If it hasn’t become clear, one of my favorite topics in theology and Christian practice are the Sacraments, particularly communion (Lord’s Supper, Eucharist etc…). The enduring and central nature of it’s celebration has been the core of Christian worship since the time of Acts, as we know the early church “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42 NIV).
In past posts and articles I have spoken of some of the reasons why coming around the table has become infrequent in some parts of the modern Church. Part of the disconnect that I think there is centers around a question that many of us take for granted. What is worship? For many, the word worship evokes the idea of music and singing, and I think that’s what most of us think. When we speak of a worship service, we also include prayer and hearing/sharing from the Word. But we have to ask, is that the extent of worship?
Before we came come to a contemporary assertion or application we have to ask the question, what did worship look like in the Old Testament? We certainly see Psalms and songs, and other things that we often associate as worship. Yet, the summit and pinnacle of what we see as worship of God’s chosen people is sacrifice. There is never worship to the one and true God that does not include the offering and giving of something.
Now as a note, the sacrifices in and of themselves were not what ultimately pleased God. The prophets are filled with chapters speaking about how the sacrifices and religious practices of Israel are detestable to God because of their disobedience to His law, and so all worship, whether sacrifice, song or anything else must always be paired with a broken and contrite heart as the psalmist writes in Psalm 51.
Now as a note, the sacrifices in and of themselves were not what ultimately pleased God. The prophets are filled with chapters speaking about how the sacrifices and religious practices of Israel are detestable to God because of their disobedience to His law, and so all worship, whether sacrifice, song or anything else must always be paired with a broken and contrite heart as the psalmist writes in Psalm 51.
If worship in the old covenant reached its height in the offering of sacrifice, then the coming of Christ brings this reality to its perfect completion. In Jesus, we see both priest and victim, the one who offers and the one who is offered. The cross becomes the once-for-all act of worship, the great oblation in which sin is finally dealt with and humanity is brought into reconciliation with God. The letter to the Hebrews proclaims this with clarity: where the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin, Christ’s self-offering has done so forever.
And yet, that singular sacrifice did not end worship, it transformed it. The Church, in every generation, participates in that one sacrifice through what Jesus commanded us to do: “Do this in remembrance of me.” When we gather at the Table, we do not offer a new sacrifice, but rather enter into the one eternal sacrifice of Christ made present by the Spirit. This is why the Eucharist is not just a symbol or a memorial meal; it is participation. It is communion, not only with one another, but with the very life of God through the risen Christ.
This is what makes the Table the beating heart of Christian worship. Every prayer, every reading of Scripture, every hymn, and every act of fellowship ultimately orients us here, to the place where heaven and earth meet, where Christ is both host and feast. Without the Table, our worship easily drifts into abstraction or emotional expression alone. But at the Table, we are grounded again in God’s concrete grace, in bread broken and wine poured out.
If worship is the offering of ourselves to God, then here is where that offering finds its true pattern. We come forward not merely to receive, but to be made into an offering, “living sacrifices,” as Paul says in Romans 12. The Table is where we learn what it means to worship in spirit and in truth: not only with our lips, but with our lives.
If we recover this understanding of worship, that it centers not on what we bring, but on what Christ has already brought before the Father, then the call to return to the Table takes on fresh urgency. Regular communion is not just about returning to a historic pattern; it’s about rediscovering who we are as the Church, the Body of Christ made one in Him.
The Table is not the privilege of one denomination or cultural expression, but the inheritance of all who are joined to Christ through faith and baptism. In a world fractured by ideology, nationalism, and individualism, the Eucharist becomes a counter-sign, a visible witness to the unity that already exists in the risen Lord. Around this Table, there is no hierarchy of worth, no division of class or nation. There is simply grace received together.
When we kneel or stand side by side to receive from the one loaf and one cup, we are participating in something that heals the fractures of both Church and society. The early Christians knew this: the meal that bound them to Christ also bound them to one another. It was their act of resistance against the world’s ways of dividing and excluding. Perhaps that is why, in our fragmented and polarized age, the Spirit is stirring the Church across traditions to return again to frequent communion, not as ritual nostalgia, but as a prophetic act of unity and hope.
For those of us in the Free Methodist and broader Wesleyan traditions, this means seeing the Table not as an optional add-on, but as central to our life together. Each time we share in the bread and cup, we are declaring that Christ’s sacrifice is enough, that His kingdom is breaking in, and that we belong not only to Him, but to one another. If we could begin to live as people shaped by this Table, forgiving as we have been forgiven, giving as we have received, then the unity we proclaim would become visible in a world desperate for reconciliation.
In the end, “Why the Table?” Because this is where the Church becomes truly herself. This is where the world catches a glimpse of what it longs for: a community reconciled by grace, gathered not by preference or power, but by the love that was broken and poured out for us all.