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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Tuesday Lectionary Leanings -- Worldwide Communion Edition

The Table is Prepared (from my files)
This Sunday is labelled on my calendar as Worldwide Communion Sunday.  But what does that mean exactly?  How "worldwide" is it?  And for some people who are a part of traditions where Communion/Eucharist is part of weekly worship, isn't every Sunday Worldwide communion?

Nor does it help that none of the lectionary passages (read them here) link to the Communal meal at all. [Okay the Isaiah and the Matthew talk about a vineyard, which produces grapes, which produce wine.  But that might be a bit of a stretch]

Moses Giving the Law
So are we wanting to talk about rules for a healthy community?  I have heard someone use the 10 Commandments as a way in to reminding  the Church School (and through them the rest of the congregation) about some helpful ways we can be an intergenerational community together.  What are the rules in our places?

Parable as Allegory
Or did you want to talk about those horrible tenants in the vineyard?  Can we move that parable past the easy allegory?

Or are you following along with Paul, who now goes into one of his bouts of (false?) modesty?

Or maybe you are one of those doing the Season of Creation, which I hear has other lectionary readings.

Given the name of this Sunday maybe we can make this thread a way to share Commuion greetings from our particular corners of the globe this week.

9 comments:

  1. I'm taking a vacation Sunday for the first time since moving here in July and boy-o-boy-o-boy I am excited! (The fact that I'm visiting a long-distance Boy might be part of it). So I'm just popping in to the lectionary leanings to say hi and my prayers are with you!!

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  2. I'm preaching on the commandments, focusing on the Golden Rule and other restatements and simplifications of them.

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  3. I am preaching on those "horrible tenants" in the vineyard. Backup text will be the commandments. It is my first Sunday as an interim pastor in a congregation whose pastor retired this summer after 27 years there. Their question seems to be "Who are we now?" I'm toying with the idea that the tenants answered that question unwisely when they found themselves in a new, unfamiliar situation. What gives us direction when "the man" (?!) is not there to tell us what to do? Cue the commandments (God's way)? Too easy &/or trite? Not sure . . .

    These are just initial thoughts I'm dashing off here!

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  4. Hi all,

    We are commissioning Stephen Ministers this weekend, so they are leading the service, so no sermon this week. For which I say yeah, as I am ready for a break from that. Hopefully will find a productive way to spend the extra time this week (not diddling around, I mean...). The following week, we have a guest, so I'm not preaching the 9th either, as it happens.

    Anyway, just stopping in to say have a great one to all you preachers out there -- Iove that Paul Snark, Gord :)

    Blessings on your week, all!

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  5. We are celebrating the Feast of St. Francis and having our blessing of the animals as part of our service. And my seminarian intern is preaching. Yay!

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  6. Sharon - Good luck! (from a one-month-in young pastor in a much older congregation)

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  7. I am preaching on World-Wide Communion and Paul. I have been preaching on Matthew for the past two weeks, and I think that I (and my congregation) are ready for a break. Those parables are not easy.

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  8. I'm supplying for the next couple of sundays and this week I'm going to look at the concept of "rules" and "discipline" as it is the commissioning of Sunday School teachers at the parish I'll be at. I'll be focusing on the concept that rules/discipline's truest intent is the inaction of God's love in the world. Now, if only my 17 month old would nap. I better go rescue him from his crib...

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  9. I'm going with the vineyards...God's expectation of really fine grapes... and getting a lousy harvest...expecting justice and righteousness... but getting instead, violence and weeping.

    Are we bering the fruits of God's reign in the world? World Communion ought be more than we eat different breads at the table... it ought, perhaps, to address not simply the diversity at God's table, but also the disparity.

    It'd be a 'sin' (living in Oregon) NOT to go with the vineyard metaphor.

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