Meditation on Psalm 8
World Communion Sunday
First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY
Pastor Karen Crawford
Oct. 6, 2024
“When Apollo 11’s Eagle lunar module landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had to do something hard: Wait. They were scheduled to open the door of the lunar lander and step onto the unknown surface of a completely different world.” I am reading from a story by Erin Blakemore (July 17, 2024) at history.com. “But for now, their mission ordered them to take a pause before the big event. And so Aldrin spent his time doing something unexpected, something no man had ever attempted before. Alone and overwhelmed by anticipation, he took part in the first Christian sacrament ever” [1] celebrated on the moon—Communion.
Buzz was an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church in Webster, TX, and “before he headed into space in 1969,” he was given special permission from NASA and his pastor, the Rev. Dean Woodruff, to bring Communion bread and a small vial of wine from his home church so that he might celebrate what would be the longest distance for extended home Communion, ever!
Only a few people were permitted to know about the plan to celebrate Communion in space. Not even Buzz’s wife knew about it.
The astronaut was mindful of the atheists’ lawsuit against NASA after the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. This was the first time American astronauts orbited the moon, and commander Frank Borman, along with astronauts Jim Lovell and William Anders, were so moved by their view of Earth from space on Christmas Eve that they took turns reading the story of Creation from Genesis, something we will be doing this afternoon during our Blessing of the Animals at the manse.
“The case was rejected by the courts,” says Paul Schratz in Astronauts Had ‘Space’ for God at https://the tablet.org/astronauts-space-for-god/. “But it had its impact. NASA told the astronauts to tone it down when it came to wearing their faith on their spacesuit, and they discouraged Aldrin from reading from Scripture while he was on the moon’s surface.”
Buzz’s faith wasn’t unusual for his occupation at the time. Twenty-nine astronauts who visited the moon during the Apollo program were religious. According to NASA, 23 identified as Protestant and six were Catholic. Most of them served as leaders in their congregations. [2]
Too excited to sleep during what NASA had scheduled as a 4-hour rest period before beginning their exploration of the lunar surface, Buzz pulled out from his personal kit two small packages prepared at his request. “One contained a small amount of wine, and the other a small wafer. With them and a small chalice from the kit, I took Communion on the moon,” Buzz says in his memoir, Return to Earth. He read John 15:5, handwritten on a notecard. The passage was traditionally shared in the Communion service back home. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for apart from me, you can do nothing.”
He had planned to read the passage back to earth, but at the last minute, NASA told him not to. Instead, he said, “I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way.”
Then, during the radio blackout, “he reached for the wine and bread he’d brought into space—the first foods ever poured or eaten on the moon.” He poured the wine into the chalice his church had given him, and “in the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup.” [3]
Today, on World Communion Sunday, we remember and give thanks for our oneness in Christ with churches around the globe, followers in every place, many of whom are also celebrating Communion and marking this special day. Dr. Hugh Thompson Kerr, pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, came up with the idea of World Wide Communion Sunday in 1930 while serving as moderator of the General Assembly. He wanted to promote unity and cooperation, not just in the Presbyterian Church, but among all Christian denominations. The tradition of celebrating World Wide Communion on the first Sunday in October started in 1933 with a joint Communion service at Shadyside, with neighboring congregations. It became denominational practice in 1936. It was promoted by the National Council of Churches in 1940, a year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States officially entering the Second World War.
“Dr. Kerr was concerned about totalitarianism,” said Tim Engleman, a church historian at Shadyside, “and the need for the church worldwide to take a stand against that.” [4]
Since the first celebration of World Wide Communion Sunday, we are reminded that when we partake of the bread of life and the cup of salvation, we make a radical statement of our loyalty to the Reign of Christ on earth, above any human powers or governments.
On this day, especially, when we underscore the inclusive nature of the Lord’s Table, where ALL are welcome, we remember that Communion may be celebrated anywhere and everywhere we go, not only in this world and in the world to come, but on the very surface of the moon.
As Psalm 139 assures us, God is inescapable. Wherever we go, God is already there.
“Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.”
