1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 3:16

Reverend Marietta Smith, Associate Pastor

October 5, 2003

World Communion Sunday

^{Corinthians 11:23-26}

23For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

John 3:16

^{16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[1] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.}

Today is World Communion Sunday. It is the day when Christians everywhere in the world celebrate what God has done for us in Christ Jesus. Somewhere in the world for this twenty-four hour period from midnight to midnight, Christians, in particular United Methodist Christians, are celebrating this holy meal. From the grandeur of a place like Washington National Cathedral or St. Patrick’s Cathedral, or Duke Chapel to a humble little white chapel on a grassy knoll in the Yadkin Valley, or even a thatched roofed hut on some foreign soil, Christians are celebrating God’s love in Christ Jesus.

World Communion Sunday began in the winter of 1935, when a group of ministers met to study the spiritual needs and possibilities of the church in the midst of the Great Depression. They called for a Worldwide Communion Sunday the following year on the first Sunday of November, close to “armistice Day” which celebrated the end of World War I. Their idea was that world wide communion would supercede world wide conflict and that the church would lead the way in ending violence between nations and bringing peace to all peoples.

It was eventually moved back to the First Sunday of October. So on this day we celebrate worldwide unity of the church in the body and blood of Christ, one Lord, one faith, one baptism through all the years and in every place. In 1971 the United Methodist Church changed the name of the observance to World Communion Sunday

But, is there any peace in the world to be celebrated? Every day we read and see about bombings, terrorist acts, kidnappings, rampant disease and hunger, disastrous weather patterns, struggles within denominations, struggles between denominations. Where is the unity in the church? Where is peace in the world?

It seems like the world is falling apart. Indeed, if God were not holding the whole world in his hands, it would fall apart. Is there any hope? Is there any possibility of peace?

The answer is Yes! There is hope. Yes, there is the possibility of peace in the world but it will come from a different direction than the world is looking! Hope for lasting peace in the world must come from the hope that springs from a heart that has the experience of sins forgiven. That heart experiences the true peace of God, the unconditional love of God, the undying forgiveness of God’s grace.

True peace will come when the hearts of women and men are at peace within themselves.

True peace will come when all persons everywhere realize that God so loved the WHOLE world and not must their little corner of it. True peace will come when we go out from these four walls to do the gospel by binding up the world’s wounds and washing the world’s dirty feet and extending to the world the body of Christ broken, and the blood of Christ poured out.

We speak of our world as a “broken world” and we think of this brokenness in terms of the wars and rumors of wars that we hear of and see in news reports. We describe the brokenness of the world as the hunger and poverty that rob a person’s dignity and wounds their pride, but the world is broken in more places than this — those places not seen with the naked eye — but felt, nevertheless, deep within the human spirit.

There is the brokenness of marriages disintegrating, of dysfunctional family life, of domestic violence, of physical illness and emotional turmoil, of unemployment and economic injustice, of internal strife in churches, and political upheavals within countries.

And what is the answer to all this? Broken bread — the broken bread of communion, the cup of His blood, poured our for our sins.

Of course we don’t believe we are actually eating His flesh and drinking His blood, but through taking into ourselves these symbols we can know His peace, experience His love and be touched by His joy. These elements of communion are symbols of His body and His blood broken and poured out to bind up the wounds of the world, to cleanse the pollution of the corporate soul of God’s church, and to renew our commitment of doing the gospel in a sick and dying world.

So, we come today on this World Communion Sunday to reflect on God’s love for the world, the whole world and not just our part of it.

We come to ponder once again God’s great love for us in Christ Jesus.

We come to confess that we have not been an obedient church, that we have shied away from doing God’s will; that we have indeed broken God’s laws and rebelled against His love; that we have not loved our neighbors nor heard the cries of the needy.

We come in our brokenness to take His broken body into ourselves to be made whole. We come in our own sinfulness to drink the cup of His blood and be cleansed.

We come to seek God’s forgiveness; to ask Him to free us for joyful obedience that we might go work in the world, nourished and cleansed once more, ready to do the gospel, one cup of cold water at a time. Amen.