RCF 7th August 2022 - Communion Service - Dave Food - A Community of Communion

Online, but it's great to be with you. And we're starting a new

theme this month as we step into August. As Nicky said, we're going

to be looking at communion and all that communion means to us. And so

I really want to kind of as we're taking communion today, really unpack.

And God gave me a title which I found rather interesting because I'm not a

linguist, but community and communion seem to be very similar. It must come

from the same root words. I'm sure some linguist amongst us can tell me

that. But you know, community, a common common unity, communion,

common union. We come together and that's what we're going to do today as

we gather around the bread and the wine. And I sense part of the

reason why I want to focus on this this week particularly is I think in

certain senses, community is a bit broken at the moment and what you feel

like, but I don't feel as connected as I used to be. I

don't feel that I'm quite as ready to connect sometimes. If I'm really honest,

let me give you a really simple example. I had a met you

know, most of you know I work, and I have opportunities to travel

around the country and somebody asked me to go to Birmingham last week and it's

only a two hour drive or two and a half hours on the train.

My first response, do I have to? I'll be honest. I've just

been honest with you. Do I have to? The inconvenience of traveling and

then meeting up with people and meeting them face to face? Can't we do

it online? That was my first thoughts, And I thought, hmm,

how my parameters have moved and maybe you're maybe you're different, maybe you're the

same, but you know we're not so ready to go. Yes, let's

meet. There needs to be a bigger reason. And I think that's you

in church too. Small groups, proud groups. Yeah, we do them

all online, but maybe we need to be doing a bit more face to

face. We're talking about that only yesterday in the as we broke the fast

as leaders. So let me start in Matthew chapter twenty six, Verses twenty

six and twenty seven. Now I want you to remember here Jesus and his

disciples, they were gathering together to have a supper together. Now, I

don't think his disciples at this point knew it was the last supper, but

Jesus, I believe probably did. He knew it was the last supper,

and therefore he made a bit more ceremony. He wasn't just breaking bread,

they weren't just eating together. He made it something so much more that we

now remember as we take communion. And so we read in Matthew twenty six,

verse twenty six and twenty seven. Whilst they were eating, Jesus took

bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it

to his disciples, saying, eat, this is my body. Then he

took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to

them, saying, drink from it, all of you. Firstly, I

want to say that they were gathered together, and I want to encourage you

maybe press outside your comfort zone a little, in the same way my meeting

in Birmingham, and say, when was the last time you had a coffee

with somebody, maybe somebody hadn't seen for a while. It doesn't always have

to mean that we have to go. And when was the last time you

went for a walk with somebody? Fresh air, bit of exercise. Again,

we were talking about that yesterday. Maybe that's something we ought to look

at, doing a bit more of prayer, walking, those kinds of things.

Get out in the fresh air, get some exercise, do it together.

I think one of the things that has come Some people would say technology

has brought us together. Yes, we can connect, but we're still isolated.

Do you know that I spoke to one or two people the week before

last, and one of them particularly, I met them outside Waitrose and I

hadn't seen them for such a long time. I just gave him a hug.

They said, oh, thank you, Dave. I said, pardon.

He said, I don't think I've had a hug for a long time.

And I thought, wow, if people are missing hugs, then maybe

we ought to get a little bit more together. You know. Okay,

do it as you feel comfortable to do it, but yeah, let's look

people in the eye, let's meet them, let's gather with them. Because

that's what Jesus was doing. He was breaking bread. He took the bread,

so they were eating together. He took the bread and broke it and

gave thanks. And even in the midst where we don't have and I guess

people's shopping baskets are getting a little smaller or the price he's going up,

whichever way you want to look at it. And so sometimes we need to

give thanks for the little that we have that God might multiply it. But

let's gather, let's connect, let's be community, let's do community. Community

is made up of families and people, and as we connect together and as

we relate together, that shows forth. Have you ever sat in a room

where you're sitting there, Maybe you sat in a coffee shop somewhere like that.

