Have you ever sat down at a restaurant only to find that you have dirty silverware at your place setting? Or maybe when you have gone to set the table in your own home you realize that even though your dishes went through the dishwasher the dishwasher didn't do its job and the dirty dish or silverware ended up in the cupboard.
I hate finding the dirty dish or dirty fork.
It is my firm opinion that if the dish is dirty it doesn't belong on the table. The altar is no different. How would Jesus feel sitting down to the table with a dirty wine glass at His place?
I have to say that I normally don't take sides on "church issues" like liturgy stuff but I was brought into this one initially kicking and screaming with a "Do I have to?" until I began to think about it some more.
What I am referring to is the fact that there were three couples that got together for dinner a friends house. I might start off by saying that when you get 3 priests and 3 spouses together you should know right away that there is going to be trouble of some kind. This dinner party was no different.
Rev and mother Jane had decided that this was the perfect time to explain to Father John, using visuals why you don't re-set the altar after communion. How you might ask were they going to do this, well they had decided that all of us would scrap our dinner plates and re-set his dinning room table with the used tableware as an example.
I might add that this was basically lost on Father John. He still claims that re-setting the altar is correct policy.
I still adhere to the fact that I don't think Jesus would like to find a used, dirty dish under his pretty wrappings on the altar. I do think what he finds most important however is that we are all willing to come to the table take communion together, worship, and discuss our differences and move forward. Not necessarily deciding one way is right or wrong but allowing each their own opinion.
That having been said; John you go right ahead and re-set the table, Im sure Jesus will talk to you about it later.
1 comment:
oh mercy. Nobody has yet taken me to task over this one, I don't know how they missed it!!!
I do the (admittedly token) ablutions, restack everything EXCEPT the corporal...and leave it for the Altar Guild to take away and DEAL WITH after the service.
simple decision really because our credence table is too dinky to accommodate everything.
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