Communion.
One of those Church things.
One of those things that if you grew up in a church, you've experienced hundreds of times--maybe thousands. The little cup of grape juice. The tiny bit of a crack or a cube of bread or a weird wafer that is probably made out of some type of styrofoam.
Preachers say mostly the same things every tine: "On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, and when he broke it, he said, 'this is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me...'"
I've done this over and over with a solemn expression, trying really hard to find meaning for the thousandth time. Trying to feel something. And while I can always express gratefulness for what Jesus did for me on the cross, I don't need this spectacle to do that. And I'm betting I'm not alone in thinking there should be more. I think we're doing it wrong.
Religious people do love a good ritual. It's comforting, after all, to be "in the know" and " in with the in crowd." To not know or understand the ritual is to feel less than, not with it, an outsider, and nobody likes that. (I would argue that that is a very good reason to oust the rituals--because it would make the unchurched feel like outsiders should they happen to venture in. But I digress.)
No one can understand anything about the taking of Communion or The Lord's Supper, as it is also called, without going back. Waaaay back. Think Moses.
Way back when God was kicking Pharoah's butt with plagues, the denouement was the tenth plague--all the first-borns would die.
Now God could have just said, "Hey people in Goshen, you descendants of Jacob, I'm going to do this thing in Egypt where people and animals are gonna die, but don't worry, nothing going to happen to you." He did that for some of the plagues--no flies in Goshen, no plague on livestock, no three days of darkness. But the plague of death on the firstborn would hit everybody.
Unless.
Unless those in Goshen killed a lamb and wiped some of its blood on the sides and tops of their doorframes. Exodus 12:13 says, "when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt." They could directly participate in what God was going to do and live, or ignore it and someone in the house could die.
God seems to like symbolism. It's as if he's always saying, "Do I need to draw you a picture?" And this picture of the blood of an innocent young lamb saving their households and livestock from death was one that those people wouldn't fully comprehend, even though they were charged to share the Passover meal every year at that time to remember how God saved them. To them, it was merely a ritual of remembrance and thanksgiving. They could not see that there was a bigger picture.
Not until Jesus.
Jesus was the one that brought it all together. And it happened while he was celebrating a Passover meal hundreds of years after that first one. He makes the correlation between that lamb's blood and his own--that lamb's body and his own, illustrating that the sacrifice of himself that he was about to make would save them from eternal death.
Of the four gospels, only Luke reports that Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me." John barely mentions the meal at all, instead focusing on Jesus washing feet and other discourse.
To me, it seems clear that if Jesus wanted any remembering done, it was in connection to Passover--to say, "Hey, that was just a picture of a greater truth, and now you need to serve that greater truth right along with the roasted lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs." In short, it was the Passover made new, but still a once-a-year event.
But wait, then what was going on when Paul had to scold the Corinthians about how they were doing "The Lord's Supper"? Paul said, "your meetings do more harm than good" and "When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk."
Whoa. What happened between that Passover lesson taught by Jesus and what was going on in Paul's day? It doesn't sound like a once-a-year Passover celebration, but something that was happening at their regular meetings (which could have been weekly, but it really doesn't say).
It sounds like they were sharing a meal, because, let's face it, no one is going to have their hunger satisfied or get drunk on modern communion elements, and Paul says "When you come together to eat..."
The Greek word for "communion" in koinōnia and according to Strong's Concordance means social intercourse, communication, fellowship. Does that sound like any church service communion you've participated in? So even though in church, the terms "communion" and "The Lord's Supper" are used interchangeably, The Lord's Supper is really supposed to be a PART of Communion, which is fellowship--probably involving a meal. We remember together. Looking at each other. Caring for each other. Sharing our lives with each other. And Jeus didn't say "in remembrance of my death and resurrection." He said "in remembrance of ME." His whole life. The way he healed and helped, encouraged and admonished.
The way he loved.
Leave it to the Church--in its exuberance for ritual--to reduce it to the tiniest bits and call it good. And when they use all that time to just receive that nibble of a cracker and that sip of juice rather than connecting with one another, I think they've completely missed the point.
Disclaimer: If you are someone who finds deep meaning in a typical modern communion service, I don't mean to invalidate that. But no matter where we are in our knowledge and experience, we can always go deeper. We shouldn't be satisfied with symbol when substance is available.