Mark 14:22-26
This morning I want to take you to a church that doesn’t exist anywhere except in my mind. I invented the church and its people so that I could tell you their stories. It’s a lot like this church, a little smaller, but with the same mix of people that you would find in this church or in many others, but please be aware that any similarities to real people are purely coincidental. I want to take you to this church on this Sunday morning, where the congregation sits together in the sanctuary near the end of their worship service. They have remembered the saints, they have offered their gifts to God, the minister has preached, and now she approaches the communion table, (and of course, no one in this church thinks it is unusual to have a female minister). At the communion table, the minister holds up the bread, and recites the words that she has spoken so many times before, the words of Jesus from the gospels: This is my body, broken for you.
In a pew, in the middle of the sanctuary, Frank’s mind begins to wander without his even being aware of it: the words are so familiar, even too familiar. His mind recognizes the pattern and then checks out. It isn’t because he dislikes communion, or wishes that it could go a little faster. He isn’t against it, but he’s not particularly for it, either. To him, communion is one of those things you do at church, unsure of why it’s so important. It is a mindless ritual, Frank thinks.
In another pew, Molly feels uneasy about communion. For her, communion conjures up a vague sense of guilt, a feeling that she shouldn’t be here; she isn’t faithful enough, or pious enough, and her belief in God is a bit wobbly. She remembers what she heard while growing up about how God makes us worthy to receive communion. But it seems like you have to be a better Christian for that to happen. Whenever she takes communion, she has that feeling she gets when she’s sees in her car’s rearview mirror, a police car driving behind her. Sure, she’s driving responsibly and within the speed limit, but she can’t help the feeling of having been caught at something. That’s how communion feels.
Sitting a few pews behind Molly, while Charles listens again to the story of the last supper, he remembers Thanksgiving at his grandparents’ house. Grandma had hosted a big Thanksgiving meal for as long as everyone could remember. Over all those years, while the people grew older around the table, as spouses first took their seats with the family, and then children, the food didn’t change at all. Every year, as Grandma surrounded the great turkey with her special recipe stuffing, the cranberry sauce, and grandma’s famous mashed potatoes, the smell and taste of the food brought back memories of years gone by, and they told the old stories and laughed at the old jokes. The food on the table was always a reminder that this was a family in which everyone was loved unconditionally, a family in which all are cared for and nourished.
Everything went just the same this past year, until Grandma told the family that she had an announcement for them. “This is my last year to host Thanksgiving,” she said. “I imagine I’ve got a few more years to enjoy the holiday, but I don’t have the strength anymore to prepare the meal, so I’ve written out all my recipes for each of you. Some of them come from my own grandmother. I hope that you will eat this food for years to come, and remember that you are loved, and that you will always have the support you need.”
Grandma’s Thanksgiving was never just about the food she served, it was about her life. Thanksgiving was wonderful because of the love and care that she gave to her children, her sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, her grandchildren, and to her friends and neighbors who often joined the table when they had no other plans to spend the holiday.
And so, it was never a question in the family of whether they would continue to share this meal, never a question as to whether they would make these recipes themselves. If anything, they were each eager to take up the mantle following Grandma’s last Thanksgiving.
Charles thinks about all of this as the deacons come forward to gather the serving trays and begin to carry those small, holy pieces of bread to the congregation. He thinks about how communion is also not just about the food that is served. Communion is a reminder of Jesus Christ’s entire life. After all, this wasn’t the first time that he had broken bread and blessed it and shared it. The gospel tells two stories of times when people came by the thousands to hear him teach, and Jesus took a few loaves and made them enough for everyone.
While other rabbis turned people away from their tables because they did not measure up to standards of conduct or purity, Jesus shared food with the most undesirable of sinners, lepers, and foreigners. He would do anything to make the God’s table big enough for all of us. He would even go to his death to make it big enough, his death that he knew was coming soon on the night he ate with the disciples and gave them bread and cup.
There they sat, celebrating the Passover meal, which was about God freeing the slaves from Egypt, and Jesus told them that God was still at work, freeing them from everything that could ever seek to oppress them. Freeing them – freeing us –from fear, from guilt, from isolation, from injustice, and even from death. Freeing is what God does, and the bread and cup remind us of that when we forget. Jesus invited everyone to share this meal, and we are eager to have our turn to do the same, to serve this meal to each other, to our families, and friends, and visitors, and strangers.
In another part of the sanctuary, as the last taste of the bread dissolves in her mouth, Cathy’s mind wanders back to a performance she saw years ago. It was Lily Tomlin’s one-woman show, in which she played a number of unforgettable characters, but most unforgettable was Trudy. Trudy was a bag lady who unexpectedly became the tour guide to a couple of aliens who visited Earth, showing them what human life was like. One day, the aliens discovered what it feels like to get goose bumps. After they left, Trudy recalls the experience:
Did I tell you what happened at the play? We were at the back of the theater, standing there in the dark, all of a sudden I feel one of 'em tug my sleeve, whispers, "Trudy, look." I said, "Yeah, goose bumps. You definitely got goose bumps. You really like the play that much?" They said it wasn't the play that gave 'em goose bumps, it was the audience.
I forgot to tell 'em to watch the play; they'd been watching the audience! Yeah, to see a group of strangers sitting together in the dark, laughing and crying about the same things...that just knocked 'em out.
(Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, 1985)
Cathy remembers that, because it is exactly how she feels today during communion. Maybe her attention is supposed to be on the table, or maybe she’s supposed to be thinking about her own life, and her own relationship with God. But what really knocks her out is the congregation. What she loves about communion is that even though the meal is from Jesus, and even though it’s the ministers who give the invitation, and even though it’s the deacons who come forward to carry the trays, when you get right down to it, this sacred little meal is served by all of us. Pew by pew, the congregation serves this meal to each other, and this is never more clear than when those heavy trays come around, with all those little symbolic-sized cups of juice, always on the verge of spilling. People are very careful as they pass it to their neighbors, and hold the tray for someone else to pick out the cups.
Sometimes she sees husband and wife serve each other, or parent and child; now two good friends, and now strangers, all serving each other. All these people, with all their stories and secrets, their struggles and accomplishments, so often divided by different goals and dreams, and different values, and different votes on election day, and maybe even different beliefs about what communion means, but still we serve each other this holy meal. And that reminds her of what Jesus said, that those who want to be great should be in service to everyone. Maybe the presence of Jesus is not only in the bread and cup, but also in the community of people who serve the bread and cup, who are bound together by the grace of God.
Who else sits in the pews of that church? What do they think about when they hear they see the bread held up just like it always is, and hear the same words that they have been hearing month after month, the same words that have been said for generations and centuries? All I can tell you is that even we remember the same story and the same simple meal in the same way, sometimes it becomes new, not because communion has changed, but because we have changed.
