The Rev Roddy Hamilton reflects on the invitation to communion.

“THIS is an open table for all…”

That’s often how the invitation to communion begins. Then the conditions start appearing: ‘…to all those who love the Lord’. Some mean by that all those who have been baptised, or joined the church, or are worthy (as someone insisted to me a long while ago).

Indeed it is why we had communion tokens in the past, replaced by the softer communion cards. You would receive a token if the minister or session marked you as worthy to attend and when cards were introduced as ‘invitation’ these could be used to check on those who didn’t attend and thus, depending on circumstances, a visit could be appropriate.

And, of course, attendance at the week of preparatory services (can you prepare for God’s grace?) and the fencing of the table, once set for Sunday.

Sometimes it felt easier to get into the Kremlin than to get a place at the communion table.

Generally that is not our culture any more though there are formal rules about those who can attend communion. The Church of Scotland says: ‘The Lord’s Table is open to any baptised person who loves the Lord and responds in faith to the invitation, ‘Take, eat’.

Of course, someone unbaptised feels a bit abandoned here but pastoral considerations extend that invitation beyond the letter of the law, recognising the relationship that has the potential to grow by sharing bread and wine in a community of believers.

Yet, sometimes there feels a level of protectionism round the table that makes it exclusive and exceptional. We’ve grown a culture about worthiness illustrated by tokens and invitations, often popularly referred to as ‘your ticket’. Given the frightening contraction of the church at the moment, might we reimagine communion as a missional event and, rather than reduce, expand the invitation?

Who is worthy anyway? Who understands what’s happening at the table? No one! which is why the whole ritual is shaped round a story. Our liturgy is the reenactment of a story which we tell at the table. We formally call it the ‘institution’ but it is the retelling of the story of the Last Supper and we know faith stories hold the truths we cannot put into words. The invitation is to come and be part of this story, for this world, for this time.

From where I stand you can see the opportunity for enriching and engaging and building relationships on common ground with others.

I do remember when I formally joined the church, communion was the end result of instruction and inquiry. Since then I have always seen it rather as the beginning of that journey; an entrance into the community where we recognise together we belong before we have faith. Then the adventure begins.

“Sometimes it felt easier to get into the Kremlin than to get a place at the communion table.

It is a sign we continue to travel as a community of disciples rather than imagine all those at the table have reached peak apostlehood. It is nourishment on the way and those who come for the first time, those with tentative faith (and none) and those with sceptical questions might be the very people to lead us into new places, their places, this story has not yet reached.

In other words, we take the table to others rather than expect folk to come to us. Missional.

The Rev Roddy Hamilton is minister at Bearsden: New Kilpatrick.