“Welcome Here”

As we celebrate World Communion Sunday, I’m aware of the many different ways we do it, and how important those ways are to us. Still, it’s not how we celebrate communion, but why. We come to this table to remember; to remember Jesus; to remember his life and his death; to remember that we are now—all of us—the body of Christ in the world, broken yet whole. We are to have the mind of Christ, but it’s so much easier to be the hands. We know how to be God’s hands in the world. We do it in countless different ways. We know how to be God’s hands at work in the world. We do. We know. But it’s harder to have Christ’s mind, and even more difficult to have Christ’s heart. The illustration to the right is World Communion Sunday by Kevin Middleton.

Scripture Reading: Philippians 2:1-11—The Christ Hymn

¹ Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. ⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! ⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.