March 17, 2013
I Corinthians 11: 23-25
Rev. David Hansen
Pine Valley Christian Church
A Banquet of Liberating Love
I want to begin by telling you how much I enjoy being here and being your pastor. You all really love this church and you love each other and that makes Pine Valley a good place to be. One of the signs that tells me how much you care about this church and each other is the conversation we have been having about communion. I don’t think I have ever been part of a congregation that has talked as much as you do about communion. And that is a good thing. I am glad for the conversation. So, the Worship, Arts and Ministry Spirit Team and I thought it would be good to think about communion today. We recognize that communion means different things for us as different times in our life. It does not mean the same thing for all of us, and the meaning of communion may change for each of us over time.
When I was a child my family attended the Congregation Church, which later became the United Church of Christ. We celebrated communion once a quarter—four times a year. I know some of you are familiar with this tradition. My minister told me that the Lord’s Supper was like a banquet feast and people did not have a banquet every week. It was a special meal and one that we would share only at special times. In between these times of celebration we should thinking about the last time we ate together, and then look forward to the next time we would eat together at the Lord’s Table. People looked forward to those times of the year when we could celebrate communion. Only the ordained minister could officiate at the service. And only people who had been baptized and confirmed could share in this sacrament. The Deacons, who were men, served the congregation, and they were all dressed in dark suits and they all sat in the front row of the church. The Deaconesses, the women, prepared the elements. Children who were not confirmed could not receive communion. Confirmation Sunday was first communion Sunday. It was a very important day for me and for my family. The communion services that I shared on the beach with college students many years later had a different feel. It was still communion, but we sang different songs and the fellowship was very informal.
Still later, when we lived in Canada I was able to concelebrate the mass with my friend who was a Roman Catholic priest. I was shocked when I returned to the United States and discovered that the local bishop would not allow us to celebrate the sacrament together.
In this congregation, we come from many different backgrounds. If we took a survey we would probably discover that we have different ideas about what this meal represents, but we are all glad that we share this meal every week. It would not be worship for us if we did not do this. But it is different from the way communion is celebrated in other churches. The communion table is in the center of our worship and members of the congregation take turns leading us in a celebration of the sacrament. We believe in the priesthood of all believers. We are glad today for Bishop Francis as he begins his ministry as a leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and we have high hopes for his ministry. But as Protestants we have a different view of the church. He sits in the Chair of St. Peter and continues the line of apostolic succession through his office. We believe that the line of apostolic succession is continued through the presence of the gathered community that comes together in worship. That is why members of the congregation lead us in worship and in the celebration of the sacrament of communion.
The good news is that Christians are moving toward some common understandings of communion. In 1982 the World Council of Churches released a document called Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, which is also called the Lima Document. The Lima Document was agreed to by all the denominations that participate in the World Council of Churches, members of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. So it is a very important statement that affirms the unity of the church.
The Lima Document established the practice of open communion—meaning that it is open to all who would like to share in the sacrament. According to the Lima Document, we should celebrate communion frequently, which in many congregations means weekly, and children should be included.
The Lima Document identifies different aspects or dimensions of communion. One of these aspects is Thanksgiving, which is what the word “Eucharist” means. The Eucharist is a meal of thanksgiving to God our Creator. The bread and the wine represent the gifts of creation. They remind us that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. God is the Creator and, as Genesis tells us, God looked upon all that God had made as said, “Behold, it is good.” Communion can be a time to commune with nature and to feel at one with creation. We can think of communion as a creation-centered spirituality. We can use this time to think about where the bread came from, where the grapes are grown, and our relationship with God’s creation.
When we think about this meal, we might think not only about the elements that are present, but also about the missing element—meat. There is no meat at this table. The bread and the cup are common food—peasant food. Meat is expensive. Not everyone can afford meat. Many people in the world do not eat meat. The absence of meat makes this a common meal. At this table we learn to live more simply, so that others may simply live. There is a provision in the biblical law that when the harvest is gathered there must be grain and fruit left for people to glean. This bread and cup represent the gleanings from the field. Everyone is welcome at this table. There is no separation by class or caste. That is why Paul says that in Christ we are a new creation—a new community.
But sometimes in the community things do not always go according to plan. Sometimes people have disagreements with each other. Listen to what Paul writes in the 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians. He says, “I hear that when you come together there are divisions among you. When you start eating, some of you eat right away and others go hungry. Some of you even get drunk.” Then he encourages members of the congregation to remember the tradition the he shared with them. The purpose of the meal is to honor Christ by honoring the members of the community. Sharing in this meal should not be a cause of division, but a way to build each other up. That is why we say that Christ is the center. In John’s gospel Jesus says, “I have called you friends, if you do what I command you.” And then he says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another.” We come to the table as friends of Jesus, or as people who would like to become friends of Jesus. Take this bread and cup, and taste and see that the Lord is good.
Another meaning of communion is related to the sacrifice of Jesus. In our tradition there are different ways to understand the sacrificial significance of the Lord’ Supper. I’m going to mention only one. We are learning in our study of the Gospel of Mark that Jesus came to start an alternative community—a community committed to the way of nonviolence. When we share in this meal we are saying that we do not believe in the power of overwhelming violence, but rather we believe in the power of unending love. That makes the church a counter-cultural community. Instead of believing in the Peace of Rome, Pax Romana, which was the peace of death, we believe in a peace that affirms life and its goodness. This stance of the church has meaning today in a culture that seems infatuated with a culture of guns and violence. If you are going to be counter-cultural, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. But the sacrifice is not woeful, it is joyful. It is an act of faith that is grasped by the power of heavenly love. It is faith that sees Zaccheus climb a tree a crook and come down a saint. It is faith that sees Paul begin as a bounty hunger and become a fool for Christ. It is faith that hears Mary, a peasant girl, declare that she is a handmaiden of the Lord. And it is faith that watches Peter climb out of the safety of his boat, and then decides to go and do likewise, believing that our lives can be channels of mercy and vessels of grace in this often storm-tossed world because we have shared in this banquet of liberating love.