World Communion Sunday

            The first Sunday in October is designated World Communion Sunday. On the 6th, we will celebrate our oneness in Christ with Christians around the world. The observance began in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside Presbyterian Church in the 1930s. The church’s leaders, including Shadyside’s pastor, Rev. Hugh Thomson Kerr, wanted to raise awareness of the interconnectedness of all Christian congregations around the observance of Holy Communion. At a time when many Protestant churches celebrated the Lord’s Supper only four times per year, agreeing on a common date to celebrate the sacrament was itself a feat of unity! Today many Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, and Congregationalist churches observe World Communion Sunday.

            Notwithstanding the effort to unite around Holy Communion, the sacrament continues to divide Christians. “The Study Catechism,” a document that the Presbyterian Church (USA) approved in the late 1990s, has a good summary of the Presbyterian theology of Holy Communion. It explains that a sacrament is a special act of Christian worship, instituted by Christ, which uses a visible sign to seal the gospel promises on the hearts of believers. The sacramental sign of Holy Communion is bread and wine.

The Catechism further states that the sacrament “conveys to faith the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Though the Risen Christ is in heaven, Holy Communion unites our souls to himself. This is a different way of understanding Christ’s presence in the sacrament than the way that our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers understand it. They speak of a transformation of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood. It’s also different than Baptist theologies of the Lord’s Supper, which often speak only of remembering Christ’s sacrifice by way of the sacrament but say little about Christ’s presence to the believer. These differences often seem subtle and unintelligible to lay people. When it comes to Christian unity and theology, the devil is in the details!

Another difference between the denominations has to do with whether Christians drink wine or unfermented grape juice. The practice of serving grape juice goes back to a Vineland, New Jersey dentist named Thomas B. Welch. Welch, a Methodist, was a teetotaler and ardent supporter of the Temperance Movement. He invented a process to pasteurize the fruit of the vine and keep it from fermenting. Welch’s Grape Juice was born, and teetotaling Christians could partake of the sacrament without scruple! Out of pastoral concern for Christians in recovery, the Presbyterian Church today allows for the use of wine in the Holy Communion, provided that grape juice is always available. Most Presbyterian congregations simply serve grape juice.

Got more questions about the Sacrament of Holy Communion? Let me know! Email me at MLindsay@HaddonfieldPres.org.