October 8thMystery, Miracles, and Memory
To my dear TFMC family,
This past Sunday we celebrated World Communion Sunday. In my introductory remarks, I briefly spoke about how I saw Communion being special. I didn’t say exactly how special it was for me. I have always felt it a privilege to lead communion for congregations. I think it’s a poignant practice that can highlight and elevate significant moments in congregational life, for example baptisms. I fondly remember a moment where a newly baptized member served communion to their father. Personally, I also remember the last time I celebrated with a congregation. It’s always a part of my long list of lasts with a congregation. It’s that special to me.
As I’ve continued to read Richard Beck’s book, Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age, I began to think about Communion, it’s place in our worship, and it’s place in the Christian Church. And it got me thinking.
In our liturgy surrounding communion, specifically the words of institution, it’s clear that Anabaptists tend towards communion as a practice of remembrance and emulation. It’s something that we do that repeats something that’s happened. We do it to remind ourselves of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples, and we celebrate it, because Jesus did.
The elements, whether they be wine, juice, bread or grapes, are symbols that point us back to remembering that Last Supper. As Beck would write, “The bread remains bread and the wine remains wine.” Alone, they aren’t filled with meaning until we place meaning upon them.
Our Catholic brothers and sisters understand communion far differently, in that they believe that there is something deeply mysterious that occurs. During the Eucharist, for them, the physical bread and wine are miraculously and supernaturally changed into the actual body and blood of Jesus, something that’s known as transubstantiation. In the eucharist, Jesus becomes physically and literally present. It’s a miracle each Sunday.
Beck writes, and I think he’s correct, that for “Protestants, the Lord’s Supper is mostly about memory; for Catholics, it’s about a miracle.” And it makes me wonder, if we’ve lost a bit of that mystery in our practice of remembrance. I’m not suggesting that we’re doing anything wrong, but I’m wondering if there might be some mystery that we can recover in this practice, or to, perhaps, put it very crassly, “Where might we expect Jesus to show up in our communion?”
I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, I do come with expectation of God or Jesus doing something special when we gather for Communion. So on one hand, I would disagree with Beck,I would argue that there is a lot of mystery in the way we celebrate communion. I would argue that somewhere between the prayers and all of us eating these small portions of bread, and drinking these small portions of juice, there is some mystery where God and Jesus are particularly present. How, I couldn’t say, but isn’t that part of the mystery; in between the words and the practice, God and Jesus do show up and are here with us.
Or there is the mystery that somehow in this common practice; this common ritual, we are also united as a faith community and as a people, in Christ’s grace and peace. We are connected in a way that extends beyond friendship. Or even the mystery of how we are connected to our siblings in Christ all across the globe as we celebrate this simple meal of bread and up.
So I think, on one hand, Beck gets it wrong, suggesting that communion for Protestants is only about memory, I think there’s a bit more, and at the same time, and I think he’s right, in that we don’t celebrate communion in the same way that our brothers and sisters in the Catholic church do, where it’s a miracle. Again, somehow, Anabaptists find themselves in between the two; a third way, if you will.. By celebrating this ritual of the church, we continue to open ourselves up to the mystery of what occurs when we gather to eat the bread and drink from the cup of Christ..
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld, Pastor