What do we remember?

We are Each Other’s Bread and Wine
no. 4

Eichenberg's Lord's Supper (small)by Gareth Brandt
Emmanuel Mennonite Church
bbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, November 11, 2007

 

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

On Remembrance Day in Canada, our country asks us to remember the sacrifice of soldiers who died and are dying in battle.  “Armistice Day” was the original name given to this national holiday that began in 1919 to remember the First World War as the “war to end all wars.”  Armistice is about the laying down of weapons.

Sadly, World War 1 was not the war to end all wars but the war that began the bloodiest century in the history of humankind.  Guns have not been laid down; rather, more sophisticated weaponry has been invented.  We have a day of remembrance, but it seems we have amnesia.  We forget and repeat the vicious cycles of violence all over again.

Without memory we are bound to repeat the mistakes of history.  Memory is also one of the primary handles we have for understanding the roots of our faith.  Though we experience faith in the present, those experiences are built on the foundation of memory.  Memory keeps the significance of past events relevant and meaningful for the present.

It is good to remember.  But what is it that we remember?  What do we remember today in a peace church?  Remembrance Day has always been a bit of a dilemma for me.  Should I wear a poppy?  Should we participate in Remembrance Day services?  What do we remember? 

The Corinthian Christians also had some problems with their memory: they were forgetting, or at least ignoring, the reason why they were coming together as a church.  They had a careless, frivolous attitude toward the Lord’s Supper.  They were pigging out and getting sloshed as if it were Friday night at the local bar and grill.  They were not remembering Jesus.  They were eating and drinking in an unworthy manner.  The Corinthians were sinning against the body and blood of the Lord!  Paul says in exasperation, “What can I say to you?  Shall I praise you for this?  Certainly not!”

The Corinthians had forgotten that Jesus came to bring peace.  There was division in their ranks.  They were not waiting for each other.  Some were hungry and others were drunk.  Some were being humiliated while others were boastful and proud.  They were despising the church, their brothers and sisters… the body of Christ.  They were not recognizing each other as the body of Christ.  They were taking communion in an unworthy manner. In medieval times the common people were not allowed to take the bread or the cup of the Lord’s Supper for fear that they might consume it unworthily and bring disease or death upon themselves.  You would not want to drop the body of Jesus or spill his blood on the floor!  In a story from the Radical Reformation of the 16th century, the bread is offered for the first time to a farmer who trembles with such fear at holding the body of the Lord that he drops it on the floor!  Sacrilege! 

But it is not the actual body and blood of Jesus we are consuming or what is being defiled.  It is the church!  Look at 1 Corinthians 12: it is the church that is the body of Christ.  When we eat and drink, we recognize the church!  The presence of Christ is not in the bread and wine, the presence of Christ is in the gathered community.  We are the church!  Christ is present in us as a body. 

Therefore anyone who is at variance with their brother or sister for any reason drinks unworthily because they do not realize that the body of Christ cannot be divided.  If there is sin, bitterness, grudges or hurt feelings that have not been dealt with, we are lying when we take communion.

What is needed?  Paul instructs us in verses 27-29: Self-examination and recognition.  Self-examination is reflection on our relationship with God.  Recognition is a reflection on my relationships with the community.  This is “communion,” after all.  In the breaking of bread and drinking of wine, we recognize the presence of Christ in the community gathered around the table.

What of these symbols before us?  These are appropriate symbols of the gathered community.  We are individual bodies.  Each of us is like a tiny grain of wheat.  What is necessary for the grain to become a loaf of bread?  It must be crushed to make the flour and then mixed with the healing oil of the Spirit.  Each of us is like an individual grape that must be crushed to make the juice that is poured into one cup.  Each grain and each grape is crushed and joined with all the others to make the loaf and the cup.  We are one body, one loaf, one cup.

As Jesus gave up his power and glory to be crushed for our sake, so we also give up our selfish individualism for the sake of the one loaf, the body of Christ.  This is communion.  This is the fellowship of real bodies with all their dirt and imperfection sitting on the same level touching, tasting, embracing… and together we are a real body, the body of Christ!  And when we meet and eat and drink together, Jesus is in our midst!  That is mystery! 

Communion is to remember the peacemaking work of Christ on the cross.  But it is not only a reconciled relationship with God.  We cannot have a reconciled relationship with God without reconciled relationships with fellow human beings.  They are inextricably bound together.  Jesus came to bring peace.  We cannot say we love God if we do not love our brother or sister.  That is a contradiction.  We cannot remember Jesus if we do not remember our relationships with our sisters and brothers in the body of Christ and in the human family.  “To remember is to work for peace” is the message the Mennonite Central Committee buttons proclaim.

What do we remember?  We remember Jesus.  As we worship and commune today, we proclaim the peace of Christ to the world.  Jesus already fought the “war to end all wars” two thousand years ago.  Armistice Day was when Jesus died.  The passion of Christ was meant to abolish war, to put to rest human hostility and strife.  Maybe if we had a better memory of Jesus’ death, we would not need to have a Remembrance Day to remember those who died in wars! 

Throughout our culture, from entertainment to government, we are bombarded with words and images that proclaim, “Might makes right.”  But in Christ, the threat of death and violence no longer has ultimate power.  Jesus showed us that love is the ultimate power.  In the act of gathering around this table, we remember that love and proclaim it to the world.  This act of the church is meant to be a witness to what God’s intention is for the whole world: to live in peace and harmony. 

The Corinthians forgot this and fought over food and drink.  So-called Christian countries forget when they go to church on Sunday and then march off to war on Monday.  Churches forget when they partake in Communion but criticize the style of music in the worship service.  We forget when we hold a grudge against our neighbour.  We forget when we scheme how we can get revenge.  We forget when we talk about “us and them.”  We forget when we ignore an injustice.  We forget.

Let us remember.  What do we remember?  Let us remember and recognize the body of Christ in this room and the face of Jesus in all the people we will meet when we go from here.