More thoughts on Communion

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Yesterday, I wrote about my experience taking Communion, and today I wanted to add to that by sharing some thoughts from Jonathan Martin, taken from his book Prototype.

God is visibly present in the world in two principal ways: through the people of God and through this meal; both are manifestations of the body of Christ. Yet here is the irony: if the scandal of Jesus was that He was always touching the wrong people and inviting the wrong people to the table--how on earth can we think the Communion meal now is for the extra holy or the super spiritual? To say we need to be completely cleaned up before Communion is like saying we need to get well so we can take our medication.

Though it is true that the apostle Paul gives a strong warning about Communion, the context is very particular. Apparently, there were some in Corinth who, mirroring the broader practice of their culture, had the meal around the table with the rich and elite within their Christian community, while those with lesser status were left to eat whatever leftovers remained. It was the opposite of how Jesus practiced table fellowship. They were taking the meal meant for the ordinary and making it for the elite, taking the table spread for the broken and offering it only to the whole. And in this way, they were dividing the body of Christ in a sick parody of what this act was meant to be. No wonder Paul peaks so harshly of this practice!

But by no means does this mean that now only the super spiritual can come to the table. We come to the table not because we have power, but because there is power available to us. We don't come perfect, we come humbly, hungry and thirsty for righteousness; we come desperate for God. Shame should not keep us from touching Jesus through this meal any more than shame kept the broken from touching Jesus in His incarnate body.

We come to the table every week at Renovatus. And as we do, we understand it to be a table for the broken. Every week, I read the words of this simple Communion invitation just before we are served:

This is the table, not of the church, but of the Lord. It is made ready for those who love him and for those who want to love Him more. So come, you who have much faith and you who have little; you who have been here often and you who have not been here long; you who have tried to follow and you who have failed. Come, because it is the Lord who invites you. It is His will that those who want him should meet him here.

~Prototype, p. 165-166 (emphasis mine)

The idea that the Lord is present in the Communion table has been meaningful to me. The church I grew up in was very afraid of being "too Catholic", so it emphasized over and over again that this was just a symbol. And no, I don't think a cracker and cup of juice turns into the literal body and blood of Jesus, but it is more than just a symbol to me. It is a way by which we interact with God. And we do this by celebrating his broken body and shed blood.

Sometimes church is painful, as it was for me this Sunday. These are the times that we need more than ever to be reminded of the God we celebrate, that he is a God well-acquainted with grief. And this is most evident in the time of Communion. As we eat the bread and drink the wine/juice, we unite ourselves with his suffering. Our pain becomes his pain, our death becomes his death, and our lives are therefore subjected to the hope of resurrection.