october 4, 2009

Anna Blaedel
First UMC, Osage
October 4, 2009
Communion Sunday
Ephesians 4:25-5:2
I Corinthians 12:12-26

I remember hearing something, early in my time here, in the first month perhaps, that surprised me. Enough so that I have been thinking about it ever since. I was told that worship attendance in this congregation typically drops on the 1st Sunday of the month—on Communion Sundays. Now, if you are one of the people who generally steers clear of the communion table, I am not criticizing you. I do not think you are being unfaithful, or that you need to change your practice. And, being the first Sunday in October, communion Sunday, World Communion Sunday at that, I imagine most of the die-hard Eucharist avoiders have found other ways to occupy this Sunday morning.

If you struggle with communion, if you have hang ups with this sacrament, if you think you don’t understand it, or if you’ve had negative experiences with this ancient ritual of remembrance, or if you just think it’s a little bit creepy to talk, in church of all places, about eating the body and drinking the blood—well, know you are not alone. And, I invite you to come and talk with me about these hang ups. Talk with each other. I want to understand what keeps folks away from this table, from this feast. I want to understand, partly because, well, I love communion. I mean, I really, really love communion.

I’m going to do a perhaps dangerous thing, now, and quote—myself. I want to share a piece I wrote about the meaning I find in breaking bread, in gathering at table, in participating in this feast, in partaking in the sacrament of communion. I wrote this in seminary, and then revised it for an interview with the Board of Ordained Ministry:

“Part of the mystery and power of coming to the Communion table is that each time I find new and renewed understanding—a dynamic, living experience of communion with a dynamic, living God. Receiving and offering the communion elements has offered me spiritual nourishment, community connection, and personal healing. I have approached the communion table in joyful, exuberant thanksgiving for the immensity of God’s goodness and in painful penitence for my sins of harsh, alienating words, greed, and apathy. In abundance, and in need. Whether I enter communion in a spirit of joy or pain, penitence or gratitude, the act of communion speaks deeply to me of profound connection, transforming wholeness, and unconditional relationality. My Eucharistic understanding encompasses ritual remembrance, receiving nourishment and renewal, participating in a bodily and embodied act that is profoundly personal and deeply relational, and acting on the invitation into deeper communion with God and with humanity. The breaking of the bread and pouring of the cup signify, to me, both the brokenness that exists within the world as well as within my denomination and its faith communities, and connects us in solidarity with those who, like Jesus, suffer persecution and even death because of systems of power and manifestations of evil. God’s love and Jesus’ teachings are offered freely to all, and the Eucharist is an opportunity to remember and celebrate this within community. Though I have never affirmed the doctrine of transubstantiation, I do believe in a radical change that occurs in partaking of the elements. It is we, the participants, who become radically changed as we allow ourselves to be more fully embraced by God, and enter into deeper relationship with each other at the table. We celebrate God, en-fleshed, and among us.”

I love communion. I need communion. Taking communion. Receiving communion. Celebrating communion. Being in communion.

Those of you who were in worship two Sundays ago know we celebrated communion then, too. The table was the world, painted by conference artist Rev. Ted Lyddon Hatten. I wish it could be our table again today. Try to conjure that image, again. If you were here on September 20, you will also remember Ted clarifying the task ahead of us, the life we are being called to live with one another, the ministry of sharing and being good news in a world that needs good news. Ted said it simply. Remember what he said? You all—you are to be the Body of Christ. And I—I am to tell the truth. Together, we are to be, to become more fully, the Body of Christ, and to be truth-tellers—of the goodness of God, of the Good News of God’s reign being built, here and now.

This morning’s text from Ephesians offers glimpses of what that means. The how-to for the task of Becoming the Body. “We are members of one another,” scripture proclaims. “So, put away bitterness, wrath, slander and wrangling and malice—be kind to one another—tender hearted, forgiving one another.”

Perhaps this is what it means, what it looks like and feels like, to be imitators of God, to be the body of Christ—tender hearted, kind. Living in love. Permeable to one another. Permeable to one anothers’ needs, and pain and rejoicing and loss and celebration.

And this is what happens at Christ’s table. Or rather, what can happen at this table.

