Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the “most portable” person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, “Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable. -Flannery O’Conner, The Habit of Being
Let me start by saying that I love communion. The Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, communion, each name for it has an important distinction but whatever you want to call it, I love everything about it. In communion, I believe everything that we are, everything that we were, everything that we can be come to bear. The most powerful expression of what Christianity should be is lived out in this one sacred meal.
Communion is both physical and spiritual – at the same time. Each of us receives a portion of transcendent grace and each of us also receives a little bit of nourishment. It’s not a full meal – just a taste – but by grace it is enough. God gives us the daily bread of grace to carry on for one more day. And in manna-like efficiency, we can’t hoard it for ourselves. There has to be enough to go around, or else it molds.
I love that for as long as I have a memory of church, I have heard the same words spoken over the communion table. The words were etched in my memory long before I was ever called on to preside over the communion table: Jesus said “This is my body, broken for you…This is cup is the cup of the New Covenant, poured out for you…do this in remembrance of me.”
For me – it is a ritual chock-full of meaning. It is never a dead ritual for me. Each time I come to the communion table, I hear the same words, I take the same elements, but I am always a different person. I am joyful, I am down, I am excited, I’m exhausted. Sometimes I’m so eager to partake of it and sometimes I feel like I have to be carried to the table. And just about every time I take it, I give it a different level of meaning – transubstantiation, consubstantiation, remembrance, blood sacrifice, symbol. Sometimes I want it to mean all of them and sometimes I want nothing to do with any of them.
It is a reminder that God’s most powerful form of redemption is community. Someone else has to give me the grace of Christ. Someone has to offer it to me, I can’t take it for myself. And then, in Baptist churches, I in turn give that grace to someone else and that someone else gives it to someone else. There is no central mediator of God’s grace; the meal itself is the center.
Yet for as long as I have been leading in churches, there has been an important conversation going on: What are the words spoken over the elements of God’s table? What is it that we say that gives meaning and impact to the bread and wine we offer? For good reason, there is strong resistance to the traditional phrasing: “This is my body, broken for you…this is my blood, shed for you,” and then we drink body and blood. Why would someone want something so meaningful to be riddled with words of violence and cannibalism? Or more so, why would someone who has been wounded by the sometimes damaging theology of blood atonement want to re-live those wounds over and over again.
And so we come up with alternatives to soften the blow and to broaden the meaning: “This is the bread of Heaven…this is the cup of life.” These statements can be incredibly important as we deconstruct and reconstruct what is it that we are actually doing at the Lord’s Table. They are an inclusive invitation to a much wider swath of faithful people, which is what we always need to be paying attention to in our worship and ritual.
But here, I need to make a confession. Sometimes, most times actually, I need it to be the Body of Christ. I need to be reminded that his body was broken. And I need to be reminded that it was given to me in remembrance, forever.
I need to know that it is real and immediate. For me, the bread of Heaven is just too ethereal and vague. I need to know that something is at stake, here, now, earthly, spiritually. And I need to remember that bodies are still being broken and given over to something greater, and that Christ is in solidarity with them every time at the meal. I need to know that it’s my job to heal the broken bodies as much as I can in every way that I can and, if need be, for my body to be broken as well. And so when I offer the bread and the cup, I always, always say that it is the body of Christ given for you.
My last time at the Table was two weeks ago at a youth ministry conference here in North Carolina. Friends from all over and friends that I haven’t seen in years were there. People who first got me started in youth ministry were there. Some have seen me grow and change for over ten years.
And you can imagine my delight when I was asked to help serve communion. I approached the table timidly, making sure I was moving at the right time in the service, that I was picking up what I was supposed to pick up and standing where I was supposed to stand. And when I’m having trouble or I’m nervous in leading worship, it’s my body that takes over. My body knows deep within its bones to pinch the bread with my hands and to hold it up and then to lay it gently into the open hands before me. And my body remembers the words, etched into the far corners of my memory forever, that I’m supposed to say, that I always say.
But this time, the Holy caught my body off guard. Friends passed one at a time down the line, “This is the Body, This is the Body, This is the Body…” and I tried to say it with everyone’s name. Next thing I knew, standing before me was one of the most important friends and mentors I have in youth ministry. I was undone. I couldn’t help it. “This is the Body of Christ…given for you, Marnie,” I said through tears. Here I was, offering this little pinch of grace, this little bit of the center of existence to my friend. It was a gift of something beyond myself and yet so material and physical and real.
Maybe I could have said other words and it might have been just as powerful. But I’ll never know.
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