Sunday’s worship finds us at The Lord’s Table…all around the world in languages and cultures different from ours in the USA. We can’t go “over, up, or down there” literally but in faith and in unity we are with Christians in Russia, Indonesia, Israel, and China. And most every other nation! Places, where indeed, the Creator God is present, where indeed the “rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.”

I remember in 1979, LeNoir, I, other new young UMC clergy flew into Puerto Rico, Haiti, and then the small island country of Monserrat. A Mission Exploration opportunity for new clergy in the Holston Conference. Worship and fellowship there was both familiar AND different! From the barest of city spaces to worship in to the loveliest of island sanctuaries. Yet brothers and sisters in Christ came together to bear witness, serve others, and participate in the coming Reign of God regardless of country of origin. Their joys, their struggles, their hopes were ours also!

This Sunday we will heighten our connection with others in lands far away, but with those whom one day we will sit at the same Table in the Kingdom. Surely the call is to be at one together with the One who overcomes all painful differences which divide us as brothers and sisters of one Lord.

This Sunday, bring to worship the name or face of a Christian in lands far away with whom you are determined to be in communion with….by faith, in service, and in partaking of the Bread and the Cup for all.

Blessings on this coming World Communion Sunday!

Pastor Barry