Communion or Thanking God for your sins!

So today is communion Sunday. When I was a kid I always looked forward to those Sundays because my mom or grandma made the bread and we kids got to eat it after church! Because none of it is ever to be thrown away or go to waste.

Why do we take communion?

We take it to remember Jesus’ teaching and that he died for our sins.

 When my daughter Hannah was little, we would come to pray at the rail after taking  communion and we’d remind her why we were there. One day, she was about 5 and her dad and I both leaned in to talk to her about it at the same time  and she put her hands up to stop us and said, “I know, I know, I have to thank God for my sins.”

We didn’t correct her, but left her alone and as I thought about her words, I thought it was a better way to think about why we take communion.

So that leads us to, what are sins?

When we think about sins we think about the biggies like Murder, stealing, you know, the 10 commandments. But Jesus taught us there were a few others, like not helping those in need, not treating others like we want to be treated, lying, wanting what others have, not spending time with God in prayer or study and one that most of us do many times a day, take the Lord’s name in vain.

It’s not fun to think about our sins, and it’s not to remind ourselves that we aren’t as good as we think we are. But this is where Hannah’s words “thank God for my sins” got me thinking. When we thank God, it’s usually for the good things that happen to us. But if we had to thank God for our sins, we have to really think about them and hopefully learn from our mistakes and that will help us try not to do it again. Maybe what we are really saying is thanking him for a lesson we learned.

I, like several others out there belong to a group called Camino and at one Camino weekend I attended, the pastor giving us communion told us if we had only a few sins to think about, we only needed to take a small piece of bread, but if we had a lot, then we might need a bigger piece of bread.  There are some times; I think I should just take the whole loaf!

So today while you are waiting for your turn to take communion, I want you to thank God for your sins and decide if you need a little piece or a big piece of bread to help you learn from your mistakes. Take the time after to pray at the rail and really Thank God for all you have and all you want to change.

Let’s pray

Dear God, thank you for giving us a a time to remember Jesus and a chance to learn from our mistakes. Help us to do a better job of following your teachings. Amen