We all share the same table....

There are eight families in my church.  We each sign up for a month or two during the year for ushering, providing alter flowers, setting communion, etc.  I usually sign our family up for a couple and especially, the month of August, to do all of our "chores of church".

Why August?  That's the month I stood before God, my family, and my friends and pledged my love and my life to my husband.  There is definite meaning in the month of August for me.

In our church we celebrate communion on the first Sunday of the month, unless there are five Sundays - then we celebrate it again on the third Sunday.

There are five Sundays in August.

I set communion yesterday after finishing singing at a wedding at First United Church across the street from our Faith Lutheran Church.  I'm not certain exactly what denomination their members are - it used to be a Methodist church, but then merged with the Congregational Church somewhere down the line possibly?  The hymnals are definitely Methodist, so maybe they lean more that way....I guess it doesn't matter really.

We all share the same table.

Hmmmm.....  a wise woman told me that last night as we discussed our joys and our sorrows, our anxieties and our comforts.

We all share the same table.

We drink the same wine.

We eat the same bread.

We remember the same body and blood of the One who saved us.  

Young and old.  

Missouri Synod Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, or Catholic. 

Red, Yellow, Black, or White....we are ALL precious in His sight.....

We share the same table.  

One that was prepared for us.  One that was commanded of us to share with others.  One table.....

I love my "church chore" of setting communion and then taking it down after church.  There is a comfort in preparing the body and blood of Christ for my church family.  There is also a comfort in washing the goblets and placing them gently in their velvet-lined box.  How many hands have washed these cups?  I remember all those who have gone before me and know that they are at THE table....

Today's scripture lesson and sermon was based on Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
This is what the Lord says:

“Maintain justice
    and do what is right,
for my salvation is close at hand
    and my righteousness will soon be revealed.

And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
    to minister to him,
to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
    and who hold fast to my covenant—
 these I will bring to my holy mountain
    and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
    a house of prayer for all nations.”
 The Sovereign Lord declares—
    he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
    besides those already gathered.”

   

Do I welcome others to know what I know?

To share in the joy and peace of sitting in His house?  

To comprehend (as much as our earthly minds can) the completely unselfish sacrifice represented in the bread and wine?

I'm not a missionary.
The word evangelist brings back horrid memories of blue eye shadow and fake eye lashes and slick-talk.

I don't give my testimony....at least not like I was brought up to believe how that was done....but maybe I then again, I do.

Regardless, today, sitting in these old wooden pews, with windows open because we have no air conditioning, fan blowing my bulletin around, and turning the pages in my hymnal without my consent, I was reminded once again.

We all share the same table.

Welcome.....

Sacrifice....

sacrifice - [sak-ruh-fahys] 

verb (used with object) :  
                to surrender or give up, or permit injury or disadvantage to, for the sake of something else.


This word, this three syllable word, has been on my mind this week.  A LOT.   It has so many different definitions (12 to be exact if you look it up on dictionary.com), but this one is the definition that has weighed heavy on me this week.

Maybe it's because it's Memorial Day weekend and I think of all the lives sacrificed so that I may have freedom.

Maybe it's because I've been working really hard, so that my kids can go to college without owing their first-born child to the college when they graduate.

Maybe it's because I see how many things my own parents gave up for me so that I had their time and attention when I needed it most.

Maybe it's because I finally see that there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything done that I want done, so I have to pick and chose.

And maybe it's because this week I've submerged myself into Christian music and I'm reminded of the greatest sacrifice.

Here's a thought: 

You know how you're all excited about buying a new car and you know the kind you want and the color and you just can't wait because NO ONE has one yet?  Then one day you start driving and looking at cars on the road and just like that, you see one....no, two.....no, THREE cars exactly like you had picked out?!?!?  Where did they all come from?!?!?  They weren't there before!  Maybe you didn't notice them until you knew that's what you were going to get and then, BOOM!  they are everywhere because that's where your focus is.

That's how God works with me.   Funny, huh?!  He puts a thought in my head, and then suddenly everything in my path works around that thought.  I might be just for a day, or it might be for a week, but that's always how it goes.  This time, it was a week and it was in subtle ways. 

Like seeing a Facebook post my friend Jeni put on her page about losing her husband in the Middle East and knowing she was going to celebrate this weekend like he would want her to.

She knows sacrifice.

Or listening to my children make choices about friends and values.

They know sacrifice.

Or just today, when spending time on the lake I dropped a very important piece of our bimini top into the blue depths of Miller's Bay and without thinking, jumped in after it, losing my sunglasses, the piece itself, and my watch (which had tremendous sentimental value).

I felt sacrifice today.

Phillipians 3: 7-14

7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Paul SAW sacrifice...  and left us these words.

Yes, it's painful to lose loved ones to a greater cause....

Yes, it's hard to watch our children have to make tough choices...

Yes, it's frustrating to know our limits and decide what gets our focus....

Yes, it's heart-wrenching to realize something you treasured is now gone...

But isn't it amazing, that, in the "grand scheme of things" (as I like to say),  all those losses lead us toward the ultimate goal?

Maybe I need to focus on losing more things.....