Article 12: The Lord’s Supper – a celebratory feast
January 16, 2011
BMC- Luke 22:14-20,28-30 & 24:13-35
Introduction: De Vinci’s Last Supper Remixed
Today we consider Article 12: The Lord’s Supper, a celebration of what many refer to as the Last Supper. For my brother-in-law, this means that we can have breakfast. We can have lunch. We can even have dinner when we eat together for a meal, but we can no longer have supper because the last one already happened.
Other’s may find themselves wondering, if that was Jesus’ last supper; what did his first supper look like? Well this comic suggests that it probably wasn’t all that unlike the first supper of any infant we know.
While we may imagine the first supper differently, our picture of the last supper is probably fairly uniform and engrained in our minds. This is a story that has become iconic in our culture and was visually standardized long ago. Most of us would readily recognize this portrayal of the Last Supper by Leonardo DiVinci. Lots of artists have tried their hand at reproducing it through various mediums such as with Legos as seen here.
Others have taken much more time and patience such as this one done on an Etch-a Sketch. I can’t imagine the time that it took to etch out each of those lines and then to think that with a simple flip of the etch-a-sketch, it would all disappear. Or the time that it took my Grandmother Maurer to crotchet this 6 foot Last Supper that hangs in my study at home. She gave it to me as a gift when I graduated from Bluffton College in ‘99.
Other’s have not only reproduced the Last Supper in a different medium, but they have also reinterpreted it through pop culture lenses such as this photo mosaic of Star Wars character’s set like the last supper. This whole picture is made up of thousands of small frames from the movies. Up close, you simply see scenes from the movies, but when you step back, your eyes blend the colors together to see the bigger picture.
Why even some of our own well-known Bethelites have tried their hand at recapturing the imagery of the Last Supper. During a vacation Bible school some years ago, three of the classes took on the roles of the disciples and Jesus. While in costume, they portrayed the familiar Last Supper scene.
The meaning
While the imagery has a certain amount of standardization to it, it also bears a great deal of creativity and variety. And yet for all of the variety, each representation still connects to or pays homage to the original story and our regular reenactment of the story in taking communion together. And I would suggest to you that this is true of our Christian practice of this ritual as well. Among various churches and denominations, there is a wide variety of method for serving communion and yet each version still connects to that original story and carries a deeper meaning.
This is a ritual that we celebrate together which reenacts the Biblical story of Jesus’ last night with his disciples. Our first Luke passage this morning records this portion of that night. Jesus had eagerly waited to celebrate this Passover meal with his disciples. He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it saying this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. After supper, he took the cup and said, this is the cup of the new covenant, which is poured out for you.
When it comes to communion, some partake of communion every week, some once a month while others tend to share in communion one to four times a year. Some use wine while others use grape juice. Some share in a common cup while others use small, individual cups. Some use wafers while others use loaves of bread. Some serve it to people in the pews while others invite people who are able to come forward. Some eat the bread and then drink the juice while others dip the bread into the juice and eat them both at the same time.
Once again, method does not tend to be as important to us as meaning. There is variety even among various Mennonite churches in how they practice communion and whether or not they even remain consistent in any one way or they practice communion in various ways. It is common among Mennonites to practice this ritual only a few times a year and typically Mennonites will use grape juice rather than wine. What tends to be more important to Mennonites, however, is the meaning behind the ritual and that it is a symbol rather than the literal body and blood of Christ, as some traditions believe.
For Mennonites, communion is a renewal of our covenant with God and with our church body, which is why we have historically emphasized the importance of being at peace with our brothers and sisters when we come to the table. It is also a reminder of Jesus' sacrifice for us and a way to give thanks for what God has done in our lives. Just as bread and drink nourish the life of our bodies, the symbolic body and blood of Christ remind us that Christ nourishes the church. What we tend to forget, however, is that this is a celebration and that in it we look "forward in joy and hope to the feast of the redeemed with Christ in the age to come."
A Celebratory Feast
We see this reality of celebration alluded to in Luke 22:14-20, 28-30. The original last supper has just taken place and Jesus refers to the kingdom to come of which the disciples will be a part. At one level, this meal is a very solemn occasion as a predecessor to Jesus’ arrest and death. Yet at another level, this is a celebration. It is a celebration of the Passover, an act of remembering God’s deliverance in the past from Egypt. But more than that, it is a celebration of the new deliverance from sin and death that will soon be made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Likewise in Luke 24:13-35 we read of the road to Emmaus and the men who were traveling along after Jesus' death. A stranger joins them in their journey and they talk together about Jesus and all that has happened. They invite the stranger to stay with them rather than traveling on. In the midst of breaking bread together, their eyes are opened and they realize that it was Jesus walking along with them. In fact in his commentary on Luke, Richard Jensen points out that meal time is revelation time in the Gospel of Luke. The feeding of the multitude in Luke 9, the Lord’s Supper in Luke 22 and the Emmaus Road experiences are all one’s in which Jesus is revealed in a meal.[1]
In this way, communion is a ritual that opens our eyes to Christ and invites our celebration of His resurrection. Death has not defeated Him. He has defeated death. This is cause for celebration.
