Steve (my youth minister mentor friend) just got back from camp with his youth. He spent his whole last week in the mountains of North Carolina at a camp that happens one week out of the summer, a camp that I’ve had the privilege of helping lead for the past three years. This year was my first year not there, so he filled me in on the shenanigans that happened. You see, this camp is one where the same youth ministers, from churches around the southeast (mainly from the Carolinas), get together and plan for their kids every year. So you begin to see the same faces year after year, and by your senior year of high school there’s a good chance you know everyone there. It’s definitely a camp where everyone is comfortable together. They goof-off, just like any good youth camp; and they get serious, just like any good youth camp. But once this past week, goofing-off was something of a serious matter and straddled the line between silly and not kidding.
Some of the boys from Steve’s youth group had their phones confiscated for texting reasons. In their phones, the youth ministers found some texted inappropriates and plans to do some rule breaking. So, to make a long story short, the ministers took advantage of the informality of morning celebration and showed the boys caught-up in their monkey business. After holding an embarrassed grudge against their minister for a while, they experienced grace. These boys knew they had done wrong, but they didn’t expect their minister to reach-out and offer them an equal playing field. What unfolded is quite a long story, but in taking communion that night, these boys came back to their minister with tears in their eyes, putting words to their gratitude. “Thank you for grace.”
Isn’t this just what our celebration of communion is? This story puts tears in my eyes because it reminds me of the time in my teenage years when my mother offered the hand of grace to me. That’s what we know we have in Jesus. But for some reason, when we experience it firsthand in this human life we have with others, communion starts to taste a bit different.
So in my preparation for Sunday evening, I will be thinking a lot about the profoundness of this holy grace that continues to invite us to the table. May overwhelming grace capture us and help us to begin to taste the bread and the cup more fully.