In the first Quarter of my first year of seminary I participated in a required beginning class for all ministry students called Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry or BEM as it was affectionately known. Instead of taking place in a regular classroom it was held in the seminary common room where we held weekly worship and many other types of gatherings. The class was divided into small groups that represented the diversity of our student body – my seminary attracted people from different Christian faith traditions, countries and ethnicities.

We met once a week and explored the basics of ministry to find the common elements across the vast spectrum of Christian Churches. One of the main goals of the class was to discover how we could find unity in Christ despite being so different in many other ways. It was a process to help us identify and understand the core of our beliefs as the foundation of everything else we would learn in our lives as ministers and leaders in our various churches.

Each class, we met in small groups around tables in the main room and after both whole and small group time, one of the table groups would lead the rest of us in a worship service that always celebrated Communion. Then, we would all go downstairs to the cafeteria for a common meal and fellowship. It was a unique class in the whole three years of seminary – and it was a wonderful opportunity for the students to come together in ways that simply weren’t possible in the normal program structure.

I still remember the very first night of that class. It had been an exciting introduction to our studies and our groups. The worship that first time was led by the faculty – it was beautiful and meaningful and made us all feel truly unified in our faith. Communion was always the last part of worship and after we had all received the elements and joined in the closing prayer everyone happily started to file downstairs for the meal – that is, everyone but Carlos. Carlos was in my small group. He was from the country of Columbia and was Catholic. It was unusual to have anyone from the Catholic Church as a student in our seminary because most men who were training to be Priests had to study under a Catholic Order. Carlos was not training to be a Priest but was simply a devout believer who had been given an opportunity to study religion at an American school and would use what he learned to grown in his faith and to be a leader in his parish back home.

I no longer remember the particulars of who noticed first or who stayed initially to figure out what was wrong, but as the rest of us were going to dinner, Carlos stayed in his seat facing the Communion Table which was now covered with plates and chalices of left over bread and juice. He was visibly upset and someone, probably one of the faculty, sat and talked with him.

Carlos’ was still learning English and it took a little while to figure out what was wrong, but eventually we learned the problem was that we had all left the room with the unused Communion elements still on the table. In Carlos’ faith, those elements were literally transformed into the physical body and blood of Christ and any leftover had to be stored in a specific way and treated with great care and respect. Our wonderful worship of unity had become a situation in which one person had become genuinely hurt and confused by the way the rest of us had treated the sacred elements.

As this realization unfolded, word of it spread to the group downstairs, and again, I don’t remember exactly how it happened but one by one, the rest of us left the dinner and came back upstairs to the common room. And without actually talking about it or coordinating it, we went to the Table and began to finish eating the communion bread and drink the juice left in the cups until there was nothing left.

Now in the Presbyterian and other traditions represented in our class, the elements were thought to be the symbolic presence of Christ and not Jesus’ literal flesh and blood, but we knew that Carlos saw it differently. This was our way of showing our respect both for the elements and for our friend and brother. It seemed to make him feel better even though it wasn’t quite what he was used to.

This became a new custom not only for that Quarter of the BEM groups but for the next three years of our entire graduating class because from that night on every week after seminary Community worship, which also always celebrated Communion, a group of us would make sure to go to the Table and finish eating the bread and drinking the juice whether or not Carlos was there.  I can never think of communion without remembering that experience from seminary, now over 30 years ago.

The sacrament that had always held so much meaning for me had become an even greater symbol of what it means to come together in Christ – to respect each other’s differences and still find a way to share in one loaf and participate in Christ’s body  – the One thing we will always have in common.

In the scripture reading from James – he basically tells us to pray for one another in all circumstances because of and through our Faith in the One Lord, Jesus Christ. The sacrament of Communion is something almost all Christian traditions share – in countries all over the world. And while sadly in some cases it has become a way for us to separate ourselves from one another, Jesus meant it as a way for us to come together. It is way for us to pray for one another in all circumstances as James commended, no matter our individual differences or conflicts because in this sacrament we are brought together in Christ.

In Communion we break the bread and share the cup in order to participate in something that can never be broken – the fellowship of our Savior who gave everything for us so that we might give everything for each other and become as One in Him.

And so, we gather around this familiar Table, a table that we know in our hearts stretches across the boundaries of time and place, across the boundaries of denomination and tradition, across the boundaries of stranger and friend. As we do Christ, our host, is inviting us to take our seats, offering his people a chance to be united instead of divided, to look upon each other with the love and concern that he shows for all of us equally.

As we find our places, we can look to our right and to our left and see with spiritual eyes the other guests at this humble and yet generous table. We see people from Decatur Arlington Heights and nearby townships, we see our neighbors in Christ from other denominations and traditions, St. John’s UCC right across the street, Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, Catholic and so many others. Recently, the Arlington Heights Ministerial Association has begun meeting regularly again and as I say the names of those Churches and I can see picture the faces of their pastors.

At this Table, we can all see our brothers and sisters, our siblings of faith from every country on earth – people who, just like us, long for a time of justice, unity and peace and have gathered around the Lord’s Table to find it in the breaking of the bread.

All is ready; let us prepare to take our seats. Amen.