“In confidence of your goodness and great mercy, I come, O Lord, a sick man, unto my Savior; hungry and thirsty, to the fountain of life; needy to the King [sic.] of heaven; a servant unto my Lord; a creature to my Creator; disconsolate to you my merciful comforter.”1
These words come to us from Thomas a Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, a work which John Wesley held in high esteem for his own spiritual formation. Wesley valued this work so much that he republished it to make it available to the communities and poor which were part of the Methodist revival. In the fourth book of The Imitation of Christ, a Kempis writes of the sacrament of holy communion. Wesley himself teaches of the importance of this sacrament throughout his ministry, and an excellent source for his thoughts is his 1787 sermon “The Duty of Constant Communion.”
As United Methodists, we follow in this Wesleyan tradition as we consider and celebrate the sacrament of holy communion. The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church (1808) state that “The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves to one another, but rather is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death; insomuch that, to such as rightly, worthily and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ; and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.”2 We believe in the real presence of Christ at the table, that God meets us in a transforming way when we come to the table. And we believe that the table is God’s table, that “Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another.”3
On the first Sunday of October we celebrate World Communion Sunday. This is one of the churchwide special Sundays outlined in ¶263 of The Book of Discipline, which states that “World Communion Sunday calls the church to be the catholic inclusive church.”4 With many other children of God around the world through the ecumenical church, we celebrate this Sunday with the knowledge that God invites us all to the table. We also recognize that while coming to God’s table is (trans)formational, it is also missional. The missional work of the table is liberating and inclusive. We come to the table and are transformed for the purpose of living the life of God in the community. We are transformed into the image of Christ for loving all people, all nations, races, and ages and inviting them to come to the table to experience the abundant life that God intends and desires for them.
As we prepare to celebrate communion, I want to invite you to think deeply about your experience of this sacrament. Feel free to read Wesley’s sermon using the link above, or check out the other cited resources through our church library. If you have questions about this sacrament, please feel free to reach out to Pastor Daniel or myself. What I can tell you is that we are excited to celebrate communion together with you. And in anticipation of that, I offer a prayer from The Great Thanksgiving for World Communion Sunday:
“[God,] Renew our communion with your Church throughout the world, and strengthen it in every nation and among every people to witness faithfully in your name. By you Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet.”5
1Thomas a Kempis, John Wesley’s Extract on The Christian’s Pattern or A Treatise on The Imitation of Christ, IV.ii.1 (Franklin, TN: Seedbed Publishing, 2018), 137.
2“The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church,” in The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2020/2024, ¶104. Section 3, Article XVIII - Of the Lord’s Supper (Nashville, TN: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2024).
3“Service of Word and Table I,” in The United Methodist Book of Worship (Nashville, TN: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1992), 35.
4“World Communions Sunday,” in The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2020/2024, ¶263.3 (Nashville, TN: The United Methodist Publishing House, 2024).
5“The Great Thanksgiving for World Communion Sunday,” in The United Methodist Book of Worship (Nashville, TN: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1992), 73.
