This past Sunday, October 6, we celebrated World Communion Sunday. In my sermon, I talked about communion being a time not only to remember or recall the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, but a time whereby we join God’s work of re-membering. That is, when we gather at The Common Table, we are enacting God’s promise of mending or restoring that which has been divided or torn apart. We come to The Table to remember and we come to be re-membered.

When I walked back to my office following Sunday school, this chalice/Holy Grail caught my eye.  I bought this in Belfast, Northern Ireland, when I was there for three weeks in the summer of 1998.

I held this cup for awhile and wondered about the kids I met during my time in Belfast. Many of them would now be in their 20s. Are any of them gathering regularly at the Lord’s Table?  Are they safe? How do they think about peace and restoration having grown up in a region of the world where there has been such conflict and division? How have they felt dis-membered and perhaps re-membered?

Then, I took the leftover communion juice from our communion service at Rainbow, walked outside to our church park, poured the juice out in the shape of a cross and prayed again, “Lord God of Peace, re-member us. Re-member all who come and go out of this park.”