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Finding fellowship on the altar steps

by Vicar Lisa Rygiel

I found this article by Ben Slote in the November 8, 2024, issue of Living Lutheran and it really touched me and wanted to share. I hope it touches you also. 

About five years ago, I was asked to help people at our small Lutheran church manage the steps to the altar rail for communion. There are only two steps, but for a dozen or so people in our aging congregation, two steps have become a lot. Though people can receive the sacrament in their pew, most folks are determined to get to the Lord’s table.

Back then I didn’t know how much this little bit of helping would mean.

I had been “volunteered” for the job when the previous assistant started working out of town and couldn’t attend services regularly. Though I knew there were few able-bodied candidates, I was still reluctant to say yes. At age 60, I was developing my own minor mobility issues. But the bigger worry was emotional. I don’t take communion myself. The child of a Lutheran mother and Jewish-atheist father, I’m late to Christian faith and unbaptized. No one in our church makes me feel weird about this, but I didn’t relish the idea that my nonparticipation would be on display up front during communion.

Five years ago, the only person who consistently needed help up the steps was a diminutive 95-year-old I’ll call Ida. She had become so unsteady that I helped her all the way to the communion rail and kept a hand on her back as she stood, waiting. After receiving the bread and wine, she’d give me her little glass because she needed one hand on her cane and the other on my arm for the slow trip back to her pew. I remember that first time—I accidentally touched a bit of wine as I took her glass and worried that it might be some small transgression. Soon enough I got used to what I thought were “inappropriate” moments, which I later realized didn’t matter, except maybe positively.

No one else has needed as much help as Ida. Some need very little—a touch beneath their elbow, a hand to help with balance while coming down the steps. Others have needed help while healing from surgery or a fall. No matter the level of assistance, these brief weekly encounters have become sort of a ritual for me, opening up another way of knowing my churchmates and the practice of faith.

People have distinct approaches to the challenge of the steps. A quiet woman I don’t know well puts out her right hand with her fingers together as I help her up, the way a lady might when a courtier assists her into a carriage. A long-retired obstetrical nurse who had a hip replacement grabs my hand with arresting strength as she descends. An older couple, coming slowly from the last pew, needs help ascending and descending. Ascending, the woman looks me in the eye, smiles in a lovely way and thanks me by name; descending, the man says, out of the corner of his mouth, “You’re a good man, Ben,” and I tell him it’s an honor.

Whispered exchanges happen with a number of folks, mostly men, and these are often lighthearted bits of unsacred behavior. I have a running gag with a former salesman who works his eyebrows in mock alarm as he approaches the steps. After church he’ll accuse me of rank incompetence. “Did you see him?” he’ll say to a crony. “I take my life in my hands.” I reply, “Only for you.” I’m not sure Jesus had any of this in mind at the Last Supper. On the other hand, he did know all about people being people, needing what we need.

Let me not romanticize. Most of the people I help are in some version of pain. Their struggles and their stoicism reveal the merciless force of aging. Little Ida, whom I stood with at the rail, is now three years gone. After her last church service, on Christmas Eve, my son and I helped her from the sanctuary, still bright with voices and light, and drove her through the dark to the local nursing home—passing, as it happened, the house where she had once lived, unmarried and independent, all her life. She turned from the window and buried her face.

These weekly moments at the steps are nothing momentous. But in their physical intimacy and spirit, they have become part of how I understand and feel devotion. This became clearer to me about a year ago, when I was sick at home and watched the service via livestream. My substitute at the altar steps that day did his best, but he didn’t know the little particularities of each person. Worse yet, there were people I always help whom he didn’t know to help at all! After one and then another took the steps unaided, I realized that some of my churchmates accepted my help because they sensed I needed to give it.

Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama says, “If there’s a hundred people who come to church service every week, there might be a hundred different reasons why they’re there. Some people like the sound of the singing and that’s enough, some people like the touch of a hand when you shake hands during the time of peace. That’s enough.” My partners at the altar steps have certainly helped me find the deep, faithful sufficiency of touch.

Serving 26th Sunday After Pentecost – Nov. 17

Announcements

  • Favorite Scripture of the Week: Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.”
  • Weekly Bible Studies: The Rev. Dr. Becky McNeil continues the weekly Bible Study entitled, The Bible from Scratch, The Old Testament for Beginners at 1 p.m. on Wednesday Nov. 13 and at 10 a.m. on Saturday Nov. 20.
  • Church Council: Council will meet at 11:30 following worship on Sunday, November 17.
  • Turkey Fry Day: We begin our Thanksgiving Day Dinner preparations on Saturday, Nov. 16, with Bill Winter who, again this year, will fry 40+ turkeys. We will begin preparations about 8 a.m. and continue throughout the day, helping to set up, cook, carve and clean up. If you can help, let Julie Wersal or Norine Hazen know.
  • Community Thanksgiving Dinner: Will be served from noon to 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Meals are available, free of charge for dine in, pick up, or delivery. All are welcome. If you know someone who wants to join us, feel free to invite them, and if they need meals delivered, please let Norine Hazen or Jo Moss know.
  • Help Wanted for Thanksgiving: Sign-up sheets for food and to volunteer time on Thanksgiving Day are in the Fellowship Hall. We need donations of food, as well as volunteers who can help with set up, clean up, kitchen duties and dish washing, food service and meal packaging, and delivery drivers.

A Special Congregational Meeting

A special congregational meeting is being called for Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024, to vote to affirm the church council's decision to be recognized as a Reconciling in Christ (RIC) church partner. The meeting will be held in the fellowship hall beginning at 11:30 a.m. During discussion, all points of view, whether for, against or neutral, will be provided an opportunity to be heard.

As defined in our constitution (Chapter 8), "Voting members are confirmed members who, during the current or preceding calendar year, shall have communed in this congregation and shall have made a contribution of record

To attend the meeting via Zoom use the following link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81217188171?pwd=8RRdHUSgnU51Gpmjbx03a56xt3umvh.1

Meeting ID: 812 1718 8171 -- Passcode: 328353

E-formation – 26th Sunday after Pentecost -- Nov. 17

The readings hold before us the close of the church year, the destruction of nations, the end of the earth as we know it, and thus of course our own death. A fundamental aspect of all world religions is their willingness to address the fact of death.

 

Mark 13:1-8

According to Jesus, the end is neither immediately upon us nor in the far distant future: more like labor pains, agonies recur throughout time, but God promises new birth and life on the other side of sorrow. For some Christian spiritualities, a literal interpretation of such passages remains significant. For others, such passages have continuous relevance, since we all face sorrow and death perpetually.

Daniel 12:1-3

This passage is tied to the Markan eschatology because it exemplifies the apocalyptic tradition in which Mark 13 participates. The Daniel excerpt clearly promises that God’s life is more powerful than all instances of individual and communal suffering.

Hebrews 10:11-14 [15-18] 19-25

This final excerpt from Hebrews (the remaining chapters in Hebrews are appointed during year C) fits well with the other two readings because it anticipates the end of all things and calls the Christian community to faith in God’s salvation. For Christians, the image of being sprinkled clear and washed with pure water always recalls baptism.

Zion's Lutheran Church

zionsluth@gmail.com

719-846-7785