BRINGING CHURCH BACK to the TABLE
Luke 22:14-23; Acts 2:42-47
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As my time starts to wind down at Park View,
occasionally I ponder what marks I’m leaving behind.
I figure, after 28 years with a congregation,
that are a few tangible things I can point to and say,
“I had at least something to do with that.”
This morning I’m thinking of something specific.
And what it is might surprise you.
It’s having communion every month,
instead of two or three times a year.
I’m not particularly proud of this,
because frankly, I started talking about it at least 25 years ago.
But I never got around to it.
I didn’t want to complicate worship planning,
or recruit more volunteers,
or hear complaints about having it too often,
or . . . I don’t know what.
Maybe I was just too lazy to change a long tradition.
But then the pandemic happened.
And all our worship rituals were stretched to the point of breaking.
We stayed at home and watched six people or so on a live-stream
go through familiar-looking activities of worship—
four people sang in harmony,
one person at a time prayed, or read scripture,
or preached, or played an instrument.
And those at home could worship in front of a screen,
passively,
individually,
and invisibly,
They could even doze off, or wander off, and no one would know.
Our worship was hard to embody that way.
It took place in our brains, but nowhere else.
We heard sounds and saw pictures—two out of five senses.
But we never touched, tasted, or smelled anything.
So I decided we had to at least encourage
people to worship with their whole being, even if we were apart.
So I brought it up to the other pastors and elders, on Zoom of course,
and we started offering communion once a month.
We at least invited everyone
to gather your bread and juice at home and have it ready.
And we ate and drank together,
the church at an imaginary table across the miles.
If you participated—you didn’t have to, but if you did—
you felt, smelled, and tasted reminders of who we were in Christ
. . . together . . . at the table.
At a time when everything else seemed strange and otherworldly,
here was a practice of the church that was core to our identity,
and we could still do it together.
And once we started, why stop?
When we came back to in-person worship,
we kept on doing monthly communion.
One of the small marks I leave behind.
It will be up to the next pastors (Paula, take note)
to move communion from monthly to weekly.
_____________________
Now on a Sunday focusing on worship,
why am I making a deal about this?
Communion is just one ritual. A tradition.
Some do it this way. Some do it that way.
For some it means this. For others it means that.
Does it really matter?
Glad you asked. Let me tell you why I think it matters.
In my childhood, nearly all Mennonites
were suspicious of weekly communion.
Catholics and Lutherans and high church people did that.
The fear was . . . doing it too often would make us stop thinking
about what it meant.
It would just become a habit, that we would do without thinking.
Now, did you notice what I just said there?
Communion was only important
because of what it made us think about, in our head,
as a rational and intellectual thought process.
We neglected to consider the shaping power of repeated ritual.
We didn’t consider how practice shapes desire,
how wordless action can be a conduit of the Spirit,
to help form us as whole, embodied, worshipers.
We didn’t account for the possibility
that people who took communion week after week after week,
kneeling and standing on cue,
chanting the same scripture,
hearing words of Christ’s love and sacrifice,
as a wafer melted on their tongue,
and wine slid down their throat—
we didn’t consider the possibility
that an embodied weekly practice
might become a saving grace for someone
when deep loss or trauma or a dark night of the soul
robbed them of their ability to pray
with words that made rational sense,
robbed them of their capacity to even think clearly.
I know that the physical practice of communion has power in it,
that goes beyond rational thought processes.
I’ve seen it happening in others.
I’ve experienced it myself.
And no, it’s not magical or mystical.
It’s simply the well-documented power of bodily rituals
to shape our desires and our human experience.
We live in a world of constant and continual cultural rituals
that try to pull us toward loyalty to some lesser identity—
like being American or Democratic or Republican or
a Nats or Phillies fan,
or a capitalist consumer of Pepsi vs. Coke,
or Ford vs. Chevy.
We know consumer advertizing is never
just about selling a product.
It’s selling an identity.
And likewise, national holidays and rituals,
like the one we’ll celebrate this Thursday,
are not primarily about remembering our history,
they are about our reinforcing our identity.
Not saying that is all bad.
I’m just saying those who say they are in Christ Jesus.
those who claim their identity as
members of the covenant community of Jesus,
need robust, embodied rituals that we return to repeatedly,
if only to counter all the other cultural rituals
that pull us other directions.
_____________________
I think Jesus knew this was the case,
when he urged his disciples to ritualize the moment at the table,
when he shared ordinary bread and wine.
He said to them,
“Whenever you eat this bread, and drink this cup,
remember me.”
He wasn’t afraid that he would be forgotten, personally.
He wasn’t trying to preserve his legacy.
No! Jesus knew they were all immersed in an Empire,
that was trying to make them into something else.
So he established a shared practice to instill in them
their identity as citizens of the kingdom of God,
to counteract and overrule the many practices of the Empire
that tried to instill in them a much lesser identity.
In some Christian traditions
communion seems mystical and untouchable and rarified.
But I don’t believe the bread and cup need
certain holy words spoken over them,
by certain holy people,
in order to work on us.
What Jesus did was use the ordinary to create a holy moment.
