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Today is the first Sunday of the month. It is in many Protestant traditions Communion Sunday. I am taking this occasion to reflect a little bit about the sacrament of Holy Communion. There is much more to say but there will be future times for conversation. I’m a Christian educator, as we all are if one subscribes to the maxim "Actions speak louder than words." My thoughts this morning are a consequence of my teacher identity sharing familiar space with my student identity. A better description might be that the mysteries of the sacred lead me to wonder. I don’t have communion figured out.

I never have.

There is no question that the Lord’s Supper holds a profound place in the lives of the Christian Church and her people. It is a celebration of communion, of coming together in union and reunion. Sharing a meal gathered ‘round a common table makes tangible our oneness with Christ and our desire that together we help usher in God’s peaceable kindom on earth. Depending on how a church community serves communion, the drama of unity is heightened or diminished.

Communion as the act of sharing life and faith through the breaking of bread and sharing a drink can change relationships. It can build bridges where there were none. It can birth hope in the midst of despair. Imagine, if you will, strangers coming together pooling their limited resources of bread and water. Tentative at first, they risk sharing their vulnerability and forge a bond that becomes life-giving community. Recall in your own lives, times when you have shared a meal that felt like and was a union or reunion between not just people but souls. Communion can be candlelit reverence or a rowdy celebration. Holy Communion in this sense happens all the time if we are paying attention. God is present. God is listening. God is speaking.

But Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper is about much more than a meal. It is Jesus in the flesh, body and blood, present to us for us. I’m a Catholic Protestant. I was taught that the wafer was the actual body of Christ, made so through the words of institution. The wine was never offered to those of us in the pew. The blood of Christ was for the priest to drink. (We elementary school kids paid close attention to the water/wine ratio as the altar boys poured the sacramental elements into the chalice. We knew it wasn’t blood Father was drinking.) The literal language we employ in Eucharist is jarring within our culture. Perhaps it has always been so. Or, perhaps the early Christian generations understood human and animal sacrifice to be in the ordinary category. For me, the literal notion of Jesus’ body and blood introduced a skepticism into certain church teachings. I had bit off scabs of flesh and licked a bleeding finger or lip. There was no way Communion was really Christ’s flesh and blood. Yet, people and prayers continued to recite the reality of Christ’s body and blood, given for me.

I reconciled the teaching; They meant the bread and wine symbolized Jesus’ body and blood. Symbolism is powerful and more honest. Communion as a magic trick didn’t cut it. God and church were legitimate. God and the Church were important realities in my life. Ritual and mystery yes. Magic no.

Of course, this is not the Catholic teaching regarding Communion. There are also other ways to explain the sacrament that focus on Christ’s presence in the bread and wine. Mystery is a wonderful concept and reality I first learned in my liberal Catholic upbringing.

We can’t explain everything God does. I think Protestants have something to learn from certain Roman lenses. Catholics value the sensory and experiential dimensions of the divine more so than mainline Protestants. In Luther’s zeal to promote scripture alone as the true authority for God’s will, words, the printed word came to dominate Christian worship. "Presence" which had formerly been experienced by most as a kind of enfolding embrace now shifted into a printout to which only the literate had complete access. Protestants use bulletins. Catholics most often don’t. It is symptomatic of bias. Not that Catholics are void of wordy theologians and papal edicts. They are not. Not that the Mass has always been a true work of the people. It has not. However, in liturgy there is a particular rhythm that uses sound, movement, and familiarity to give space for sacred mystery. We don’t need to explain or understand everything God does.

Let me a share a quote from Aiden Kavanaugh, a Benedictine monk and liturgics professor. In speaking about the Reformation and some repairs gone awry, "It was a new system of worship which would increasingly do without rite, one in which printed texts would increasingly bear the burden formerly borne by richly ambiguous corporate actions done with water, oil, food, and the touch of human hands."

Something special, even spectacular is supposed to happen through Holy Communion. Like a bestseller book, the reviews are glowing. A must read, you’ll feel better. My expectations are too high. I rarely feel more holy or blessed after communion. I do feel engaged with a mystery. I often am pondering the meanings of this feast that is not a literal feast. I am on the look out for God, in you, in me, in us. Much can be said for frequenting places and traditions that are older than our imagination. We are connected rather than isolated from the mysterious circle of life. We don’t necessarily realize the bond at the time.

Participating in worship and receiving the sacraments does not give us faith. Christians do not believe because they worship or worship because they believe. Sunday morning worship is not some kind of machine that produces a product called faith. The gathered community does however embody the sacred. We bring with us real life – our tragedies and resurrections.

The same earthly life that Jesus experienced. Oh the names and protocols have changed but not the moments of anguish, the elation of a prodigal returning, or the day to day keepin’ on keepin’ on. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us. God is simultaneously mystery and human flesh. Flesh. There we go again.

Perhaps communion’s language of life and death, body and blood stands in defiance of our temptation to sanitize life and God. More than one congregation has in all seriousness contemplated deleting Good Friday from its Christian education curriculum. Holy Communion has meaning because real people gather ‘round a real table with real bread and real wine or grape juice and pray real prayers to a real God. Even if they’re not sure.

This Independence Day, we are celebrating the birth of our country. Wars are part of that history. The pictures of war, the killing and maiming of human life, are horrific. I cannot imagine what a soldier or civilian caught in the crossfire must experience. I came across this poem that provided an intriguing image this July Fourth and Communion Sunday.

Holy Communion, Suvla Bay

By W.H. Littlejohn

I still am uncomfortable with the language of sacrifice and elevating Christ’s murder to God’s big plan for redemption. I strongly believe Christ died because of our sins, not for them. It is Easter that changed our lives! Despite our human sin, our attempts to be God or kill God, the divine is present. Holy Communion is one way God says to us, "I love you." It is an outward sign that we humans can see and taste. Christ is indeed present in this sacrament, as he is present whenever we break bread together. Whether on a battlefield or picnic blanket, in church or at a restaurant, Christ asks us to remember him as we share this meal. Remember him and what he invites or commands us to do.

May this bread and grape juice remind us that we share not only a common cup but a common Creator and commandment. May sharing this ancient and modern day ritual inspire us, nourish us, and encourage us in the dangerous work of following Jesus.

Amen.