We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 3
by Mary Lehman Yoder
Assembly Mennonite Church
Goshen, Indiana, July 20, 2008
Ephesians 2:11 ff; John 13:34 ff
Back in 2002 when the propaganda war regarding Al Q’eda and Iraq was running at full steam, I heard that Rich Meyer, who has frequently served with Christian Peacemaker Teams in the West Bank, was floating a proposal around:
Our nation is gearing up for war. The Pledge of Allegiance is starting to be used as a measuring stick at best or a club at worst. How shall we respond? We should celebrate communion every Sunday!
Now Rich has had some unusual ideas from time to time, but he also has a very strong inner spiritual compass, and I take his calls quite seriously. Besides, I am a firm believer in the formative nature of communion. I’d like to see us celebrate more often, and I’m certainly opposed to Christians taking up arms. But this one caught me off guard. War – communion; Pledge of Allegiance – breaking bread and sharing the cup. What inverse relationship between these did Rich Meyer imagine?
Our celebration of the Lord’s supper this morning is set in the midst of the larger summer peacemaking theme: A People of Shalom: Rooted in God’s Wholeness. Now shalom is a bigger idea than just the absence of war. It includes a whole range of harmonious relationships with the Holy One, with friends, neighbors, enemies, the earth itself. We’ve been hearing about this in a rich variety of voices over the last weeks, and there are more to come.
So this morning we are asking the question: How is the Lord’s supper a meal of shalom; and what sort of pledge are we making when we break the bread and drink the cup?
We have heard two passages of scripture interwoven:
Ephesians 2 is part of a larger theological statement, rich with poetic imagery, about what God is doing in Christ. We see a picture here of the former divide between Jews and Gentiles. This separation no longer exists because Jesus has broken down the dividing wall that Jews earlier thought so essential to maintaining clear boundaries as the chosen ones of God. The word of peace, of shalom, is spoken to both those near and those far off. The categories of stranger and enemy no longer apply as Christ becomes the peacemaker and indeed peace personified. He is our peace, the text declares. The vision is for a unified whole, built together into a dwelling place for God here on earth as it is in heaven.
What a deep and sorrowful irony struck me this week pondering the ever-expanding literal dividing wall that the state of Israel continues to build, separating the Palestinians not only from Jews, but Palestinians from their homes, fields, workplaces, and schools. How must this passage read to citizens of Hebron? Of East Jerusalem?
And what about the dividing wall going up on the southern border of our own country?
Lord have mercy.
If Ephesians 2 is theological reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ death, John 13 is in some way closer to the original events. Set in John’s telling of the Last Supper, these verses give us insight into how the early church understood those last days of Jesus’ life.
As many of you know, in John’s telling of the Last Supper, there is no “Eat this bread in remembrance of me.” Instead we have Jesus, the honored guest at the Passover, excusing himself from the table during the meal to act as a servant and washing the disciples’ feet. The disciples, including Judas who is still present at this point, puzzle over this odd act, and later in the chapter Jesus issues a “new commandment”: Love one another as I have loved you. This new commandment in fact has much in common with the “greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Both in the footwashing that precedes it and the arrest, trial and death that follow after it, Jesus demonstrates that this command to love is, in fact, a love that acts in service,
and more than that, it is a non-retaliatory love,
a love that extends beyond “one another”,
beyond neighbor, all the way to enemy.
In this meal of shalom Jesus both models and instructs his disciples in the way of love and peace. They are to relinquish violence even to the point of death, to lay down their life rather than take the life of another. The Gospel affirms that in loving friends, neighbors and enemies – even to the point of death – the power of God is unleashed.
The tree of shalom can never have its roots in violence.
The peaceable kingdom can never be brought about by war. Rather, love – suffering love, love even unto death – is the power by which the cosmos is transformed.
When we come together around the table we signal our desire, our intent, to live the way Jesus lived, and if need be, to die the way Jesus died. That is sobering stuff, and who among us would firmly pledge with Peter, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Quick-tongued Peter stands right up with his pledge of allegiance to Jesus. And we know what happened soon after … I am not so bold, so certain as Peter, yet this is the way I want to live and love by the grace of God.
Communion, the meal of shalom, is a remembrance of how Jesus lived and died, of how he laid down his life and loved fully until the end. Communion is deeply spiritual.
Communion is also a radical pledge of allegiance to Jesus. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we commit ourselves to acts of service on behalf of friends, neighbors and enemies. Communion is also profoundly political and strikingly countercultural.
I think that is what Rich Meyer was after when he made his proposal.
But let me also quickly add that these ideas about communion as both spiritual and political are not only fringy Mennonite interpretations:
The sacrifice of Christ is not about salvation through mere physiological pain. It is about salvation through the nonviolent suffering love of Jesus toward all and for all, even lethal enemies. It is about revealing the true nature of Divine love, the true and authentic Face of God.