You're sitting on a table on your own, and there's other tables where

people are quite clearly having an animated conversation. They're laughing and they're giving high

fives, and you're on your own, and you kind of feel you want

to join their conversation. You've never done that. You want to be part

of what's going on there. That's community, and life in community will draw

other people into community. Some of you may not be aware of this,

but you know Sam Matthew's mum, she's a local counselor and she recognized that

in the local community there was a real need working with the Ukrainian refugees.

So what can we do? And she said, well, I'd like to

help to raise the level of community. You know, there's food banks and

other things that are going on, but just get them together to meet.

I said, well, how could we be part of that? And she

said, well could you could the church help with teasing, coffees and those

kinds of things. I went, yeah, no problem. So as a

sign up there in Ukrainian on the noticeboard about a tea and coffee event that

happened last week in the library, and we were part of that. And

I just want to say community is alive, community as well if we will

take part in it. We go on to read in one Corinthians chapter eleven,

that which I'm sure Nicky might read a bit of later when we look

at communion. But I want to read the bit that comes just before where

we say he took the bread and broke it, and just see what was

said to the disciples as they were in the early church. For first of

all, because this was a bit of a warning. I just read it

in the context of the church, and the church was struggling, it was

a bit broken in place. And for first, for first of all,

when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions amongst

you, and part I believe it, for there must be factions amongst you.

Those that are approved may be recognized amongst you. Therefore, when you

come together in one place, it's not to eat the Lord's supper, for

in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of the others, and

one is hungry and the other is drunk. What do you not have houses

to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the Church of God and

shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I

praise you? In this? I do not praise you? And he was

challenging the church and just saying, look, look at the stuff that goes

on. Look at how you don't talk to one another, and how you

don't love one another, and how people are seeing this. So please,

before you come together with communiony, come with a full stomach. Come already,

fair, and now let's celebrate the Lord's Supper. And let's do it

in unity. Let's do it in community, Let's do it together. Now.

I'm not aware of this kind of stuff in our church today. I

think I would be if it was. But I think it's a benchmark to

say, okay, I'll be in good relationship. Have we spent time with

one another I'm going to read from the Book of Acts later on, which

sets a really high benchmark about what community might be. But gather together to

do things with the common union. Let me read now from the Book of

Acts. Now, now the Holy Spirit has come, Jesus crucified, risen

again, you know. And this is in Acts chapter two, Early Church.

And this is where I mean that there's a really quite a high standard

here. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles, doctrine and fellowship, in

the breaking of bread and prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and

many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were

together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods and

divided them amongst all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord

in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate food with

gladness and simplicity of heart, so they had things in common. Let me

tell you a story about one of our neighbors. So we used to have

a lawn in our garden, and every time the dog went out there in

the winter had ended up being a mud bath. And then the mud would

start coming in the house. And I think our lawnmower died as well at

the same time, so it was just a bit of a pain. But

Julia wanted to have a patio, so we had the patio and we got

rid of the lawn. Didn't need a lawmo then. But then we've got

a little bit of lawn just outside our house, between the house and the

road. So how are we going to cut that? And spoke to a

lady of the road who was cutting her bit of lawn outside our house,

and she said, oh, you could borrow my lawnmower if you want.

And then what's happened is instead of burrowing her lawnmow, she actually cuts it

for us. I don't even need a lawnmow to cut the little bit of

lawn. I just think about how many things do we have in our house

that we could share with others having things in common. Now, one of

the reasons we don't share things is we don't know that people need them.

And I'll give you a really simple example that as I was preparing for this,

this is quite an old story, but I ring a real prayer warrior

of the Lord, you know, gone to be with the Lord now.

