Acts 2:42-47 for Sunday, March 30, 2008

Translation:
(42)And they were devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. (43)And everybody continually was awestruck, there were continually many wonders and signs through the apostles. (44)And all the believers were together and they possessed all things in common. (45)And the possessions and the property they sold and they distributed it all according to anyone who needed. (46)Every day they devoted themselves together in the temple, breaking bread at home, they shared food in extreme joy and humility of heart (47)praising God and having goodwill to all the people. And every day the Lord increased the number of those being saved among them.

In the early church, it seems that believers spent a lot of time together. They shared their possessions together, the praised God together, they ate together, they learned together. These days, we have a hard enough time doing these few things with our own families, let alone our faith communities!

Even so, these are important parts of building any community. We cannot be sure if the "breaking of bread" refers specifically to the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion as we know it. But we know that it refers to a meal. Just this week, I attended a meeting with people from many different faith communities. There were some folks from a Jewish Congregation, a couple Presbyterians, some Unitarian Universalists, and others. Though our work was not centered around eating together, we still shared a snack of cookies together. As we did so, we recognized that meetings in all of our faith traditions somehow feel more relaxed and more productive when we eat together.

Sharing meals together is an important way to build community. Somehow it seems that no matter what our differences, we all share one thing in common: the need for physical nourishment in order to accomplish anything.

When we share in Holy Communion together, I sometimes wonder at how it also serves as a unifying bond. Just as food solves the problem of physical nourishment, so Holy Communion seems to help with the problem of spiritual nourishment. Similarly, it seems that no matter what we believe about the holy meal we share, or how we understand theology, we all have a spiritual need to be nearer to this holy mystery.

During the 50 days of Easter, we will be receiving Communion each week here at Trinity. For centuries Christian communities have participated in this meal, even from the earliest communities in Acts and at the time of the Apostle Paul. As we participate in this sacred meal, I hope that we will remember that we participate as a believing community--not just of Christians at Trinity but with Christians of every time, place, age and denomination.