These words come from Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy, a Catholic priest deeply committed to the way of non-violence. McCarthy has written a booklet entitled The Non-Violent Eucharist, in which he challenges the church to more clearly proclaim with each and every Eucharist the summons to the non-violent way of Jesus and the command to “love one another as I have loved you.” It is radical stuff. Back to Rich Meyer’s proposal: Through these wretched years of war in Iraq and more saber-rattling in regard to Iran, we have not, in fact, celebrated communion every Sunday here at Assembly. We have not pledged our allegiance to Jesus each week in the bread and the cup. But there has been a change in our communion language that we as a pastoral team made. The words we added are not found in the Mennonite Ministers Manual. The language we chose was, in fact, inspired by Father McCarthy’s sermon I mentioned earlier. Listen:
Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you proclaim the way of suffering love, of non-violence and reconciliation.
May our eating and drinking deepen our love for Jesus
and for our brothers and sisters gathered here.
May our eating and drinking deepen our love for our friends and neighbors
and also for our enemies.
Some of you have noticed this addition and commented on it with appreciation.
Others of you may not be aware at all of this shift. Whether you consciously hear and remember or not matters somewhat less to me than what we actually do in living as people who love one another, who love friends, neighbors and enemies.
So this morning you were invited to bring supplies for the Interfaith Hospitality Network as a modest act of service, as a way of “deepening love for our neighbors” in this community.
There is some documentation suggesting that the early church made this kind of sharing a regular thing. Each time the meal was shared, the extra food was distributed to the poor and needy among their own circle and beyond. The table was shared by those who declared their allegiance to Jesus. Its bounty was extended beyond those close and committed friends of Jesus. Our brothers and sisters at Faith Mennonite (Goshen, Ind.) link these two aspects of table fellowship more closely than we in their weekly common meal and food pantry. Once or twice we have brought food to restock Faith’s pantry when we celebrate communion. Perhaps we should make some kind of sharing beyond our own circle a regular feature of communion.
I have no doubt there are more ways that we can extend the table, ways that we discover that this meal of shalom not only deepens our love for Jesus, but also our love for friends, neighbors and enemies.
As we prepare to pledge our allegiance in this communion, let us join in singing “Jesus Christ is waiting” (Sing the Journey #30).
Celebrating at the Lord’s Table
We come now to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. While it is a joy to share this food in Jesus’ name; it is also a joy to share these supplies with our neighbors at the Interfaith Hospitality Network.
Before we come to the table let us prepare our hearts and minds in a prayer of confession:
Lord Jesus Christ,
As we come to share the blessings of your table,
We cannot forget the rawness of the earth.We cannot take this bread and forget those who are hungry.
Put our prosperity at the service of the poor.We cannot drink this cup and forget those who are thirsty.
Put our fullness at the service of the empty.We cannot hear your words of peace and forget the world at war.
Show us how to turn weapons into welcome signs and the lust for power into a desire for peace.We cannot celebrate the feast of your shalom and wholeness and forget our divisions.
Lord, heal your church in every brokenness.Even now we give thanks that You do not abandon us.
When we come back to you,
Your arms are wide in welcome.
You prepare a table for us
offering us not just bread and wine
but your very self,So that we may be filled, forgiven, healed, blessed and made new again.
You are worth all our pain and all our praise.Gratitude, praise, hearts lifted high, voices full and joyful…
These you deserve. These we offer. AMEN.Inspired by “Liturgy for Communion B,”
A Wee Worship Book by the Wild Goose Worship Group
(Wild Goose Publications, 1999), pp. 98-99.
Invitation: All those who have come to know God’s gracious love and who have publicly declared their desire to follow after Jesus are welcome to come to the table.
This morning we will come to the table in two lines, as we often do. After you receive the bread, you may drink from the common cup or dip your bread in the cup retained for that use. As you stand in line, you are invited to pray for a friend, a neighbor, an enemy, asking God’s blessing and shalom for them.
Words of institution
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
That the Lord Jesus Christ on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said,
This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.Bless, O Christ, the bread we share.
Make it the bread of our communion with you and one another.In the same way he took the cup also after supper, saying,
This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of meBless, O Christ, this cup we share
Draw us into your covenant of love; grant us rest for our souls and joy for our journey.For whenever you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup,
you proclaim the way of suffering love, of non-violence and reconciliation.
May our eating and drinking deepen our love for Jesus
and for our brothers and sisters gathered here.
May our eating and drinking deepen our love for our friends and neighbors
and also for our enemies.
Sharing the peace after communion
Christ who has nourished us is our peace.
Strangers and friends, male and female,
Old and young, Christ has broken down the barriers —
binding us to him and to each other.Having tasted Christ’s goodness,
let us share his peace.The peace of Christ be with you.
AND ALSO WITH YOU.
You may share the peace with one another.