She used to live in Poorly Green Road and she had to go to the

hospital sometimes, and I popped around to see her one day, or I

think we were at a prayer meeting. I can't remember exactly where it was,

but asked, how was your day? And she said it was a

bit of a difficult day to day. I needed to get to the hospital

and I couldn't get there and the bus wasn't running, and it was just

a tale of stuff. And I said, well, why didn't you ring

me? I was at home that day. I could have taken her to

the hospital. It would have been easy. And do you know what her

stock in phrase was, I didn't want to be too much trouble and yeah,

yeah, I'll be honestly, I just look at thinking about that and

thinking I missed an opportunity. But it wasn't because I wasn't willing. I

didn't know, and I didn't know because maybe because of culture. But sometimes

I am sure that people go without because they've got a neighbor, they've got

someone who's willing to share, so they've got someone in the church who's willing

to share something with them. And just because we don't know, it doesn't

happen, and people go without or people wrestle. And let me give you

a really simple example. How many people in the room own a drill that

you drill a hole in the wall in your house? Quite a few of

you. Do you know how on average the life of a drill, how

much it gets used eight hours from when you buy a drill to when you

throw it away. The industry statistics so that it gets used eight hours.

You know, I could share my drill with a lot of people, but

I don't know when people need a drill. So here's something I'd love to

kind of shay. I think part of community is just sharing a little bit

more of the needs that we have. Hey, does anybody have Now I'll

give you another example. As part of COVID, we were trying to help

people out in our road and we ended up setting up a WhatsApp group for

the road and that was more about when people had COVID and people were doing

shopping and those kinds of things, going to the chemists. But you know,

the groups remained, and now what happens is people will put up on

the groups saying as anybody, what let me think of a couple. Somebody

said, had somebody got a sander? Somebody wanted to borrow a sander.

Somebody immediately went yes. Somebody else was cooking some cakes who wanted some cupcake

cases. They only wanted five. Can I borrow them and I'll replace them

later? Yeah, and there was need met because need was shared. Yeah,

we have exactly the same WhatsApp group, but I don't see the same

kind of conversation going on. It's interesting, and so let me encourage you.

Sometimes I think just putting your hand up, say can anybody help with

this? Sometimes there won't be anybody, But you know what we do not

have because we do not ask. And I'm sure many times God has placed

someone alongside us to do something and we don't even realize they've got the skills,

the capability, the materials, or the willingness to help. And that

for me is community, common unity doing stuff. And that's where communion comes

out of that relationship. It comes out of that drawing together. It comes

out of doing that together. We become aware not just of the good,

but of the bad, and then we can pray. Sometimes we find that

as we come alongside people, we realize that their needs are different and we

can help too. I was talking to someone last month. I can't remember

how many weeks ago, but last month, and they were getting quite stressed

about some stuff that was going on in their life, and they just talked

and I listened, and we got to the end of the conversation and said,

Dave, thanks for that talk. That was great. I thought I

really didn't say anything. I was just listening, but I did say one

or two things. And a few weeks later they came back and said,

you know what you said. That really helped me to focus and understand and

that issue has gone away now because they were thinking differently. And as we

share our lives one with another, I'm sure that actually we pray for one

another. You don't have to You don't have to ask someone to pray for

you for you to be prayed for by them. Just imagine if somebody has

a conversation with you and tells you about something, you take that away and

think, I'm going to bring that to God. Because God consult this.

And we knock on the door, the door of heaven, and we say,

and we petition God for circumstances, in situations, we intercede, We

stand in the gap between our friend and God and say, Lord, you're

going to have to do something here. And likewise, for those folks who

are woken up in the middle of the night and are prayers in the middle

of the night, and I can see a few people nodding already. When

you get woken up the middle of the night and you need to pray,

you're praying for someone, let me encourage you. Let them know. Probably

not at the time of the middle of the night when you're when you're actually

woken up, but maybe the next day, or over a text or what's

happen, or when you see them next, because do you know what,

God's woken you up for a reason. And you will be surprised how specific

the timing can get. I can't. I will have lost count of the

number of times where I've chosen to say to some oh, do you know

what on Thursday night I was praying for you? Oh? Really, what

time? Or about two o'clock? Wow, this was going on. I

got woken up and was completely overwhelmed by a sense of all the stuff that

I had to do two o'clock in the morning. God is lining us up

for these things, and we just don't know about it. And we don't

know about it because we don't talk about it, and so we missed the

opportunity for seeing God's perfect timing. We missed the opportunity for being part of

