October 24, 2012
Hold the Applause
A recent communion meditation at my church turned into a get-out-the-vote
promotion and when completed about half of the congregation applauded enthusiastically.
Although the speaker’s sentiments were good, well written and applicable to the
political season, they were misplaced. Jesus didn’t institute communion so that
we would focus on ourselves or our spiritually disheveled country. On the
contrary, Jesus specifically wanted us to focus on His spilt blood and pierced
body, His sacrifice on the cross for us. When we participate in the communion
emblems Jesus tells us, “Do this in
remembrance of me.” Surely it’s the Lord who deserves the applause.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----If we were to contemplate THE scripture on The Lord’s Supper, we would notice a couple disconcerting things. The first one I notice is that we have taken a meaningful event and turned it into a symbolic ritual. Paul says, “When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk.” (I Cor 11:20-21) I hardly consider the tiny cracker square to be a meal which I can go ahead with and eat. I can understand being hungry after eating it, but unless we’re filling those bitty communion cups with potent Vodka or something of the likes, I don’t think anyone is going to be getting drunk. We are clearly not doing what they were doing.
-----Yet, it does seem a bit unfitting for the communion meditation to turn to politics, even though we have turned the meal which communion obviously was into mere symbols. Paul goes on to say, “For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.” (I Cor 11:29) Paul didn’t say, “...without discerning his body...” as is often imagined. He said, “...the body...” Now the Lord’s body is what He lived in until He was crucified and rose again. Thereafter, we have this conceptualization of His physical activity in this world being carried on through our hands and feet and bodies. That is, through the body that is the church. And of course, that body is yet His. I don’t insist on picking this nit unless its picking is particularly good. In this case it is. For not discerning the body is not thinking about and figuring out the significance of the folks we are assembled with, their state of being, their condition of need, and their aspects of joy and amusement. If I am in a group of people partaking communion, I am thinking about and considering the people with whom I am eating. Paul goes on to recognize this idea when saying, “So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.” (I Cor 11:33) It is the aspect of paying attention to one another that will cause one to wait for the other.
-----It is kind of sad all that beauty has been boiled down to a couple chomps on a tiny bit of cracker washed down with a sniffle of grape juice during a five minute interlude in a bunch of out of tune singing. We sit there all contemplatively withdrawn into ourselves never once interacting with the souls sitting around us, let alone discerning them. The conversations happening during a meal are varied and often rather personally deep. It is definitely a time of intimacy with those nearby. Nor is it an out of place time for discussing politics, especially when politics are recognized as what they truly are - templates for how we treat one another. I can think of no better place for political thought to be shared and contemplated than during the time the Lord’s body is being contemplated.
-----But since that mealtime itself has been relegated to a mere symbol, the wonderful time of its fellowship must also be boiled down into a meditation moment. After thinking it through, I can see a meditation’s good and fitting turn down some paths of politics. Really, politics is very much about institutionalizing our intentions towards one another, the very people who are of the body we must discern in that communion moment.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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