At our church, each person comes
out of their seat to the front of the church, and they kneel or stand on the
congregation side of the rail, a little wooden or metal fence that marks the
edge of the 'sanctuary'. In the sanctuary is a table, which is called by some the altar, others call it the communion table - but to be consistent, I'm calling it the Lord's Supper table.
The rail and the division of our
church into 'sanctuary' and the rest would deeply disappoint the first Protestants,
who deliberately placed the Lord's Supper table in the middle of the church, so
that people could come right up and stand around it; they wanted us to
remember that this table is NOT an altar where a priest makes a sacrifice to
entice God to forgive our sinfulness; it's a feasting table, where we
gather to celebrate that the only sacrifice we need, Jesus Christ, has already
been made, once and for all, and because of that, God's right and proper anger
against our sin is already fully satisfied, for everyone who turns to Jesus
with that trust. Now that we belong to Christ we have no need of earthly priests, because we have one Great High Priest, Jesus himself.
The Lord's Supper table is an earthly party table, where
we remember that because of Jesus' death for us, we now have a seat at God's
banqueting table in his heavenly Kingdom. Putting it in the centre of the assembly or gathering (that's what the Greek word that we translate 'church' really means) also reminds us that every follower of Jesus is equally allowed to approach that table.
But of course, it's tricky to
squeeze more than about twenty people around your average table, and sadly the
vast majority of Anglican churches have long since reverted to the Roman
Catholic practice of putting the table at one end of the church.
Other
practices have crept back too over the past 500 years since the Protestant
Reformation - like fencing the ordinary people out of the "sacred space" of the
sanctuary, and even in some churches talking about "offering" the bread and wine
to God. It is a tragedy to forget the very heart of your faith, and to replace the good news of Jesus Christ with useless and misleading ceremony.
The Book of Common Prayer recommends that people receive the Lord's Supper 'all meekly kneeling'. It's a good thing to humble ourselves before the Lord, remembering how great he is, and how much we owe him. But not so good for those of the congregation with rickety knees and hips, or poor balance. As long as your heart is meekly kneeling before Jesus, that is enough.
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