God's plan. Now, if you don't tell people, you just say,

I've just had a nice prayer for Isabel. You know, Isabel had he

eyes a cataracts Duck dealt with you know, So I praper various times over

the last few days. But you know what, we need to get a

bit better at talking about some of this stuff. Because I'm a great believer

in God connects us in ways that we do not know or understand. And

as he does that, he starts to create community and breathe communion. We

know the story of the Feeding of the five thousands. There were people following

Jesus because of miracles, because the stuff have been going on. This He

got them to walll sit down. He said to the disciples, well,

okay, what have we got? Collect together? What we've got? What

did they have? Five loaves and two fish, not a lot. Doesn't

sound like enough to feed me, let alone anybody else. And then it

goes on to saying Matthew fourteen verses eighty twenty one, and he directed the

people to sit down on the grass, taking the five loaves and two fish,

and looking to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then

he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.

They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfalls

the broken pieces that were left over. The number of those that those who

ate and those who were fed was five thousand men besides women and children.

So you've probably heard many times this was a large crowd. They were being

community, they were gathering together. Jesus took what he had and broke bread

and gave thanks. I want to encourage you even if you're having burnt offerings

for lunch, if you've got an auntie or an uncle or someone who's maybe

not as gifted in cooking, and maybe they're gonna deliver something that you look

at it and you think, hm, well, let me encourage you still

give thanks. If you know what I believe, if you give thanks,

God can change your taste buds. I genuinely believe that I can't remember the

thing that you eat there's something that you eat that if you then eat onions

after it, they taste brilliant. Raw onions. There's something that changes the

way your tongue responds, your taste buds respond and you can literally bite into

raw onions and they taste sweet and beautiful. But I believe God could do

that. So you know, if whatever is in front of you, whether

it's little or much, whether it's beautiful, or whether it's a burnt offering,

give thanks, Give thanks. And here's the thing God provided, not

just enough, not just sufficient, but more than enough, surplus and running

over and that that then give that then gave them a challenge. You know,

when we've got surplus, what should we do with it? That's a

question for community. Now that's part of the reason why we we we have

a box every Sunday here on the floor for food bag, you know,

where materials are gathered, and every Monday people come and those in need,

those who've been assigned then are given food. And that that that's a growing

circumstance at the moment. And I know some of the people who give don't

give out of surplus. They give out of their daily shopping. They go

without themselves and there are other people who, well, I've got some extra,

so I'll give because for me, community asks the question how do I

give? Where do I give? Who do I give? And so I

want to encourage us. Whatever we have, let's give thanks. And in

One Corinthians the eleven we get this example. Follow my example, as I

follow the example of Christ. I praise you for remembering me in everything,

and for holding onto the traditions just as I passed them on to you.

A communion is a habit. Community is a habit, just in the same

way I've got out of the habit of traveling. I probably got out of

the habit of going, Oh, let's do a coffee. And I'm just

asking myself, but we could probably ask ourselves the say what habits have you

got out of that maybe need to be resurrected, Some not because you know,

for some maybe we're better and healthier with them. But let me challenge

you. Let's challenge ourselves as church. Let's be church. Let's do church.

Let's be community. Let's do communion. Because community gathers around something that's

alive. Church is a living being. We are part of an organism,

We're part of life in church. I want to encourage that everybody should be

connected with that. Let me ask you the question if I asked us all

to if I said every one of us had to be in a small group,

and you know, you could be in whichever small group you wanted,

and some of us might honestly put our hands up and go, do you

know what, there's nobody else who has the same interest as me in church.

Maybe you're into grunge or garage music, or into knitting. I'm picking

some really random things, but there's something that really there's no you say,

there's no one else in the church who's interested in what I'm interested in.

Isn't that a time to invite some people? Why not invite some of the

people you connect with around your passion and ask them and invite them to church.

