The Bungee Cord 9-17-18

Hello,

     I have had a lot of mishaps over the years during worship services, but yesterday I was faced with a new one.

     The church where I am serving on an interim basis is a mid-sized church building.  The worship space is well taken care of.  The altar is always carefully set when Communion is part of the service;  a pressed cloth covering the chalice (the cup for the wine), the folds draping it perfectly, and two additional perfectly folded cloth napkins to use as the wine is served.

     So, on Sunday as we were nearing the time for Communion, we were speaking together the faith that we hold in the words of the Nicene Creed (A confession of faith that was developed in the 300’s.  Lutherans speak the Creed together every Sunday as a way of connecting ourselves with Christians of all time and of all places, experiencing a taste of the unity of the Body of Christ that God is striving for.) Anyway, as I was leading the congregation in the Creed, I looked down on the altar, and there crawling across the white linens was a small black spider.  I watched it as it took its time, almost as if it was scoping out what was being readied for Communion.  As I watched it, I found myself getting a bit distracted from the Creed, and I muffed up a couple of the phrases, hoping that the people didn’t notice. It continued across the altar until it found the two folded cloth napkins, whereupon reaching them, it decided to crawl inside one of them.

     Uh oh!  What should I do?  I thought about doing nothing, but then it occurred to me that a scream from the person serving wine when the spider emerged from the napkin would sort of break the solemnity of Holy Communion.  I decided I needed to do something.  So as soon as the Creed was finished, I reached down and picked up the napkins and tried to nonchalantly   shake them in hopes that I could shake the spider out….without it landing on me and crawling all over me!  I shook them, but didn’t notice the spider coming out, but I didn’t notice it on the napkins, either.  

     I hoped that I accomplished my goal in delivering the spider from the napkins.  Unfortunately, I realized that in shaking the napkins, if the spider was freed from the napkins, it might now be crawling around on the floor where the people would soon be kneeling.  I did not think that I should stop the worship service and announce that a stray black spider had joined me to serve communion, and if I could be given a minute, I would try and locate it and take it outside.  Instead, I decided to press on, and by virtue that there were no screams or jumps, my assisting spider must have gone elsewhere.

     So, all’s well that ends well, and two things come to mind. First, if it has been a while since you’ve been to worship and you are worried that you might create a bit of a disturbance, as you can see, disturbances are part of worship. Second, no matter how big of a disturbance you fear you might cause, know this, you will be far more welcome than that little black spider!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger