I recently visited a church on communion Sunday and watched with delight as a child approached the table not once but twice. He was hungry, it seemed, and the table was open for folks to help themselves. Grinning, he returned to his pew with a second helping of grace.
The scene brought me back seven years to the banks of the North Saskatchewan River, where our congregation had just celebrated a baptism. We lined up to receive the bread and juice from our newly baptized sister’s hands. The church had begun to practice a wide-open communion, inviting all who hunger for Jesus to join the feast, but we hadn’t yet ironed out all the details.
So when our four-year-old daughter and her best friend got in line across the clearing while I tended a busy baby, I held my breath, hoping no one would frown at their enthusiasm. (“Let the little children to come to me,” I heard Jesus calling.) I was relieved to see them retreat with their chunks of bread and happy smiles.
After a minute or two, though, I saw one of the girls back in line. She was ready for seconds. She wanted more.
And I watched a server tear off another piece of bread for her waiting hands.
To be very clear: I am not seeking to open a round of communion debates. The only scandal I see in this story is that we are not all as unabashedly hungry as these children.
Indeed, I am seeking to learn from their wisdom. I think we could build a whole theology from their open-hearted requests for more.
Sometimes I act like a too-polite guest at God’s table, trying to take the smallest serving to avoid being rude or disappointed. When the news is a firehose of terror, or when needs of the world near and far overwhelm me, I don’t want God to feel embarrassed if I make a request and there’s not enough.
But the children remind me that God is no stingy host. God is like an Italian nonna I know, begging me to lift my plate for seconds or thirds, delighted to be asked.
I want to learn again from the children to hold out my cupped hands, my broken heart, and say, “God, I am starving for justice. I’m famished for goodness and healing in my life and in this world. I’m so hungry to feel your love.” I want to learn from them to trust that I will be fed.
The weekend of the communion church visit, we also sat around our kitchen table for hours with friends. Children ran laughing around us, their lips purpled by blueberry crisp. In the general chaos, we talked about grace. (These friends are Lutherans, and I always love talking to Lutherans about grace.) I saw in my mind a picture of an overflowing cup in the presence of enemies, a sense of divine peace in the deep middle of the long arc toward redemption.
I don’t always know how to square Jesus’s promise that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled with the scale and scope of suffering and injustice in this world. But I know that when I let myself openly ask God to meet my hunger, something shifts.
I know that the children who come to Jesus hungry and then ask for even more teach me about grace, and so do friends around a table, telling the truth about the world we long for, telling the truth about the glimpses of goodness and mercy we encounter when we raise our bowls for more.
Watching By Justin Sun
Recently, I’ve had some new high(er) church worship experiences. For a guy who’s been making fun of low-church communion “wafers”—I call it recycled 80 lb. cardstock—my whole life, it’s been a trip. It is both refreshing and nerve-wracking to be watching these familiar-yet-not rituals from folks both like and unlike me—their graceful movements stirring up questions and helping me feel like an outsider, in a good way.
You might notice I say “watching.” I’ve yet to actually take communion with any of these great people. Every time I’ve been approached with the bread and cup recently, I’ve asked myself: am I living in real solidarity with these people through Christ’s invitation? So far, the answer has been a resounding, “No.”
I think the weight and beauty of the communion table is not only that it calls and welcomes all, but that it transforms all it calls and welcomes (as illustrated beautifully by my cowriters). For me, unless and until I take that seriously—that the table binds me in life and blood to a real “other”—I don’t think the ritual, and what it truly means, is for me. And I think that’s OK.
God willing, there will come a time and place for me to do so again.
Justin Sun is a student at Vancouver School of Theology/Vancouver Coastal Health.
Kool-Aid By Anika Reynar
Cindy’s reflection brought me back to my own baptism, at Camp Valaqua in the foothills of Alberta. I asked a family member to bake a loaf of bread, and a friend to bring grape juice pressed from the fruit of their garden. They both forgot. Don’t worry, a few friends reassured me. We’ll sort it out. They returned from the camp kitchen with hotdog buns and pink Kool-Aid. It was all they could find.
The taste of that communion stays with me—imperfect and highly processed, yet consecrated and shared with a healthy dose of laughter.
I participate in communion from a deep belief in transformation. It’s a bold act to bring our desire, doubt and curiosity to the table, allowing whatever we have, however insufficient, to become the nourishment we long for. This transformation is a grace.
A piece of art by Olly Costello hangs on the wall in my bedroom. Many hands reach out, catching a stream of stardust. Across the hands are the words, “We have been given all the tools.” It reminds me that the grace we receive is also ours to extend, actively creating a world nourished by what we share, whether homemade bread or hotdog buns, grape juice or Kool-Aid.
Anika Reynar works in Boston as a facilitator and mediator in environmental disputes.
Hunger By Ryan Dueck
When we celebrate communion at our church, I often feel a sense of relief. It usually comes after my sermon—a sermon which may or may not have been what it could or should have been. It is a gift to be able to let Jesus take over—to let the words and the explanations and illustrations and interpretations give way to incarnation and atonement, to the miracle of mercy, to bread and wine, the body and blood of our Lord.
I often invite people to the table with these words: “This table is not a reward for the righteous, but an invitation to the hungry.”
I believe this deep in my bones.
And I love watching people make their way to the front of the sanctuary. I love watching them embrace these tiny little symbols of the cost of love. I love watching them take and eat. The young, the old, the sick, the healthy, the weary, the broken, the beaten down, the doubting, the impolite and the too-polite, the suspicious and the celebratory. The human. The hungry.
Yes, we could all use a second helping of grace.
Ryan Dueck is pastor at Lethbridge (Alberta) Mennonite Church.
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