.png)
Stumbling into sacred space
- Mar 2
- 2 min read
By: Corinne
Have you ever experienced one of those moments when something said in passing pops back into your mind later, casting everything around you in a new light? This happened to me during our last freeze night shelter.
My evening shift started uneventfully. Pastor Missy was chatting with a couple of volunteers at the intake table about a book she was reading with her small group —Sara Miles' Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion. She described how Miles, after spontaneously receiving communion one day, experienced such transformation that she started a food ministry at her church. Missy said she loved that Miles saw her feeding ministry as an extension of the communion table.
I didn’t think much about this conversation until about an hour later when I noticed one of our guests at the head of our long row of dining tables. He was holding his phone up above his head, trying to capture everyone eating together. Someone chuckled, "Looks like The Last Supper.” I responded with laughter but then something shifted inside me. That casual comment cracked open something in my perception, and Missy's words about Sara Miles came flooding back. It was one of those rare moments when it feels like the veil between the ordinary and the sacred suddenly fades away.
This wasn't just dinner for our homeless neighbors. This was a Gospel story unfolding right before my eyes. It was communion happening outside the familiar Sunday morning ritual. The very people our society pushes to the margins were gathered at Christ's table, not in the ordered rows of our sanctuary but in the sacred messiness of our make-shift shelter. In that moment, the distinctions between sacred and secular, helper and helped, giver and receiver, seemed to dissolve.
Without thinking, I grabbed a plate, and took a seat at the table. As I sat there eating with a bunch of strangers, I wondered if I had just caught a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. Here was communion in its most authentic expression. We were simply people sharing food and stories together at one table where everyone belonged. And there I was among them, no longer a volunteer but a fellow guest at this sacred table. This wasn't merely an extension of the communion table—it felt like a more alive incarnation of it.
That night, we truly became Jesus' church. I've never felt prouder of my church than in that moment when a random conversation, a spontaneous snapshot, and a light-hearted allusion to Michelangelo’s Last Supper revealed what had been there all along—communion happening outside the sanctuary, exactly where it was meant to be.
Welcome to our new blog series exploring the spiritual impact of service! We often discover God's presence in unexpected ways while serving our neighbors. We invite you to join us on this journey of faith and service as we share stories of transformation and discover the profound ways God moves through our acts of compassion.
.
コメント