First time I've ever felt left out at the Lord's table

Flo Johnston, Correspondent

Once I almost got thrown out of a storefront church because I couldn't produce a business card and nobody could vouch for me. Describing the details of this event makes a pretty good yarn, one I usually tell when I'm invited to speak to a group about the religion beat in Durham.

Last Sunday, I had an experience that was yet another first in my almost 25 years as a religion writer in the Bull City.

Along with my friend and neighbor Elizabeth Severance, a retired Presbyterian hospital chaplain, I visited a church for the first time. Visiting is something I do often and, since both of us are Presbyterians and she's a preacher, Elizabeth is a good one to go church-hopping with.

Our destination was First Reformed Presbyterian, a relative newcomer to Trinity Park. These Presbyterians bought the building previously occupied by St. Barbara Greek Orthodox at 1316 Watts St. The congregation is about eight years old and had previously met in a hotel in Research Triangle Park.

The pastor, the Rev. Ian Wise, told me in a phone interview a couple of weeks ago that the church holds to old traditions. The most conspicuous, he said, is singing the Psalms a capella, a practice that dates back to Scotland. He said the church has a strong focus on Scripture and the importance of preaching. His sermons, he said, are usually about 40 minutes long. The one last Sunday titled "Calling Us Back," with the text from Galatians 5:7-12, was right on target time-wise.

Wise is a talented speaker and his sermon was a careful explanation of the Scripture in which St. Paul lays a few carefully chosen words on the church at Galatia for having strayed from what he taught them. The praying and preaching were familiar to my Presbyterian ears.

The surprise came during Holy Communion. The table in front looked familiar enough with a loaf of bread and trays of small glasses -- wine in the center glasses and grape juice along the outside rows. The pastor spoke extemporaneously, leaving me wondering if Reformed Presbyterians have no prescribed liturgy for the sacrament. And in a departure from the practice in other Presbyterian churches, he offered no invitation to the table, nor prayers of thanksgiving or confession. He and one elder, Erich Baum, distributed the elements to the congregation.

When the pastor failed to stop at our row with the bread, I thought it could be an oversight, but when he moved up the aisle and did not offer us the cup, suddenly I knew: We had been excluded. At that moment I knew what it felt like to be ostracized, left out. I also felt indignant.

We sang another Psalm, got a blessing from the pastor who then moved into making announcements in which he welcomed visitors and invited all to a fellowship meal at noon. When he took a breath and paused, Elizabeth stood up and said, "Am I to understand that we as baptized people in good standing in the church are not allowed to partake of Holy Communion at the table of our Lord Jesus Christ? This is against the teachings of Jesus. I am offended."
That covered it all, but I added that his invitation to share the fellowship meal hit me as a feeble attempt to gloss over our having just been turned away from the Lord's table.

The pastor told us he would talk with us later.

And he did. Standing in the aisle, he explained that to take communion in this church, one must be deemed "worthy" beforehand, and that this happens when an elder (an elected man in the congregation) talks with you about your Christian experience or hears your testimony.

I was vaguely familiar with this idea since I recalled from church history that Presbyterians had used communion tokens during a bygone era. The history museum at the Presbyterian conference center in Montreat has a large collection of tokens that were given to those who were deemed worthy, to be turned in when the individual stepped up to partake of the body and blood of Christ.

One reason Sunday's experience hit me so hard is that Presbyterian pastors from the past and my present pastor at First Presbyterian, Joe Harvard, have always given an invitation to the communion table. Harvard always says, "This is not a Presbyterian table, but the Lord's table."

In recent years, I have begun to understand that Holy Communion is above all a joyful feast and that I don't have to feel "holy" to take part. In fact, I have come to appreciate the idea (learned from Gayle Felton, co-pastor at Calvary United Methodist and former Duke Divinity School professor) that this part of worship is not so much what I do or what I feel, but what God does. Instead of coming to the table because I feel worthy, I need to come because I feel unworthy.

Over the years, I have shared this meal in mainline and nondenominational churches across this city and have been blessed by their welcome. Most of all, I have learned how to appreciate the sometimes minor, sometimes major differences in the way churches conduct this sacrament.

I am thankful churches have freedom to worship as they choose. But I do have a suggestion for Reformed Presbyterians. Why not explain the policy as part of the communion liturgy, or at least put a note in the bulletin saying that pre-authorization is necessary? I have no problem with churches that promote theological ideas I do not embrace; I do have a problem with exclusion from what even Reformed Presbyterians call "the Lord's table."

Elizabeth, a Duke Divinity School graduate who has baptized and served communion to broken and dying people in hospitals, does not agree that an explanation could help set this church's position right. She contends that no Christian church has the right to exclude anyone from the communion table, that the Bible and the teachings of Jesus make this perfectly clear.

For those who want to experience this church, worship is held on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. with a fellowship lunch at noon.

fjohnston3@nc.rr.com

© Copyright March 1, 2008, The News & Observer Publishing Company
A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company


Note: Flo and Elizabeth are occasionally visitors to Calvary. And Elizabeth spent many months as our interim Organist and Choir Director.

How about you....? Ever felt excluded? Kept away from God's Welcome Table? Do tell!
This article (including its allusion to our guru Gayle!) was a stimulus for good theology and sharing at Calvary Young Adults after the Communion and Healing Service today. Such wisdom, born of heartbreak....