About a week ago I was traveling and I visited a church with a friend. It was communion sunday, and after the band led the congregation in a few songs, a man came up on the "stage" and said a few words about what communion meant to him. He used the analogy of a Thanksgiving dinner where family all come and gather around the table because they love each other and they are celebrating. I thought that this analogy was a great image to paint especially considering the season and the general feelings of unity and community that the image of Thanksgiving dinner brings to mind for most Americans. After this really nice explanation, he let the congregation know that communion was to be received at the various stations around the church.
The band continued to play as people got up one-by-one to walk to the back of the church. I didn't even notice that it was time to receive communion until my friend got up. I followed her and got in line. Something just didn't seem right though. In fact, many things didn't seems right. I watched as people came away from the table. They were carrying what looked like little shot glasses of grape juice and pellets of bread. I've gone to church most of my life, but I had new eyes to see this particular Sunday that the celebration of communion in today's churches is lacking. How could is the Church of today reflecting the community of faith I read about in the Bible?
The first celebration of communion was Jesus' breaking of bread and sharing wine with his disciples on the night that he was betrayed. When I read the passage of the Bible in the book of Luke where Jesus and the disciples celebrate the Passover meal, it seems to me shockingly different than the way we today, as the Church, celebrate communion. We have reduced it to an impersonal, sterile, individualized ritual that poorly reflects the meal it is designed to remind us of. Jesus washed the disciples feet (humbled himself before them and invited them into a deeper friendship with him). Jesus assured Peter, "Unless I wash you, Peter, you can have no part in me." The meal that they shared served as a symbol and a milestone for what was to come. The celebration at the Last Supper vividly showed the humble servant that Jesus was - so much so that it made Peter uncomfortable. It was an interpersonal celebration. It was a communal celebration.
Halfway down the isle, I turned and walked back to my seat. I just couldn't do it. Tears flooding out of my eyes, I sat back down and prayed. For that church. For the Church. In repentance for how I have allowed myself to celebrate communion while not knowing my brothers and sisters around me. How communion for me has become more about me and Jesus and less about washing the feet of those around me. I repent of how I so easily forget the humble, interpersonal savior that I share with the Church around me and how I often don't make room in my life to celebrate with them what he has done for us.
