On Not Screwing Up Communion

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.