All are welcome at the Lord's table, part 3

Communion begins. The sermon has unsettled me a little. It has had what is undoubtedly the opposite effect of what was intended, for now I am worried that someone in this church might not want me to participate.

The ushers let about twenty people line up in the middle aisle, and then these twenty walk up to the altar and kneel. The bread is distributed first. This church uses pita bread. (Many churches use unleavened bread -- usually either matzo or pita -- because Communion is a re-enactment of the Last Supper, which was a Passover seder.) Then a second server brings a cup of something red (I think it was grape juice, but it may have been wine), and we dip our bits of bread into the cup and then partake.

This method of taking communion by dipping the bread into the cup is called intinction, and I’ve always thought that it is a nice way of handling the one cup, one loaf imagery while simultaneously not asking everyone to drink from the same cup.

After partaking, our little group of communicants files off to the left and then:

• walks through a doorway,
• walks down six or seven steps into a sort of hallway,
• crosses a little foyer to another set of steps,
• walks three or four steps up,
• walks through another door,
• comes out on the other side of the sanctuary,
• walks about halfway down the side aisle,
• slides sideways through one set of pews,
• walks across the middle aisle,

and we find our original seats again. In the meantime, the ushers have been organizing the next set of twenty or so people for Communion. I’m sure the people who attend regularly are used to this system, but it strikes me as mighty convoluted.

The choir does a lovely “Sevenfold Amen” for the benediction.

Because there is a long line of parishioners waiting to shake hands with the pastor in the middle aisle, I thought I would exit via a side aisle, find a bathroom, and then rejoin everyone for the coffee hour. Another mistake. I simply can not find the bathrooms. (They were probably clearly marked, but everything looks unfamiliar to me.)

I wander up and down halls, through the Sunday School area, back out to the cloisters and plant sale area, and finally back into the lobby where the refreshment tables had been set up earlier. They are no longer set up, because it turns out there is no coffee hour after this service. This makes sense, because most people probably just want to get home and have lunch by that time. However, now I realize that I have missed both the bathrooms and the social hour, and have failed to even shake hands with the pastor or talk to anyone. Oh no – I’m beginning to realize that I’m an incompetent church visitor! On the way home I resolve to do better next week, wherever I go. Surely I can learn from my mistakes.