We are coming up to World Communion Sunday, which is my favorite minor church holiday of the year. Perhaps because it’s the most delicious, or perhaps because being so minor has saved the holiday from being co-opted or commercialized, I will always have a special place in my heart for the first Sunday in October. On this day we remember that we are one with the Church throughout the world and all ages, and we show this in our worship as tangibly as possible. This means Irish soda bread, Indian naan, Italian focaccia, New York bagels, Palestinian pita, Native American fry bread and much, much more. Debbie Fallehy’s bread-baking Family Life Small Group will contribute a loaf, and you are also invited to bring bread from your family’s culinary heritage.
I celebrated this holiday for the first 17 years of my life in a very diverse church. At Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York City, we were near Columbia and all its international students, adjacent to Harlem’s historic African-American neighborhoods, and just blocks away from the vacant lots where the legendary gangs of West Side Story battled out their ethnic rivalries in song and dance. World Communion Sunday brought so many people together, and as we stood around the table in saris and kente cloth, kimonos and suits, the vision of our multicolored clothes and faces taught me an image of heaven, where all shall be reconciled with God and one another.
Montclair may be a less diverse neighborhood than the Upper West Side… but we are well-traveled, and many of us have left bits of our hearts in one country or another. A piece of my heart is in Uganda. Some of our MPC members are in Bolivia right now. So I would invite you to bring a loaf, a tortilla, a rice bowl, or another alternative — either from your family’s heritage OR from a country you especially love.
You have advance notice so you can get excited and choose your best international outfits and recipes. This is happening on Sunday Oct 4th. If you can contribute bread please RSVP to me, and be there to deliver it early (9:45) before church.
Every Blessing,
Rev. Talitha