Pentecost 3
31 May 2026
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
Gregory Pope
COMMUNION WITH COOTER AT THE SANDY RUN BAPTIST CHURCH
Matthew 14.13-21
My friend Carlton Allen wrote a story that I want to share with you this morning. Carlton served as pastor of First Baptist Claxton Georgia and First Baptist Commerce Georgia. He passed away suddenly three years ago at the age of 67. He gave his story a title more dignified than mine but, I think, less interesting.1
The story is prefaced by a word regarding the tendency we all have to get used to a certain system or way of doing things, and how on those occasions when the system fails we are particularly unprepared to deal with the consequences. Allen says that no other institution in the world is more prone to this scenario than the church. We have rituals and traditions based more upon what our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents did and thought than on any portion of scripture. This is beautifully and comically revealed in the following story, a story about a Communion Sunday at the Sandy Run Baptist Church near the banks of the Savannah River.
The pastor was in his study at 9:30 one Sunday morning going over his sermon notes that would focus on the fellowship aspects of Communion when all of a sudden Mrs. Inez Lyons barged through the door of the pastor’s study and gasped, “It’s gone!”
Mrs. Lyons was a rather sturdy woman and could be somewhat intimidating to those who did not know her well. For years, Mrs. Lyons and her husband Frank, had taken responsibility of preparing the elements for Communion. Saturday afternoons were always spent at the church washing and shining each serving piece. And on the day of Communion, they would spend the Sunday School hour breaking the Saltine crackers into pieces on the flat trays and filling the small shot glasses with Welch’s grape juice.
Reflecting on the Saltines and Welch’s, Carlton writes, “Like I said, most church ritual grows out of our ancestors’ opinion rather than scripture. Scripture says that Christ used wine and unleavened bread, but our forebears considered drinking alcohol a sin (or, at least, that was their public opinion on the matter). And [to our forebears] a loaf of bread that did not rise (unleavened bread) [was considered] a disgrace. So we were left with Saltines and Welch’s grace juice – [what Allen calls] “poor second cousins to the original elements.”
When Mrs. Lyons screamed “It’s gone!” she was referring to those poor second cousins. Her hand went to the base of her throat as she rasped, “The bread . . . th-th-the juice . . . it’s all gone.” They searched the small kitchen, going through all the cupboards – the bread and the juice nowhere in sight.
Fortunately, Mr. Lyons appeared. Frank Lyons was a small thin man with a bright pink complexion. They were a perfect match. She was a strong, opinionated, domineering woman, and he seemed content to let her be just that. “Oh preacher, this is just awful,” he said, “but I found something y’all ought to see.” In the sanctuary, beneath the front pew, was an empty Saltine box and two empty quart bottles of Welch’s grape juice.
They all stood there for a moment pondering the mystery, when a voice behind them called out, “Hey thar!” They looked up to see Cooter Barnes standing with a wide grin on his face. Cooter was usually described by people in the community as “not being quite right.” When in reality, Cooter was just a country boy who never grew up. He lived by himself and did odd chores here and there to make a living. Cooter saw the bottles and box on the floor and asked, “Somebody have a picnic?”
Mrs. Lyons looked at him with a wild-eyed expression. Fearing what she might say, the pastor beat her to the punch and said, “Well, Cooter, someone has eaten the crackers and juice we use for the Lord’s Supper.”
Cooter noticed a trail of mud leading back to the old choir room behind the sanctuary, used now primarily for storage. A window had been broken in the room. Cooter said, “Musta’ been somebody passin’ through. Bet they come in here ta’ sleep on the pews and got hongry ‘n’ found ‘em crackers an’ juice.”
“Oh, good Lord,” said Mrs. Lyons with a look of disgust on her face.
Mr. Lyons just stood there shaking his head, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief.
The pastor said he didn’t see why they couldn’t just postpone the Lord’s Supper until next week. He knew he had made a mistake when he heard Mrs. Lyons’ sharp intake of breath, followed by a sputtering sound as she fought for the words that would best express her dismay. Finally she came out with, “Well I never . . . ,” followed by, “Pastor, we haven’t missed a Lord’s Supper in 23 years nor in the 47 before that when Mr. and Mrs. Grayson prepared the elements. They told us that when we took over for them. I’m not going to let it happen now.”
Mr. Lyons had a panicked look on his face. His hands were starting to shake as the perspiration began to cascade down his forehead. The pastor’s own hands were clenching with tension. Then he had an idea. He said, “You know, the Minit Mart over at the crossroads should be open. We can probably get what we need there.”
Cooter jumped in quickly, “Yeah, that’s an idea. I’d be glad ta’ go.” Cooter always wanted to be of help. The only problem was that people rarely trusted him or believed he could be of help.
Mrs. Lyons was such a person. “No, no, we can’t do that. Frank can go. Go on, Frank.”
Frank jumped and looked at the pastor with an expression of concern and helplessness, his hands continuing to tremble. The pastor realized Frank couldn’t drive in that condition. So he had Frank clean up the mess in the sanctuary and sent Cooter to get a big box of Saltines and two quarts of Welch’s grape juice.
Frank and Mrs. Lyons headed to the closet for the cleaning supplies. Cooter was off to the store. And the pastor went back to his study, foolish enough to think that the crisis had been weathered, when in reality, they were experiencing the deceptive calm of the passing of the hurricane’s eye.