And today, as we close our observation of the Season of Creation begun on Sept. 1, let us remember with joy the passage astronaut Buzz Aldrin read for the American people on a TV broadcast just before returning to earth after the historic first moon landing. His journey had served to strengthen his faith and make the word of God more real to him. The second man to set foot on the moon quoted from memory a passage from Psalm 8 in the King James, in defiance of those who warned him against wearing his religion on his, well, spacesuit.
Buzz says at the end of a 1969 video of the broadcast, “Personally, reflecting on the events of the past several days, a verse from the Psalms comes to mind. ‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hath ordained: What is man that thou art mindful of him?” [5]
The verse that stands out to me in this Psalm, in which we can imagine the writer singing out God’s praise from the starting phrase, “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” is the second part of the verse that Buzz left out. He recited in verse 4, “what are human beings that you are mindful of them,” but not “mortals that you care for them?”
When we look out at the beauty and majesty of the universe—the sun, moon, and stars, we are stirred to ponder the nature of our Creator God, who formed us in love, for love, but also we consider the nature of human beings, created in God’s image. The psalmist asks, “What are we that God watches over us, is mindful of us?” And what are we—what makes us so special in all this magnificent universe—that God cares for little, seemingly insignificant us?”
The answer, I suspect, is that this is in God’s character to do so. For God IS love. But still, the depth of God’s love and all the rest of our unanswered questions will remain a mystery until one day, when we see ourselves and each other differently, through the eyes of eternity, when we are with our Savior at the great banquet in heaven. When all the people come from east and west and north and south to sit at table in the Kingdom of God, and we see him, finally, face to face.
Since 1969, Communion has continued to be celebrated quietly in space. “Astronauts Sid Gutierrez, Thomas Jones, and Kevin Chilton… celebrated a Communion service on the space shuttle in 1994, 125 miles above the Pacific Ocean. In 2013, International Space Station astronaut Mike Hopkins, a Catholic, arranged with his priest and diocese to carry… six consecrated hosts broken into four pieces, enough for him to receive weekly Communion for the 24 weeks that he was in space.”
And what about Buzz’s lunar Communion? How long did it remain a secret? It was never a secret from his home congregation in Webster, TX, which was also the home church for astronaut and Presbyterian elder John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth in 1962.
One Sunday in July each year, including this past July 21, the church celebrates “Lunar Communion Sunday.” The livestream begins with a picture of a broken loaf of bread and the cup Buzz took with him on Apollo 11, superimposed over a beautiful view of the earth from the moon that the elder in their congregation saw with his own eyes in 1969.
The worship service begins with the pastor reading John 15:5, “Jesus proclaimed, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me, and I in them, will bear much fruit; for apart from me, you can do nothing.’”
Let us pray.
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Thank you for creating the sun, moon, and stars, and the wondrous planet that we call home. Thank you for creating us and for being mindful of us, caring for us deeply in ways we cannot fully grasp. We thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, and his inclusive Table where ALL are welcome to commune with him and one another, and where we are offered a glimpse, a foretaste, of the world to come in the bread of life and cup of salvation. Strengthen us to be more faithful when we leave your welcome table in sharing your life-giving word, because apart from you, we can do nothing. Amen.
[1] Erin Blakemore, “Buzz Aldrin Took Holy Communion on the Moon. NASA Kept It Quiet,” July 17, 2024, at https://www.history.com/news/buzz-aldrin-communion-apollo-11-nasa.
[2] Paul Schratz, “Astronauts Had ‘Space’ for God, The Tablet, July 24, 2019 at https://thetablet.org/astronauts-space-for-god/.
[3] Erin Blakemore, July 17, 2024.
[4] https://www.syntrinity.org/featured/world-communion-sunday-origins-begin-at-shadyside-church-in-pittsburgh/#:~:text=did%20the%20Rev.-,Dr.,held%20where%20it%20was%20born.
[5] Video of Buzz Aldrin’s 3-minute broadcast on the way home to earth, in which he read from Psalm 8: https://youtu.be/NYZgJ8RaLKs?si=DQ1Q-6InL4uYaDng
Sharing God's Love and Grace 