Be Vulnerable to Divine Grace

Today was communion Sunday. I partook in the La Salle congregation with the wonderful folks there. Each congregation has slightly different traditions in their presentation and protocols of serving the bread and wine, but the prayers of blessing and serving by priesthood harmonize this sacred sacrament throughout Community of Christ. Wherever I attend I am blessed around this table in the Spirit of our Lord.

The Lord’s Supper experience inwardly happens within our hearts, minds and souls and outwardly with one another in sacred community. The moment is sanctified with reverent thought, reaffirmation of covenant and a sense of oneness. Grace permeates our being as we consciously empty our lives of those habits, discordant thoughts and injurious words and acts both received and given that have separated us from one another.

I was particularly mindful today while the prayers were shared, of the current discord within the CEM congregations. There are so many scriptures we could elicit to reveal the necessity to cease contention and ….. but to me the most relevant scripture may be today’s theme scripture from D&C 163:10b, “Be vulnerable to Divine Grace.” These profound words speak to the heart of our condition. In the stead of our posturing with attitudes of rightness and aligning ourselves in clusters of division, the Lord calls us to be vulnerable to Divine grace. I visualize this in my mind’s eye as an act of kneeling before God and one another; offering my life, my hurts, my anger, my reactions, my all, without reservation to God to accept in return…..a community of joy, hope, love and peace.

May we each seek peace and allow our discussion processes to go forward in faith that a win/win solution may result. Let us forgive one another, let us learn love for one another which may only be possible through becoming vulnerable to God’s grace. As I shared with the LaSalle congregation today both in word and in prayer, vulnerability to God’s grace has changed my life and hurts and positions of rightness have given way to what matters most…..Christ’s peace.

I invite all to kneel in this act of reverent vulnerability, even as we humbly do so in communion to bring peace to and within our sacred community.  

Submitted by Kerry