They need God to get through the night as gunfire pierces their ears from falling asleep. They need God for some kind of hope after floods pulverized their entire country; that there is something, someone out there who truly cares that they live. This is the God of all the nations, who can show up at a sacred meal for all, and somehow unite us beyond anything we can ever imagine, unite us in the only hope we have, unite us in service to one another, unite us in the love that conquers every possible form of evil now and forevermore. Thanks be to God indeed! Amen.