It is common for us to be very somber and reflective when we take communion together and there is something significant about that. It is an important ritual and it should be approached with respect. At the same time, we should not loose sight of the fact that this is a celebratory feast of which we partake. We should not loose sight of the deeper meaning behind the ritual. We should not loose sight of the abundance out of which Christ has given to us.
My Experiences
In my experience these meanings of the ritual can come through in a variety of ways in which various congregations or traditions practice communion. In my family growing up, I spent time in the United Church of Christ, which served communion on trays once a month. I also spent time in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which served communion every Sunday on trays.
In both cases for my family, communion was something that you did not participate in until you became a member of the church. Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) took communion every week and their denominational symbol is even a red chalice with a cross in it. As baptism has historical significance to our formation as a people, communion has historical significance to their formation as a people. A significant part of their breaking away centered on the policing of communion at the time. Only people with a token were allowed to take communion. Is it any wonder that their tradition practices communion very freely every week?
This was some of what I learned in the pastor’s class that I took there to become a member. After I became a member of the church, I began taking weekly communion there. I remember being given a sheet of paper to place in my Bible to help me to focus each week and to think about the significance of that ritual, the meaning behind it.
Unfortunately, an equally powerful memory from that time was one Sunday when I was an acolyte. The acolyte came in with the flame that would light the candles on the communion table. We lit them and then sat down at the side up front during the service. At the end of the service we would take the flame, extinguish the candles and walk out of the church carrying the light of Christ into the world.
On one particular Sunday during the communion portion of the service, I was serving as acolyte. The worship leader was a dear woman who served as an important mentor for me. We were singing, “Let us break bread together.” It is a song that I really liked but that took on a whole new meaning that day. At one point in the song, it goes, “When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun, Oh Lord have mercy on me.” I guess she was distracted that day, because she didn’t realize it until I told her why I was laughing. When she came to that part of the song, she had sung, “when I fall on my face with my knees to the rising sun, Oh lord have mercy on me.” Since then, whenever I hear that song, I still chuckle about the image that such a little reversal of words created in my mind.
And yet, that is part of what communion should be for us. Just as that song transports me back to a time in my life when I was in elementary school and worshiping with another congregation; our sharing together in communion should take us back to a significant time in our faith development or at it’s best back to the night of Jesus’ betrayal and what that has meant for us spiritually.
As William Barclay notes in his commentary on Luke, “A sacrament is something, usually a very ordinary thing, which has acquired a meaning far beyond itself for him who has eyes to see and a heart to understand”[2] Along with this, he shares that “When Sir James Barrie’s mother died and they were clearing up her belongings, they found that she had kept all the envelopes in which her famous son had posted her the cheques he so faithfully and lovingly sent. They were only old envelopes but they meant much to her. That is a sacrament.”
The Limits
And so it is that in celebrating communion together, it is not the method so much as it is the connection to the original story and the meaning. Moreover while it is a solemn event, it is also a celebratory feast that should transport us back in our faith or to the time of Christ. For me whether it has been in my churches growing up, in the midst of an Emmaus community, or even on the sidelines at a Catholic Mass. The meaning has come through, we have celebrated together, and I have been transported back.
In fact, there is only one time that I can think of in which I have not experienced meaning in communion. It was a very contemporary service that we were visiting. It was the first Sunday of the month, so they had communion available. I truly believe that they were trying to be seeker friendly in their approach, but in the process it lacked any meaning for me personally.
After the sermon and before the offering was taken, the pastor simply said that if you’d like to take communion, the bread and the juice are in the back, feel free to get up and help yourself. The bread and juice have already been blessed. For me, this approach to communion lacked meaning. The only aspect of it that even resembled communion to me was that there was bread and juice. Otherwise, it just seemed more like a mid-service snack to me than a celebration of the Last Supper.
In the first place, it lacked the re-enactment of the event that it was to remind us of. Visitors who had never taken communion before would have no idea of what it means. In the second place, it felt like a tack on rather than an actual movement of the worship service. It didn’t seem like a celebration to me. In the third place, it lacked a sense of community. It took place in the rear as a serve yourself opportunity rather than an act of the body of Christ together and thus it did not transport me back.
While I hope that we don’t get overly focused on the method to the point that it becomes a barrier to what God may be doing in our midst; I also hope that in celebrating communion we experience the meaning that is intended. I hope that while we don’t experience this as a literal eating of the body and blood of Christ, that we do experience the mystery in the event in which Christ reveals himself as he did to those walking on the road to Emmaus.
Conclusion
As with anything that we do, there is a balance between being legalistic about form and about the meaning that is carried in the event. Though we practice communion in various ways, it is important that we move beyond the form to the deeper meaning that is conveyed through the act.
This morning as we reflect upon the deeper meaning of the ritual of communion, may we enter in seeking to commune with God and each other. May we enter in remembering Christ and what he endured on our behalf, but may we also enter in a spirit of celebration for what comes of this sacrifice. May we experience joy in the abundant blessings that God has to offer us and expectant jubilation at the coming kingdom that has already been cemented in place and yet has not yet fully arrived. May God meet us and lead us through this ritual together.
Amen.
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