About The Eucharist
Sep 17th, 2007 by Brian Robertson
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remain on the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me..”
(Jn 15:4)
Ok, let’s start off with this basic concept. If you are not a Christian or familiar with Christianity, the Eucharist/Communion seems, well, a bit creepy. And well it should. On the surface, we are being told to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus. I realize that in some approaches there are a number of nuances in there — the wine and bread turns to the blood and flesh of Jesus only on a spiritual plane, it really IS the real item, etc.
I grew up in the Presbyterian church, where communion came around 4 times a year, I think, and consisted of Welches grape juice and some broken up Saltine crackers. Not exactly the heady stuff of spiritual experience, at least for myself. The ritual, the ceremony, has become very important to me, which is why I take communion/Eucharist at an Episcopalian church I particularly enjoy. Frankly, I can’t see going to a church service and NOT doing it, but that’s just me. (While I’m at it, I think incense, Compline-style choirs and such are the ways to go, but that was another, earlier entry!)
Mark’s basic story of the Last Supper is echoed and adjusted by the much later writings of Matthew and Luke in their somewhat different tellings of the events. John pointedly leaves out the entire thing and substitutes a foot-washing ritual that, well, never quite caught on. Can you honestly imagine that practice in church on a Sunday morning?
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 1 Cor10:16
By Paul’s time, there was a great interest in communion, so it is evident that the tradition was strong at that point; something in the way of a ceremony had been fashioned from a sharing of wine and bread with Jesus.
Running along on a similar track, it occurs to me that the concept of The Mystical Body of Christ became a way of speaking strictly about the Official Church, advocated to say that one is included as a member of the Church which is, itself, part of that Body.
Communion for me, however, takes these images a bit differently. To me, the Mystical Body of Christ is not another name for the Roman Catholic church, shall we say, but, rather, a metaphysical fact whose permeating spirit was made possible by the spiritual resurrection of Jesus, itself being the ultimate validation of God on Jesus voicing God’s intimate relationship to Jesus, a relationship open to us all.
Flesh and blood is kinship. The spiritual symbols of the flesh and blood of kinship with the Cosmic Christ and, thus, with God are for us the wine and bread. To partake of communion is to vividly experience at one time several things. First, a remembrance of Jesus, his life and teachings. Secondly, and more to the point, the experience of Jesus, the Cosmic Christ here and now. Third, our active participation as the very spiritual flesh and blood of the very spiritual Mystical Body of Christ.
In other words, we find ourselves seated at the table in the small upper room of the inn, long ago, not as disciples but as friends; not as converts but as companions; not as believers but as experiencers of Jesus’ unique existence as a window on God. Such is the power of God and of the Cosmic Christ, such as the love (Holy Spirit) generated between lover and beloved that we are totally and completely alive in that moment.
The mundane world with its sense of individuality that can be cruel and lonely gives way to our actual most real aspect of life as it is when included in the Mystical Body of Christ. The very word “communion” can be thought of as:
Middle English communioun, Christian fellowship, Eucharist, from Old French communion, from Late Latin comm
ni
, comm
On the level of prose, it makes no sense and is an abomination. On the truer level of poetry, however, it is a sublime truth of our mutual interdependency within this moment and all moments, with friends as well as enemies, with the very kingdom in which Jesus lived and to which he endless pointed the way.
Blessings,
Brian Robertson
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Yes, brother, his flesh is our flesh and his blood is our blood.
There are some interesting connections to make between the Eucharist and Genesis. It’s significant to me that Jesus calls himself the Son of Man, which is literally the Son of Adam; “Adam” means blood in Hebrew. Let’s keep in mind that the spirit breathed into Adam is God’s breath, and that the blood carries the breath to all parts of the body.
While we are popularly taught that Genesis is a revelation of our original sin, I find it hard to believe that our all-knowing God wouldn’t have anticipated that eating the apple of knowledge is exactly what would happen. Did God play some sort of trick on Adam??? Perhaps we tend to tell the creation story in terms of our sin, or maybe even suspect God of trickery, because deep down inside there is a part of us that feels we shouldn’t be separate from God, but it seems so hard to deny the appearance that we are. And perhaps even deeper is a part that *knows* we are not separate from God.
Mystically speaking, the myth of Genesis is about a metaphysical, quasi-angelic Adam being manifest apart from God, yet in the blissful harmony of Eden. Then, out desires for experience and knowledge, Adam descends even further into the created world by the self-multiplying incarnations of human individuals in the physical world.
In effect, Adam’s body has been broken from oneness with God, and his blood, which carries the breath of God, is spilled out among us. This fits nicely with the Christology in John’s Gospel: Christ is the light that shines in the darkness, the light that illuminates all people, and *nothing* was made without Him.
So, when Jesus says his bread is broken and his blood spilled for us, I take it not so much as a message of his personal body being sacrificed as a ransom for our forgiveness, but as a cosmological statement about our very intimate and essential connection with Christ.
Peace,
Chuck