Communion on a Sunday with no Communion

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

So, no communion today. It’s a fourth Sunday of the month. Hence, the great irony of preaching on communion with no communion following two Sundays of preaching on Baptism with no baptisms. This got me thinking…

Nothing is so important for the practice of the church than the Lord’s Supper. I think that’s mostly true—at the very least, nothing that is regularly done in the life of worship is more important. You could say baptism is even more central but we are baptized once. Communion allows us the regular practice of receiving Jesus intimately, physically. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

But communion is also a difficult thing to wrap our heads around. It wasn’t that long ago—and in some places even to today—that we practiced communion once a year, maybe twice. In the days where pastors and preachers would travel by horse and buggy communion practice became very occasional. In some churches it would be years between communion celebrations. Because of this, communion took on a different kind of gravitas. It was something special, occasional, rare. Jesus, however, gave us only one instruction about how often to do communion: “Do this as often as you drink of it. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes,” he said.

That could be interpreted a number of ways. So, too, can the bit about preparation for the Lord’s Supper. Paul’s letter to 1 Corinthians is pretty clear that we are to “discern the body” of Christ or risk judgment on ourselves, but what does that mean? Do we have to reach a certain level of worthiness in God’s eyes to receive communion? Do we need to have a certain level of understanding? If so, I’m a little concerned, because I’ve done plenty of first communion classes and I can tell you that what we talk about then doesn’t stick much between then and when we talk about communion in Confirmation. If it doesn’t stick then I don’t have a lot of hope that it sticks beyond that either. Should we institute a test before receiving communion where all of you come forward and answer the question, “What does the Lord’s Supper mean to me?”

You can see what I mean. There is legitimate fear around communion. It’s not just “Am I worthy?” but also “Will I mess it up?” Will I drop the bread/wafer? Will I spill the wine? Will I accidentally eat the wafer on an intinction Sunday and stare, wide-eyed at the wine that I was supposed to dip that wafer in? We’ve all been there.

There is an argument that kids need to understand communion before they take it, and this argument is born out of 1 Corthinians 11 which we read today, but I’m hardly the first to wonder: But do any of us get it, really?

I wonder if any of us understand it better than Natalie does when she gets upset at me for not giving her communion. The paradox of the Lord’s Supper is that those who feel denied it seem to be those most ready. How many of you have been to a worship service where communion was offered but because of the rules of that church you could not participate? I’m not saying that’s wrong, but I am saying that that experience tends to widen our appreciation and desire for the Lord’s Supper the next time around.

We’re talking here about the deepest mysteries of faith. This is bread and wine, physically, substantively, but accidentally—in its inner nature—this is Christ’s body and blood. In the words of Martin Luther, Christ is in, with, and under this bread and wine.

The other thing about communion that trips people up is the question of how and when it becomes more than bread and wine. Is it in the words of Institution? Is it when I hold it up and say what Jesus said? Is there a single moment to point to and say, “Now it is Christ’s body; now it is Christ’s blood.” The answer, I think, is no, and we are all the better for it. It’s not the power of my words that make it more than bread and win. Rather, the bread and wine becomes Christ’s body in the words of Institution, in the giving of it with the words, “Given and shed for you,” and, finally, in the eating and drinking of it. It is the whole mysterious liturgy of communion by which it becomes Christ’s body and blood, so that nobody can say, “Well, the pastor flubbed that word so it’s no good.” The Holy Spirit is not in the business of listening to magic words spoken by the pastor. Rather, the Spirit intercedes in the midst of human imperfection, so it is not dependent on how holy I am or how well I do the words of institution or how holy you are in your acceptance of it, but rather it is about how holy God is.

It’s a mystery. So, I can stand up here and talk about it all day but it is a thing to be experienced. Of course, the irony is that today in our church is not a communion Sunday. While that creates a certain longing for it that might bring you back next Sunday, I wonder sometimes if that’s right. If communion is to be done whenever we gather then perhaps there should be no Sundays without communion. I’m not making a proclamation here—this isn’t the pope speaking out of his office, infallible and whatnot—I’m just wondering if our practice reflects our beliefs. Practically, I’m wondering if we don’t need communion every Sunday so that when I preach a boring, pointless sermon there is something to catch me when I fall. The great thing about communion is that whatever precedes does nothing to change the experience of it, and I worry if we don’t have enough experiential aspects to worship. We need to be actively, physically involved, and communion does that in a way that doesn’t make Lutherans uncomfortable. That’s a start.

So, no communion today. In its place let’s ponder what that means. Let’s think about who it is that needs to be allowed at the table. And let’s consider the mystery of what it means that Jesus is with us as closely as he is.