A Communion Faux Pas

Posted at May 23, 2010

So I am going to make fun of myself and admit to doing something really really stupid…..

As a background, I grew up Catholic and went to Catholic school as a kid so for 17 years I was accustom to taking communion a certain way. When Tiphanie and I got married we made the decision that we would meet in the religious middle and become Methodist. One of the many differences between the two religions is how they distribute communion.

So several years ago we were at church and it was the first Sunday of the month which meant it was communion Sunday and that’s when it happened. The pastor went through the normal description of how you are to break a piece of the bread and then dip it into the wine and return to your seat. No worries at this point because I had taken communion several hundred times… heck… I was practically a pro. There we were in line and it was my turn… I break a piece of bread…. then (this is where everything goes south) for some reason 17 years of Catholic communion ritual kicked in and instead of dipping the bread into the wine I go ahead eat the bread and then I physically take the very large chalice from the poor stunned/shocked person and proceed to start to take a sip from it. At this point there really isn’t a problem because I haven’t taken a sip yet… I still have a chance to stop myself hand the chalice back to the person… and walk away. Is that what I did??…. nope…. and even after being questioned by the person with the chalice and Tiphanie who was behind me… I am of the mind…. “well I have gone this far I might as well commit to this horrible atrocity and go through with taking a sip from the chalice” and that is exactly what I did. After taking the sip I calmly hand the chalice back to the person and walk back to our pew stunned of what I had done. At the time I figured the church we were at was very big and other than the ribbing from Tiphanie this was pretty much a single occurrence of a brain malfunction and I would never hear about it again…. I certainly wouldn’t bring it up.

Well as things go….. this wasn’t the end of the story… several weeks go by and I am in a bible study, after everything was wrapped up people are talking about funny things that happen during church services and someone brings up that recently someone had taken the chalice, took a sip from it, and then walked away. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing but there it was. My faux pas was very much noticed and apparently written in the book of church hilarity,

So why bring all this up now…. well several weeks ago Nik and Jasmine were in town and we were visiting with family and somehow this all comes up and the story is told…. laughs are had… and somewhere along the way Lynne’s friends David and Cindy hear about the ordeal and even more laughs are had. Well this past Sunday was Jillian’s first communion and they came to the service. After the service I am in the back of the church with Jack and Cindy hands me a gift bag and insists that I open it up and this is what was in it…..

It’s a little hard to read but it says Kevin’s Methodist Communion Kit so now I have my own cup to take communion with along with my own crackers….. Just in case I have another brain malfunction.

Oh well I guess that wraps this story…..

Thanks for the laugh David and Cindy even if it is was at my expense.

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