Previous Post – What Is The Church? Discernment & Discipline
In the previous post we explored what it meant to be a community of discernment and discipline, positing an alternative community and leadership structure over and against the more coercive power structures of hierarchical systems. Further, we saw that it produces communities of humility and confession that represent a missional witness to a watching world. In this next post, we will engage what it means to participate in Eucharist (or Communion or the Lord’s Supper). Yoder calls this practice as the disciples breaking bread together.
As a child, when we sat in church during a communion service, I would hear Jesus’s words to “do this in remembrance of me”. While I knew that He said this while sitting at a table (albeit, all of them sitting crowded on one side), I presumed that He leading His disciples in the familiar practice that was happening in front of me. In time, I learned that centuries of ritual, conflict, culture and tradition stood between my communion experience and the table where Jesus broke break with His disciples.
The change started when I began to understand the Passover feast (which we do not have the time to explore here). What stood out to me about this practice (along with many other Jewish traditions) was that this deeply sacred meal was integrated into the context of life and home, not set apart as a ritual largely set apart from life. The need to “sacramentalize” the so-called mundane aspects of life became very clear. However, even then, because of how Jesus’s followers went on to engage in this practice, it was clear that Jesus was not simply calling us to remember Him during Passover (which is only an annual event).
Instead, Jesus was calling His followers to remember Him when we came together as His people to share a meal together. Yoder wrote in an essay:
“Our history of centuries of speculation and controversy about what happens to bread and wine when a certain special person speaks certain special Latin words over them obscured from our memory for a long time the fact that the primary meaning of the Eucharistic gathering in the Gospel and Acts is economic. It was the fulfillment of the promise of the Magnificat that the rich would give up their advantages and the poor would be well fed. Luke’s report probably is intended to signal the fulfillment of the mandate of Deuteronomy that “there should be no poor among you.”
In our western culture, food (and meals) are far less significant, often nothing more than entertainment. Thus, the idea of pulling Communion out of the ritual of the church worship context and incorporating it into a common meal would seem to diminish its sacredness. Instead, we are called to rediscover and reinvest the sacred into the shared meal. In fact, the way church gathers should arguably reorganize around this central act of worship, where hospitality return as an essential practice of the faith.
At Little Flowers Community, the shared meal is the central act of worship in our church. Each brings what they can for a very eclectic collection of food that we share freely with one another. Rich, poor, mentally ill or social awkward- all of us come together in the round, explicitly for our shared love for and devotion to Jesus, and celebrate Him through “feasting”.
However, the intimacy, celebration and unity that is displayed in that shared meal is a deeply attractive experience. As people outside of the church meet us, see that intimacy, participate in our common meal, they taste and see the goodness of God. They are not drawn by the piety of the group, but rather by the genuine love and community. Communion, then, becomes a beautiful invitation (and opportunity) for people to begin to enter into the redemptive work of Christ.
And what better way to demonstrate the fullness of the redemptive work than Communion? As we remember Christ’s sacrifice, we celebrate the hope of reconciliation with God. Further, as the means of that reconciliation is to die to self and to be resurrected together as His Body, it also opens the door for genuine relationship with one another. In this love of God and others, we can truly discover the fullness of life as individuals, uniquely known and love by God and others. Even the redemption of creation is celebrated as the bread and wine- substance of the earth itself- is the medium by which we enact this work of restoration.
For many, participating in Communion is a private piety between the individual and God. Has that been your experience? Has that changed? If so why?
What does Communion mean to you and your community?
I see you referring to Yoder – which Yoder, which book?
ron
Hey Ron. I am going through “Body Politics”, as referenced in part 1:
http://www.missional.ca/2011/12/church-body-politics-1/
Hi Jamie,
Hospitality and table fellowship is a huge part of our communities rythem of life but I have never connected it to communion. Thanks for sharing this perspective. I am curious if you verbally link the sharing of the meal to Jesus literal body? I am just trying to understand how intentional you are in making this connection.
Wendy, while we do explicitly refer to the meal as a Eucharistic celebration (and though we do occasionally “do communion” in the more formal way), we have a strong belief that we are the incarnate presence of Christ in the world. The means of our salvation was dying to self and resurrecting together as one Body. We (half) jokingly say that we ARE the transubstantiated Body of Christ.
Does this answer your question?
As a child I lived in an intentional Christian community (Acts2&4) with my family. We had households of 20+ people. We used to gather in the living room of our big old house in the inner city of Grand Rapids, MI before every supper. We sang and talked. Then everyone would go and have supper together around this huge table with a great deal of discussion, interaction and fellowship. Afterwards many of us, including children, cleaned up and did the dishes. I never considered this before but that was a very present, practical and frequent form of communion. That may very well have been the intention or just the natural outgrowth of our ‘community’.
Dan, what a beautiful picture. Thanks for sharing that! By intention or accident, the Body of Christ was present there.
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Jamie
I am late reading this but a lot of the symbolism for me is about brokenness and restoration and vulnerability. Somewhere I think it was Rolheiser who wrote that in the Eurcharist Jesus participates with us in the brokenness of the world.. Of course this is the opposite of a place of power or distance which is what seems symbolized when we do this in large groups all heads forward with small pieces of cracker and no personal knowledge of the one sitting beside me..
Well said, Len.