I was ready. I needed this. It had been a long, stressful
week, events racing by faster than I could react to, much less control. As I
lowered myself into my seat on Sunday morning, my chest tense, packed with
stress, I noticed the elements of communion, the bread and the cup, setting on
a table beside the pastor’s podium.
I
haven’t always looked forward to communion. For part of my life it seemed an
empty tradition, repeated over and over until the meaning had worn away. Yet,
as years went by, that meaning began to fill up again. Now communion is among
the most powerful practices of worship for me. I love the quiet moments,
waiting for the bread and drink to make their way through the rows to my seat,
taking that time to come to grips with the week past, to own the fact that I
had been as raging and uncontrolled as the events racing around me, to own my
sin. At the end of that reflection, to receive the bread and wine, the body and
blood of Christ broken for me, the tangible evidence of my sins forgiven, and
then to not just celebrate my salvation, but to partake in it,
internalize it, put God’s sacrifice and forgiveness into my body, physically
receiving his grace. That is a celebration that can never wear thin. This day,
as much as any other, I needed it.
I
waited as the basket wove back and forth the through the rows toward me, but
then, in the row before mine, there was confusion. The ushers had each sent a
basket down the same row. The baskets met at two older women, who jostled and
juggled them in the confusion. The same thing happened the last time we had
communion, I thought. I wondered why. I knew the ushers; they were no fools.
Yet, they’d somehow managed to make the exact same mistake twice in a row.
There must be something systematic about it, something about the
rhythm of the baskets and the layout of the rows that causes this kerfuffle to
repeat. My thoughts were interrupted when one of the women passed her basket
over her shoulder to me. I took it from her, reached in for the bread, but
instead found. . . an oyster cracker.
There’s
nothing inherently wrong with oyster crackers. No one will speak more strongly
in their favor than me, when they are generously spread across the top of a
thick clam chowder, but with communion they always seem easy, like the minimum
necessary effort. I remembered when I was a child, the women of the church
would gather together one weekend each year and bake communion bread, special unleavened
bread from a special recipe used only for that purpose. We children would
attempt to sneak into the kitchen and steal a piece or two, for it was not only
delicious, but forbidden. The women would bake and freeze enough communion
bread for the whole year. Why couldn’t our communion bread be like that? Then I
realized that as much as I would love to have that bread, you couldn’t get me
to sign-up for a full weekend of baking it. Oyster crackers suddenly seemed just
fine.
Someone
bumped my elbow, and I looked over to see my wife holding the tray with the
communion juice. I quickly grabbed one of the small cups, passed the tray
along, dumped the juice into my mouth, felt that distinct bittersweet flavor
for a second, then swallowed. Just like that, communion was over, and I had
wasted it. I took the one moment of the week when I most tangibly feel
God’s salvation, and filled it with petty judgments and speculations. I had
screwed up communion.
I
suppose that would be possible, for me to screw up communion, if communion had
been about me in the first place. Fortunately, it isn’t. Communion isn’t about
me. The best way to understand this is to think of a sentence. Most sentences
are built with a subject (the one doing the action), a verb (the action), and
an object (the one receiving the action). Bob loves Jane. We usually view
ourselves as the subjects of our lives. We are the ones creating and completing
the action. This is true of our attitude toward worship. We come to
church to offer worship to God. People with long rows of fancy letters
behind their names still argue whether or not this is a healthy way to view
worship. However, one thing is clear. When it comes to communion, we are
not the subjects.
In Luke 22, the first communion,
Jesus describes the bread as “my body given for you,” and the cup as, “my blood
poured out for you.” We aren’t subjects in those sentences. We don’t
make the action happen. We receive it. The subject, the acting agent, is Jesus,
and the action he is completing is giving up his life for us. We are the objects.
We receive the sacrifice that has been completed for us.
When it comes to communion, working
as a symbol of what Jesus did for us, it’s important to remember that he
did that. We did not. There is nothing we have done, or could do, to convince
Jesus to die for us. He did it because he wanted to. As Romans 5:8 says, God
showed his love for us by dying for us while we were still sinners. God
did not wait for us to become perfect, or even just a little bit better, to die
for us. He took the action on his own. All we do is receive it.
Despite my petty speculations – in the middle of my petty speculations – Christ died for me. In the middle of my petty speculations, the bread and cup are offered to me. The only way I can screw that up is to refuse to be the object who receives it. As long as I remain willing to not be the hero of the story, communion will be just fine. Thank the Lord for that.