Cooter returns with a brown grocery bag and takes it on into the kitchen. All of a sudden
there is a breathless scream “Oh, my Lord!” followed by a loud thud. Rushing to the kitchen, the pastor found Cooter standing there with a confused expression on his face. Mr. Lyons was kneeling on the floor, shaking his head and mumbling as though seized by a charismatic episode. His handkerchief was clutched in his right hand as he frantically waved it back and forth in front of his wife’s face. Mrs. Lyons was on the floor, her head in his lap, eyes closed, mouth sagging open. She had fainted.
“What happened?” the pastor asked.
Mr. Lyons continued his incoherent mumbling but with his right hand he did manage to point to the counter. There on the counter was the empty bag, and beside it a pair of two-liter R.C. colas and a box of Moonpies. The pastor turned back into the hallway and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, trying to suppress his laughter. Fighting for composure, he asked, “Cooter, what happened?”
“Nothin’ happen’t, preacher,” Cooter said, smiling again. “They wuz outta’ sody crackers, an’ Louise said they ain’t never carried no Welch’s. They did have summa’ that Jolly Aid grape drink mix – but that stuff’s awful – so’s I just got these R.C.’s, and the Moonpies wuz right nex’ ta the drinks.”
Mrs. Lyons was now trying to compose herself, struggling with her anger. “Cooter,” she said slowly and with a great deal of effort, “we cannot use Cola and Moonpies for the Lord’s Supper.”
“We cain’t?” replied Cooter with genuine astonishment.
“No. It would be a sacrilege!”
“A sack-a-what?” Cooter asked still without a clue.
The pastor then sought to explain to Cooter that some people might think they were mocking or making fun of the Lord’s Supper if they used colas and moonpies.
“Really?” Cooter asked, scratching his head. “But don’t the Bible say Jesus and his men used bread and wine?”
The pastor said, “Yes, that’s right.”
“Well,” Cooter said, “I don’t see whar whut we got here is much further off than Welch’s and sody crackers.”
Mrs. Lyons began to explain frustratingly how that Jesus used wine and unleavened or flat bread because that was a natural part of the Passover meal, and that the grape juice comes from the same fruit as the wine, but it’s not intoxicating, and the Saltines are flat pieces of bread.”
“So,” Cooter said, “Jesus jest used part of their regular everyday meal, right?”
“Right,” Mrs. Lyons and the pastor said.
Cooter broke into a grin and said,
“Well, then, we’s O.K. Me and half the folks in this church drink R.C.’s ‘n’ eat Moonpies for lunch probably two or three times a week. Shoot, Mr. Lyons, don’t you?”
Mr. Lyons piped up with “Well, yeah, that does sort of make sense . . .” his voice trailing off as he caught the look on Mrs. Lyons’ face.
The pastor glanced at his watch and realized it was 10:30. “Look,” he said, “if we’re going to have the Lord’s Supper this morning, I don’t think we have a choice.” They all reluctantly agreed.
And Mrs. Lyons, shaking her head as she opened her first Moonpie said, “But they’re just so common.”
And that phrase gave birth to inspiration for the pastor. In the morning Communion Meditation, he related how the juice and crackers had been taken. And he reminded the folks that if a person was that hungry, God would probably have preferred that the crackers and juice be used to satisfy their hunger. He told of the Lyons’ dedication to their task and of Cooter’s willingness to help and how he had brought back the only things he could find: R.C. Colas and Moonpies. He told how they all realized how common R.C. Colas and Moonpies were – just as wine and unleavened bread were common elements of the Passover meal. He suggested how that Jesus selected common elements to teach the disciples and us that the gospel would be communicated through common folk – ordinary people like Matthew and Mary Magdalene, Peter and John, Cooter and the Lyons, you and me. He talked about how the gospel can be experienced
through common events like ordinary conversation, fellowship, the sharing of a meal, working together on a mission project using whatever you can find – like five loaves and two fish in our gospel story today and how the common and the ordinary can be transformed into nourishment for a multitude.
We are mistaken when we think that only certain special people can be chosen and used by God, or that “only the best will do” for God. It is time that we recover what my friend Carlton called, “the wonderful ordinariness of the gospel.”
The story concludes with these reflections from the pastor: “I believe I noticed some changes in our folks after that day. They had a different spirit. More of them were willing to teach and pray and lead. We never again used Saltines and grape juice for the Lord’s Supper, but we didn’t use R.C. Colas and Moonpies either. Instead our deacons voted that we would use rolled-out flat biscuits and sweet tea and that folks in the church would take turns making the elements. Mr. and Mrs. Lyons continued preparing the elements. And from that point on, the spirit of fellowship in Communion observances was richer and sweeter than any Moonpie I’ve ever tasted.”
I wonder what’s on the table this morning. More importantly, I wonder what it will say to us about this meal. I pray it will remind us of God’s tendency to use the common, ordinary elements of our everyday lives for the uncommon, extraordinary work of sharing the gospel. And I pray we will, in the midst of it all, find among us a fellowship sweet and a communion holy.
I wonder. I wonder.
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- Carlton Allen, “The Elements of Surprise,” in Stories of Falling Toward Grace, Smyth and Helwys, 1994, 33-41