Being the Church Today: Communion

And then I find that you bring your divisions to worship—you come together, and instead of eating the Lord’s Supper, you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of yourselves. Some are left out, and go home hungry. Others have to be carried out, too drunk to walk. I can’t believe it! Don’t you have your own homes to eat and drink in? Why would you stoop to desecrating God’s church? Why would you actually shame God’s poor? I never would have believed you would stoop to this. And I’m not going to stand by and say nothing.  1 Corinthians 11:20-22 (The Message)

I am continually compelled by communion.  Too often in ministry, the mystery of communion and the practices surrounding the sacrament, has caused frustration and even brokenness.  Let's start with the fact that communion was originally an addition onto the Passover Seder.  Jesus gathered in the upper room to celebrate Passover, which is one of the holiest Jewish rituals and days.  Passover is telling the story (remember the previous post about letting God's story mingle in your story?) of God intervening in the lives of the people who were indentured servants in Egypt.  It is the story of God making a way when it seemed like there was no way.  It is the story of God claiming, adopting a stiff-necked people who had trouble breaking out of the cultural of fear and scarcity (because there is a story sounds VERY familiar to mine!).  Jesus gathers with his friends in a home.  Unlike Christianity, which often focuses/centers in a church, much of Judaism is practiced in the home.  Much of the Sabbath, the day of rest, is spent in the home...not a church.  There might be a story you want to hear more about.

Jesus and his friends/family enact, retell, relive, remember, re-embody the sacred story of Passover.  And Jesus adds a new wrinkle.  One of the great truths is that religion is always unfolding and inching forward, perhaps in some small way, but a new way nevertheless.  Jesus adds another loaf of bread and cup of wine (there was already four cups of wine in Passover by this point...no wonder some accused Jesus of being a drunkard and glutton!).  Jesus takes, gives, and says remember.

Notice that in communion, our only responsibility is to receive and remember.  Our responsibility is participate fully.  We don't make the bread.  We don't buy the wine/juice.  We only show up with our hands wide open.  For me, that is metaphorically and symbolically true of so much of my life.  I show up with really only my presence to offer.  Sure, on Sunday, I have a prepared sermon.  Sure at meetings I have my notebook, minutes, and my own opinions (plenty of those).  But full life as shown at communion is about receiving.  Receiving openly and humbly the grace we did not earn or buy or prepare...which is why it is grace!

Yet, too often today, we take Christ's table and put barriers to others.  We say, "You are welcome, if you believe such and such."  Or, "You can come, IF you are baptized."  Or, "Come all...except people who make us uncomfortable."  What part of loving our enemies do we not understand?  Or, more honestly, are truly afraid of when it comes to such a radically open table invitation as communion.  We, like the Corinthians, still divide and debate the table.  Even the church I serve, with our open communion practice, can still make some shift uncomfortably or really wonder if we mean it.  To be sure, we (as a church) try our best.  But the real grace is that it is not up to me.  I am not the one who is really the host.  Christ is.  At the table we encounter Christ.  We encounter his full story: his birth, life, death, and resurrection.  That whole story intertwines with our story in that holy moment.

The communion...union...part of Eucharist is that.  A holy, grace-filled, moment where past, present, future all get mixed up and for a brief moment, in Christ's presence, we are one with each other and with God's presence.  That is the promise we taste on the tip of our tongue with the bread and wine.  That is the promise I need every day to remind me of the way to life, full life.

Blessings and may you sense more than a trace of God's grace the next time you celebrate communion.