One of the wonderful gifts God often gives us at Bear Creek UMC is guests, or as we like to call them here at Bear Creek UMC...gifts. Because that is exactly what they are...unexpected gifts of grace from our loving God! This last Sunday, we had 3 guests. One was a woman from the Stanwood United Methodist church who came to ask us to pray for their pastor, Rev. Justin White. Justin broke his back this Fall and she wanted us to pray for him and her congregation. What a gift to be reminded that we United Methodists are a connectional church, and that we take that connection to other United Methodist churches serious.
Another set of guests at our worship service last week, was a couple who were visiting us for the first time. They had just moved to a retirement community in Woodinville from a neighboring community called Mill Creek. After worship we had a fellowship meal and after a little coaxing, I convinced them to stay. As we were sharing around the tables, this couple shared a story about their spiritual journey that made all of our hearts sing, because it had to do with something we United Methodists take very seriously...an open communion table.
The guests shared that they had been in the Bear Creek church one time before and it was memorable. They had come for a friend’s memorial service. The woman shared that it was her husband’s close friend, and at the end of the memorial service they were invited to come forward for holy communion.
The woman shared that she had once been a member of the Catholic church, but about 25 years ago she had left the Catholic church over the church’s stand on women’s reproductive rights. Unfortunately, she had never connected to another church. She hadn’t even been in a church for almost 20 years. But as she sat in our church and heard the pastor, Rev. Meridith Dodd (at that time), share that in the United Methodist church we celebrated an “open communion table,” her heart just warmed. She had never realized that that was an option. In the Catholic church you had to be a Catholic in good standing to take communion. As a teenager, when she had guests stay over night on Saturday nights, she felt so uncomfortable as she had to explain to them that they couldn’t come to the communion table with her because they weren’t Catholic. It just didn’t seem right to her. Why would a loving God keep people from coming to God’s table of grace?
As she stood with her husband to come forward to holy communion, her heart grew strangely warm as she realized that for her, this is the way it should be. This is the meal that God is truly inviting the entire world to be a part of. A meal that brings us together, not divides us! A meal where we all realize we need grace and humbly come together to receive it. A meal where afterwards the pastor looks at all of us and says, “and now that you have received grace, go therefore and share it with the world.”
That evening, they looked for a United Methodist church near them, and the next Sunday, for the first time in 25 years, they went to worship at the Mill Creek UMC. And it felt like they were home. And now, as they have moved into our area, they hope to make Bear Creek UMC their home...and we will do all we can to make them feel a part of us!
And one of the ways we will do that is to continue to try to live into the wonderful idea of an “Open Communion Table.” My hope for Bear Creek UMC is that we will never forget what a gift an “Open Communion Table” is. It is not just a meal; it is a symbol for who we are. We say in our words, that this table is not ours, but it is God’s table. And as such it is always open to anyone and everyone who wants to come. May we learn to extend the heart of the open table into every aspect of our church’s life and our personal lives.
Your friend and pastor, proud to lead a church that believes and lives into the wonderful challenge of God’s open table, Brook
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