Yesterdy, I (Chris) had a long discussion about communion with a group of friends. We were trying to reach a shared place once again of how we might make a refreshed collective ritual around the celebration of the Christian tradition of communion. Most of us arrived at this discussion with some difficulties of what the ritual of communion had become – so often within religious spaces it reeked of pateralism, male dominance and the use of fear and power to control. Then there is the constant shadow of substitutionary attonement and how we are conditioned to see communion as a transaction in which our sin is somehow replaced by the torture and death of Jesus. Our discussion started with a rejection of this inheritance but at the same time expressed a shared longing for discovering new meanings and new forms of shared ritual chains that might lead us forward.
The room contained a wide variety of positions.
Some still carried a strong sense of the tradition that they had inherited. They were able to seperate the shadow from the light- to see the ritual as a gift of mystery. To see the cross as a symbol of ultimate self giving from a revolutionary who was prepared to give everything for what he beleived. From a God who was incarnated in our midst and lived out the best and worst of what we live. The God who invites us to participate in the great adventure. For these people, the communion ritual was still central, still vital.
Others saw communion as an invention of Paul. They saw it as an imbalance between the priestly and prophetic traditions, in which the radical call of Jesus was codified into a blood ritual. They pointed to very early documents lile the Didache in which the communion service bore no reference to this blood ritual.but rather seemed to be a shared meal- it was about feeding one another. For them, the only way they could envisage communion was in the form of this kind of shared meal- sometimes called a Agape meal.
Others were neutral- communion had simply slipped down their agenda. Some Christian traditions never made a big deal of it anyway (Church of Scotland, non conformist traditions and so on) and so they were happy to just go with the flow.
My own perspective is informed by something slightly different. The way that I am currently understanding my relationship with the living God is through the idea of her being the am-ness of all things. She lives in everything, even in me. In this context, communion is a process of recognising this reality. The Christ, even the Crucified Christ, calls me to connect with our beautiful broken earth, and this is the communion that I find most important at the moment.
We agreed in the end to accept our variety of approaches – to collectively explore different ways of making communion, seeking meaning in difference.
Here is my own communion liturgy, Imagine sharing it in the place pictured above.
Communion
BREAD
As you take the bread, describe what it means to you, right here, right now
THE REST LISTEN ONLY
This is my body
Made from the same atoms as yours
Walking the same roads that you walk
Thrilling to the same touches
Recoiling at the same pains
We are the same
We are given to each other
Woven together
Me in you
You in me
Through me, you are
Through you, I live
Together we will love.
WINE
As you take the wine, what does the word ‘redemption’ mean to you right now in this place.
This is my blood
Pumping at the soft centre
Of all things that are
Or ever were -
Or ever come into being
I am life
I am the am-ness that makes anything what it was meant to be
I am the substance sometimes known as love
That leaks and leaches into even the darkest places
Drink deep of me my friends
I am overflowing
I am poured out at this feast
I give you every last drop, so
Drink deep.