On the eve of his suffering and death,
on the eve of giving up his own body and blood
for the sake of God’s kingdom,
Jesus took ordinary bread and wine, shared it as a gift,
and made it a Thanksgiving Dinner.
That’s why we call it the Eucharist,
the Greek word for Thanksgiving.
The scripture we read this morning says, literally,
“Then Jesus took a loaf of bread,
and when he eucharistēsas (gave thanks),
he broke it and gave it to them, saying,
‘This is my body, given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.’”
_____________________
Now, if you’re observant
you noticed no communion table is set this morning.
So why am I taking a whole sermon to talk about
a ritual we’re not even doing today.
Two reasons.
First, to hopefully enrich your communion experience next Sunday,
when we will do it together.
But more importantly,
to suggest we can all do it much more frequently than we do,
and in much more ordinary times and places.
If this Christian practice is so formative, as I’m suggesting it is—
this practice of remembering Jesus
when we eat bread and drink from a cup—
then wouldn’t it be wise to do it more often?
Of all the practices in this worship series
about bringing church back to the table—
practice of discernment, confession, witness, formation, etc—
this is the one practice that works best at an actual physical table,
and was instituted at a table.
For that first community of Jesus followers
that emerged in the book of Acts,
the Eucharistic Meal was at the center of their life together.
This was no twice a year solemn reckoning for their sins.
Nor a weekly ritual led by priests in glittering robes.
No, they just did what Jesus asked,
“Whenever you eat this bread, and drink this cup,
remember me.”
In Acts 2, we heard that “they devoted themselves . . .
to the breaking of bread and the prayers . . . [and]
Day by day . . . they broke bread at home
and ate their food with glad and generous hearts.”
They eucharistized at every meal,
giving thanks to God for God’s generous gift in Jesus.
Why would we ever want to keep the eucharist at the periphery?
Let’s bring it back to the center,
and use our imagination in doing so.
Let’s have it more often,
in the smaller, more intimate circles in which we gather.
Does your Faith Formation class
ever break bread and drink the cup when you gather,
to remember the Jesus you seek to follow together?
Does your small group or house fellowship or supper club,
while you’re already gathered for a meal,
with bread and wine on the table
ever take a moment to add a little more significance
into breaking that bread, and drinking from that cup,
as you remember Jesus Christ who is present
and at the center of your gathering?
If you happen to be at a table in a public place
with other members of your family of faith,
out for lunch or dinner and everyone has a piece of bread,
and a cup in front of them (with whatever’s in it),
has anyone ever said, “Let’s remember Jesus.”
And, without any words,
you all eat a bite of bread and sip from the cup,
silently giving thanks for Jesus’ sacrificial gift.
Maybe even a quiet toast, and a clink of the glasses, “To Jesus!”
Is that weird? Probably. Is it sacrilegious? Not at all.
Fact is, I think that’s pretty close
to what Jesus had in mind,
when he gave that guidance to his disciples.
If want to reinforce our identity as followers of Jesus,
the one whom we say is at the center of our lives,
why not remember him whenever we eat and drink together?
I’ll be honest.
I have an allergic reaction
to being conspicuously religious in public.
I don’t like putting my religion on display.
So when I’m with others of like faith,
seems like a quiet toast to Jesus is about the most natural
and inconspicuous way to do what Jesus said.
The people at the next table wouldn’t have a clue
you’re having communion.
_____________________
A couple of disclaimers, or clarifying statements.
First, the Lord’s Supper is a ritual that is
core to our identity as disciples of Jesus.
I’m not suggesting when you’re out with any group—
as you certainly should be doing,
enjoying rich fellowship that’s interfaith,
or with persons who don’t even claim faith—
not saying you should awkwardly slip in a Christian ritual
that others would find excluding or off-putting.
So don’t do that, please.
Second, this is not a directive or mandate.
Giving a toast to Jesus may not be your cup of tea, so to speak.
So choose something that is.
Choose some way to regularly and ritually
name your identity in Christ,
to remember Jesus in the ordinary,
so as to counteract all the other cultural rituals
you’re already engaging in,
that seek to prioritize other, lesser identities.
Let’s find some way to do what Jesus asked.
And to be clear,
I’m not saying you should something that I haven’t already
found to be transformative, from experience.
Irene and I are in a small group that’s kind of a supper club,
and for the last 15 years or so we’ve started every meal,
not with a bowed-heads prayer, but something just as significant.
With a bite of bread, then a clink of the glasses and sip of wine,
we remember Jesus,
as we recite a couple of short lines from memory.
Do we get tired of doing it? Never.
Does it set a tone for our meal and conversation? Always.
We even did it last week at a campground picnic table,
before we dug into our burgers and veggies,
with other campers in earshot.
Worship, and remembering and naming Jesus,
with Thanksgiving,
is something that can be part of our everyday,
not just when we are gathered in large assemblies,
in sanctuaries,
led by clergy.
We are invited to a never-ending Thanksgiving Dinner, in Christ.
A eucharistic daily life.
May it be so.
—Phil Kniss, June 30, 2024
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