My sophomore year of college I spent a semester studying abroad in Malaysia. While there, I became involved with a Christian student fellowship, attending worship meetings and becoming connected with local churches through the friends I made. Two American friends of mine were also spending the semester in Malaysia and most Sundays we went to church together, but one Sunday they were out of town and I went to church with a few Malaysian friends instead.
Now, to say that I stood out is a bit of an understatement. While I was at the school with two other white Americans, both of them were girls, and while the college had numerous international students from Africa, the Middle East, and other parts of Asia, the three of us were the only white students. This made me the only white male on the campus, and one of very few in the city. I'm also fairly tall, especially when compared to most Malaysians, so when walking to classes I would make eye contact with male African students over the heads of everybody else.
Anyway, I went to this church one Sunday morning, and was the only non-Asian in attendance. Before the service started a deacon at the church introduced himself to me; he was a transplant from the Philippines, so we talked a bit about being foreigners. Also, the sermon that day was delivered by a visiting pastor from yet another country.
It was Communion Sunday, and after the guest speaker's sermon, the pastor got up to prepare for the distribution of the bread and juice. He spoke about how God's message is for people from every nation and culture. He then invited the guest speaker to help serve communion, as well as the Filipino deacon.
The pastor then said, "Oh, and we have another guest, from the US. He's going to help serve communion as well!"
Everyone turned and looked at me, and he gestured for me to come up. To say that I felt awkward as I stood and slowly walked toward the front of the church is a bit of an understatement.
Many traditions have strict restrictions on who can serve communion. At my current church I regularly help distribute the elements (in fact, I did so yesterday), but I am paid staff and serve in a ministering capacity. At my home church, the deacons serve the elements to the congregation. I had never before, and have never since, been recruited to help serve communion as a lay person, and certainly never off the cuff.
I had very mixed emotions as I helped pass the baskets of bread to the people in the pews. I felt a hint of resentment at being singled out, but strangely I also felt honored, validated even. As I reflected, I liked that someone could be called out of the pews to help initiate one of the central rituals of the Christian faith. I liked the acknowledgment of diversity in the Kingdom of God, and wondered what this would have looked like in an American church with visitors from another country. Would we be as welcoming and trusting of believers from somewhere else?
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