Let’s return to the letter to the people of Corinth. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” All of us—part of one Spirit—Jews and Greeks, slaves and free—those were the distinctions that mattered, that threatened to divide the Body in Jesus’ time. In Paul’s time. What distinctions matter to us, now? What threatens to divide our Body—here, in this congregation, or in Osage, or in our denomination or in our world? All of us—part of one Spirit—young and old, rich and poor, city-dweller and small-town celebrator, those hailing from the heartland and those coming from a coast, citizens of this country and citizens of the world, left wing and right wing, white, brown, black, able bodied and ailing bodied, citizen and sojourner, Cyclone fan and Hawkeye enthusiast, gay and straight, all genders together—born into One Spirit, made to drink from One Spirit. Invited to one table.

Now, notice, the scripture does not say this One Spirit makes us all the same. Nor is “sameness” the goal—of God, of the gospel, of this sacrament. “Indeed,” we read in scripture, “the body does not consist of one member but of many…As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you, “ nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

There is a song I learned in seminary—sung by, listen to the name of this group, “Hezekiah and the Love Fellowship Choir.” It is called, “I need you to survive.” It is a song about communion. Being the body. It reflects the same truths shared in this morning’s scripture. Hear the lyrics: I need you, you need me, we’re all a part of God’s body. It is God’s will that every need be supplied. You are important to me. I need you to survive. I pray for you. You pray for me. I love you. I need you to survive. I won’t harm you with words from my mouth. I love you. I need you to survive.”

Being the Body. Becoming the Body. “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it, if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” When one part of the body is hungry, the Body is hungry, and needs food. The Body notices, and shares it. When one part of the body is suffering, the Body suffers, and needs tender hearted presence, and the balm of compassion. The Body notices, and shares it. When one part of the body is pushed out or excluded, the Body is limited, and needs an ever widening circle of welcome. The body notices, and does it. When one part of the body is hopeless, the Body is a place of restoration and remembering the promise of God’s presence, and the Good News of God’s love. The Body notices, and shares it.

It is World Communion Sunday. People of faith all around this beautiful, broken world are celebrating communion. Joining the feast. Recommitting to becoming One Body.

I want to share an excerpt with you, from a book called Take this Bread, written by Sara Miles. The subtitle is A Radical Conversion, and this book is her story of coming to faith, her conversion into Christianity and Christian community, through communion. In this excerpt, she traces the history of this sacramental practice.

Sara Miles writes: “Early Christians, worshipping in houses, shared full feasts, following Jesus’ promise that he would be among them when they ate together in his memory. They ate believing that God had given them Christ’s life and that they could spread that life through the world by sharing food with others. Later churches, reducing the feast to bread and wine, wrangled over the right way to understand Jesus’ presence: Was God physically there in the meal or conjured up through the repetition of particular words? And they began to license and control the distribution of the elements central to the faith. Bread then became stylized wafers, [a chalice of] wine became [tiny plastic cups of] grape juice, and church officials—much like the temple authorities Jesus had ignored—imposed rules about who could and could not receive communion. Different denominations made their own restrictions: No communion for Catholics or Orthodox in each other’s churches; no communion for the unbaptized or children below a certain age; no communion, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, for anyone living “a notoriously evil life…who are a scandal to the other members of the congregation. Instead of being God’s freely given gift of reconciliation for everyone—the central point of Jesus’ barrier-breaking meals with sinners of all description—communion belonged to the religious authorities. The entire contradictory package of Christianity was present in the Eucharist. A sign of unconditional acceptance and forgiveness, it was doled out and rationed to insiders; a sign of unity, it divided people; a sign of the most common and ordinary human reality, it was rarified and theorized nearly to death. And yet this meal remains, through all the centuries, more powerful than any attempt to manage it. It reconciles, if only for a minute, all of God’s creation, revealing that, without exception, we are members of one body, God’s body, in endless diversity. The feast shows us how to re-member what had been dis-membered by human attempts to separate and divide, judge and cast out, select or punish. At that Table, sharing food, we are brought into the ongoing work of making creation whole.”

I love communion. I need communion. Taking communion. Receiving communion. Celebrating communion. Being in communion.

Which is not to say that you need to love communion. Or even that you need to receive this sacrament to be and become the Body, together.

Whatever our differences, we have hunger in common. And, together, we have food to share. Whatever our differences, we have embodiment in common. And, together, we are invited to become One Body.

I need you. You need me. We’re all a part of God’s body.

Thanks be to God. May it be so. Amen, and amen.