Pr. 15, Yr. B

August 16, 2009

G. Hendree Harrison, Jr.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Why Communion?

This morning’s gospel passage puts us in the mind of communion.

            The sign out front says that this parish was started in 1834.  The body of our building is not that old, the physical structure has changed over time, but for 175 years, there has been a body of people, Christian people meeting in this place in the name of the risen Christ.

            I find it a great comfort and something of an honor to know that we are members of a great body of folks who have taken seats in these pews over the years. I mean, if ever a person among us felt lonely and alone in this vast world he or she could think of the 1000’s of people who have walked the well worn pathway down the center of this place to come kneel before this altar with outstretched hands – and know the she is not alone.

            We are neither the first nor the last people to come out from our homes to this church house to participate in the Eucharistic mystery of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, we are a few in a crowd of thousands who have come here seeking after some connection with our almighty and confounding God through the simple offerings of communion bread and communion wine.

Over the years, a great multitude of folks have brought their questions, their concerns, their highest hopes and their deepest fears, they have laid them on our altar and accepted the bread and the wine in exchange.  And along the way, I imagine that there have been as many “what does communion mean” questions voiced, both silently and aloud, in this place as there have been people who have come here after the bread and the wine.

            What does communion mean?  What does this slender wafer of bread and that small sip of wine mean for me as it enters my body?

            Over all the years, for all the people, I imagine communion, or Eucharist if you prefer the Greek, has meant a million different things.  See if you can find your place in the following crowd:

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Some people have traipsed down the aisle here on obligation to spouse or parent.  Their answer to “why do you take communion” is – I come here only because I must, I am made to.

            I think of my teenage self, made to come to church by my parents.  We could sit in the back row, but we had to come to church, period.

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In sharp contrast, others over the years have hurried             here and waited anxiously for their turn to come to the altar, they have reached out their hands as hunger rumbled in their bellies, they have watched the wafer down from the hands of the priest into their own, and they have eaten it quickly, hoping as it slides down, that it will fill the empty space inside.

            Their hunger is not from lack of food rather, it is from lack of communion with God.

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Others have weekly walked the carpeted way to the altar as a way back to center, they have held up their hands in the middle of their bodies, so that they hang in mid-air and the bread and wine come to realign and refocus their wandering lives on Christ.

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Others have come to our communion table, driven here out of a deep loneliness.  Gathering at the rail for the communion meal is the only place in the space of their week where they experience the warmth of a body near their own.

            This has been over the years, the only place where some people have contact, conversation, and table fellowship with other human creatures.

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As often as not, I imagine the sharp sick pains of grief, guilt, and illness have called our people     out of their homes and into this altar space.

            These people have hope that the elements of communion, the broken bread and the wine cut with water, will dull the ache of depression and be a salve on their wounded hearts and bodies.

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Over all the years, people have brought their young children to the communion rail, taught them how to cross their hands and hold them up for the bread.

            Indeed, children of all ages have come to this altar fence over the years before they could understand, and they have undertaken to learn by doing, that is learn over the course of many years of holy eating what it means to share in the Christian communion meal.

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Lately, the thing that pulls me to the table in this old church has been in a word – gratitude.  I hold out my own hands in thanksgiving for this marvelous life and you miracle people, and I accept the body and blood, the bread and the wine as a gift of a value beyond anything that I deserve.  And as I eat and drink I acknowledge the fullness I feel – I am full of thanksgiving.

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Where are you in this crowd?

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What does communion mean?

            My best guess is that for all of us, the communion meal is less about understanding and more about participating.

            We lay open our hands, the easy part, and try to lay open our hearts, the hard part, and ask God to fill our empty spaces.

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Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood will live, will live forever, and I will raise them up on the last day.”

            Perhaps that sounds like a strange and an abstract thing to say, but if we could boil it down to just a few words, I wonder if we would hear Jesus say, Take me in, and you will live.

You will live, live connected by a holy thread to God and to each other.

            Communion is connection, a Christ connection.  And that Christ connection saves; it saves us from isolation on the lonely island of me, and draws us into the great communion crowd of people who came before us, those who are here now, and those yet to come.

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I don’t have a precise answer to the question “What does communion mean?”

But I am supremely confident that there is power, real and holy power, in our communion practice. For instance:

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I have a traveling communion set that has been in my family for nearly 100 years.  My great-grandfather was a priest and the kit first belonged to him.  He gave it to his son, my great-uncle, who was also a priest and an army chaplain in combat during World War II.  My uncle carried this communion kit on his hip all over France during the war and shared communion with countless soldiers on the battlefield.

            My uncle was courageous and a bit crazy.  He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for retrieving the bodies of fallen soldiers and carrying them across enemy lines so that they could be properly buried.

Once, while a passenger in a jeep, a grenade hit my great-uncle’s driver killing him and stopping the jeep.  My soldiering great-uncle kept on going on foot, communion kit on his hip.

            I used to take communion to the homebound wife of an old soldier with my uncle’s kit.

The soldier’s wife was a faithful church going Christian woman.  The soldier however, a veteran of war himself, was not a believer, or so he said.

He had seen too much.  After playing witness to the searing violence of war, he could find no evidence to support the existence of God.  He was always very friendly to me when I came to visit and share communion with his wife.  He would answer the door with a smile, and invite me to sit.

Then, every time, he would look at the my uncle’s communion kit, he would ask me to tell him the story of the kit, and my uncle, and the Distinguished Service Cross, and the grenade hitting his jeep.  No matter that I had told him all these stories, word for word, the last time I visited.  He wanted to hear them again. 

            When I finished my stories he would tell me some story of his own military past.  And we connected, or rather, I suspect that he and my uncle connected through me and the little silver communion kit.

            When we finished with our stories, the old soldier would watch closely and quietly, hands in his pockets as I unpacked and set up the small chalice and paten, those little silver serving tools that had seen as much as he had on the blood soaked battle fields of Europe.

            When I finished setting it all up, he would thank me for coming, and then he would go into the other room while I shared the bread and the wine and said prayers with his wife.

He didn’t eat the bread, sip the wine or say the prayers, so I suppose some would say he didn’t take communion, but I don’t know, I reckon there are a number of ways to make the communion connection, and the biggest part of every communion motion over all the years has been the unseen movement of God reaching out to every outstretched hand, even those hands that have tried to hide clenched and out of reach in the dark depths of a pocket.