I remember once my friend Elder Rev. George Relic and I sharing communion in a weather-beaten trailer tucked into a windy ridge in West Virginia. The walls rattled, the wind howled like a memory trying to come home, and there we were—six of us in folding chairs, gathered around what had once been a 1970s TV dinner tray.
You know the kind—thin metal legs, aluminum or vinyl surface, maybe a faded woodgrain or a rusty print. It was made for meatloaf and sitcoms, not sacraments. But that night? It became an altar.
That little
tray, battered and bowed, once served TV dinners in front of laugh tracks and
commercial jingles. Now it held bread and a cup, passed gently from hand to
hand. We didn’t have vestments or stained glass—just hearts aware of grace, and
the unshakable sense that Jesus
was in the room.
I realized then
what I still hold dear: The
holiness of communion doesn’t depend on the grandeur of the table. It depends
on the presence of the Host.
And He was
there—in plastic chairs and whispered prayers, in grape juice and chipped
bread. Heaven did not flinch. In fact, I think it leaned in.
Prayer: “For Tables That
Lean and Lives That Tremble”
Lord Jesus,
You who chose the stable over the palace,
the foot-washing bowl over the sword,
Choose again the simple places to meet us.
Bless the tables
that wobble.
Bless the grape juice in paper cups,
the bread passed with calloused hands.
Let this
communion remind us
that You come not for performance,
but for presence. And just as You once took a fisherman’s boat for a pulpit,
take our old TV trays, our trembling hearts,
and turn them into holy ground, today, tomorrow and forevermore. Amen.
Rev. Todd Crouch, Pastor
Topinabee Community Church
Topinabee, Michigan
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