A Progressive Minister Rethinks Communion

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.  Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. --1 Corinthians 11:27-29, NRSV

It’s more than a bit weird to preach to an almost empty sanctuary on Sunday mornings. I have to imagine the members watching via the live stream.  It’s even weirder to celebrate communion in a largely empty sanctuary. I try to imagine church folks all with coffee and toast or bagels in their  hands partaking of this sacred act of worship. It takes spiritual imagination to partake of communion under normal circumstances; more spiritual imagination is needed during the Coronavirus pandemic.  Communion, at all times, means believing, despite so called evidence to the contrary, that we are spiritually connected with one another and with God.

As we find our normal routines of worship disrupted, maybe it is a good time to reflect upon why we do them in the first place and why we miss them. 

As someone who has been “denominationally promiscuous” (as a clergy friend of mine calls it), I learned to love communion in a Disciples of Christ congregation. I became a spiritual refugee fleeing from a tradition where all aspects of the Christian life together became weaponized to exclude whomever the powers that be deemed a threat to their understanding of Christian purity.  So, experiencing open communion in a DOC church was a liberating and awesome encounter with what I always knew deep down church could be like. Everyone and anyone gets to partake of communion?  With that simple declaration and weekly enactment, I finally discovered the church living out in a communal way the grace of Christ I had experienced as an individual.

Sara Miles writes, “The church doesn’t own Communion. It’s God’s meal.  That made it possible for me to even take Communion in the first place. It also made it possible for me to look at the church not as a way to divide people from one another, but as a way of joining people together.” Miles’ statement is not a glib one. She was an atheist and social activist who had experienced Christianity only as an entity opposed to equality, justice and inclusion. Yet, in books like TakeThis Bread, Jesus Freak, and City of God, she shares how taking communion transformed her understanding of what Christianity could mean.  Like Miles, sharing open communion transformed my understanding of church.

In chapter 11 of Paul’s first letter to the Christians in Corinth, Greece, he criticizes the young church for how they take communion.  Then he offers words that have echoed down through church history with some awful consequences, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.”  From the ancient church denying communion to those they considered heathens to John Calvin’s practice of “fencing the table” to keep those who were unworthy away (a practice continued today in conservative Reformed churches) to divorced people prevented from taking communion in many Protestant denominations today to the refusal of communion to American politicians who support women having access to abortion services by Roman Catholic churches today, this verse has been used to make communion a weapon. 

This reading of Paul’s instructions regarding communion flies in the face of Paul’s point.  In verse 29, he writes, “For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.”  The phrase ‘discerning the body” is a play on words; the “body” in question is not just the bread of communion but also the church or the body of Christ.  The issue at hand was one of class and privilege.  Some in the church were wealthy enough they could show up early to worship, and they would go ahead and eat up all the food, for worship was an actual meal which included the sharing of bread and a cup in communion.  Those who were laborers or slaves showed up only when their bosses or masters (maybe some of those who arrived early) allowed them to come.  When those with less money and power showed up, there was no food left for them, maybe the only meal they would have that day.  Thus, worship became a way to exercise power over others rather than as a spiritual space were all were made one in Christ.

Taking communion in an “unworthy manner” means using this ritual of worship as a means to control or wield power over others.  Yet, controlling, excluding and oppressing others is exactly what Christian authorities and denominations have done with communion for centuries.  In doing so, religious authorities and clergy have modeled a meaning of power, hierarchy and division which mirrors the secular understandings of such things and not the self-giving and sacrificial love Christ offers as our example. 

Seen in this light, open communion becomes a radical act that forces us to rethink the values and practices of our society.  Those who stand in judgment of others often described as a “loving act” to convict others of their sins and give them an opportunity to change do not offer love but rather the self-righteousness that Jesus repeatedly condemned.  Perhaps some sinners somewhere have repented when stopped from taking communion, but throughout my ministry I have known people deeply wounded by such exclusion, most of whom left church altogether without ever looking back, except to name the church as abuser.

If churches that practice closed communion weaponize the practice, churches that practice open communion often trivialize it.  For those raised in Disciples of Christ churches and other traditions which practice open communion, the practice can become a time to check their watches and wonder about the ever-lengthening line at the restaurant they are soon headed to or the meal cooking in the oven at home.  When we diminish communion, however, we diminish ourselves, because its radical nature of hospitality for all and rejection of the values of a world which sees people only as cogs in political and/or economic machine rather than as beloved children of God reminds us that we are part of the realm of God, which values each and every life as an invaluable part of creation.

The blessed mystery of communion is that somehow ordinary earthly things like bread and wine—or coffee and toast—contain the grace of God which is greater than all things that divide us from one another and God.  Of course, that’s always the case in all ordinary things, places and times; the blessed tool of communion just helps us realize that astonishing truth.