Could we have a knitting group in church? Yes? Of course?

Could Could we have a walking group in church? Yes, of course we

could. Could we have a church of course we can. Some of you

are looking at me thinking, Dave, what are you talking about? Okay,

I'll move on. But the point I'm making is this, if there

are people like you in church, why not invite them? Because we gather

in communities in lots of other places. We gather to play games, we

gather to eat together, we gather to learn a language together, we gather

to study together. And every one of you is connected to lots of other

groups in the community. And just like Sean with the tea and coffee and

cakes for the Ukrainians, it was her connection, there are plenty of other

connections where we can serve others, you know, and I honestly believe if

we ever want to look at the limits of what we have, some of

us might look at the room and go, well, the room's not big

enough to get many more people in there. Okay, Well when we are

full and packed out, then you know, God will open the door for

the next face. I'm absolutely sure about you said we need we ten new

small groups. Then okay, who's going to lead them? Well, either

people will be raised up or God would bring people in. I'll give you

a real prayer focus for me right now. I really when we've talked about

this yesterday as leaders, and I think it's relevant to share its part the

sermon today. I want to get back to live worship. I want to

get back I and I know we're singing but we're singing the recording, it's

slightly different in lots of different ways. So I'm really praying that God raises

up, brings back or releases amongst us worship leaders so we can get to

a place where worship happens in the house, and then people will want to

come because it's different here compared to listening to it online. When it's electronic

and it's recorded, it's the same at home as it is in the room.

That's the reality. So I'm praying for a worship leader or or quiet

If God wants to bring a choir, if God wants to bring five people

along and say we'd like to leave worship, let's do. Let's make space

and room for that, because I honestly believe that will draw us into community

tighter and that will enable us to do communion together. So we're going to

do communion after a few moments, we'll let me pray. I want to

start off with the challenge that was brought to the early church as they were

gathering around to take communion. But I want to bring it in a prayer

for considerate approach, and I want to ask a question in prayer. I

want to ask a question that says, are you okay. I'm not going

to expect you to answer me, but I might. I'm expecting you to

reflect upon that with God right now? Are you okay? And if your

answer it was going to be something yes, but then would you bring the

butt to God right now? Would you bring that whatever it is that frustration

that's going on in your world, that that broken relationship, that annoyance that's

going on, that misunderstanding that's happened, that hurt word that was said,

that apology that hasn't happened, whatever it is that you will go, yeah,

I'm okay, But whatever that butt is, let me encourage you.

Just bring it to God. Bring it to God right now. If forgiveness

needs to flow, then let it flow part of the preparation of communion.

If love needs to flow, then let it flow. If breakthrough needs to

come, then pray. We'll pray for breakthrough. If disconnectedness needs to be

reconnected, then let's pray for reconnection. If answered prayer is what's drawn you

away from God and away from communion, I ask you again to pray once

more, try one more time, just ask of God again. Maybe you

miss something, Maybe God's doing it a different way. And so Father,

we come to you with our butts and our maybes, and we say,

Lord, help us, help us in the midst of our misunderstanding, help

us in the help us in the midst of us trying to do community and

be church. And Father, help us to be the church that we called

us to be. Lord. Each one of us is part of that.

We're connected in. We're plugged in, and Father, we're connected to other

people. So Father, help across our relationships, across our connections, life

to flow, community to grow, people to be saved, people to be

healed and made whole, families to be restored, provision to be released.

Lord, that's all the midst of community, in the life of communion.

And Father, where we lack, then we ask that we'd help. You'd

help us to get our eyes off the lack and onto you. And as

we look to you, Lord, we sense and know that you will provide

through our friends, through our community, through the church, through opportunities.

And so Father, help us to share our needs one with another, and

help us to share the resources that You've given us so readily that there might

be baskets overflowing at the end as well. In Jesus Mighty name, Amen,

would you like me to do the notices? Nikki? Where's them up

there? Okay, yep, okay,