Communion is Disgusting on Purpose

I no longer see a barber or hairstylist. I don’t think that I am too good to see a professional, but even a professional pianist cannot do much with piano that only has ten keys.

However, when I used to have a full keyboard, one of my favorite questions to ask the barber was, “If you see hair in your meal at a restaurant, would you send it back?” I have not done a scientific study of the number of people I asked and their responses, but the majority of barbers I asked said they would not send their food back. The reason? They shared that it is was more likely that they were the ones who had loose hair on them that fell into the meal. The vast majority of barbers said they would just pull the hair out and keep on with their meal.

Like it is no big deal.

Doctors talk about blood stuff with family members over dinner while everyone else gets queasy. Vets talk about lancing wounds on an animal, ranchers speak of pulling calves as they are birthed, and plumbers talk about the stopped up pipes they had to endure.

Like it is no big deal.

For so many of us, these topics trigger a sense of disgust, but these folk have crossed some disgust bridge. These topics are no longer disgusting. They are not a big deal.

Disgust is an “expulsive” response. It is that feeling of pushing things away or expelling them from your body. Humans are disgusted by so many things and sometimes, unfortunately, we feel disgust toward our fellow sisters and brothers. We push away the smelly, dirty, and unkept. We expel those who we think are unclean in some way. It can manifest in ways like pushing those who are sick away from us so we don’t get sick to pushing those who have a different culture away from us out of fear they will freeload. Disgust is a powerful influencer of our behavior and left unchecked it harms.

Christians have a sacrament called communion or the eucharist or the Lord’s supper. In a sacrament in which we say that the bread is the body of Christ and the juice/wine is the blood of Christ. Taken at face value, it makes sense why early Christians were accused of being cannibals.

This sacrament is mysterious and has a lot going on, but at a fundamental level communion addresses our disgust. We are associating bread with flesh and wine with blood. We make food associations all of the time. Many foods we don’t eat, not because they do not taste good but because of the texture (I struggle with eating the delicious lychee fruit).

The associations made at communion are intentional to aid and push us to encounter our disgust. If we can overcome the disgust of eating and drinking while thinking of flesh and blood then, surely we can overcome the disgust we feel toward our neighbor. Christians take communion as much as possible, in part, to practice confronting our own disgust toward each other. The more we confront the disgust we feel the more comfortable we are with these matters and the less expulsion we feel we need to do.

In this way, Christians are like the barber who is no longer disgusted with unknown hair in their food. There is no longer a need to push the food (or people) away, but rather bring it in close. Communion helps us invert our disgust and see that Christ does not call us to expel one another. That purity is an abstraction. That holding to what is clean only creates division among the body.

All of which to say that when a church leaders push for a “better” or “more faithful” or "traditional” or “prophetic” expression of the church, this is a nicer way of speaking about disgust. Disgust is always an expulsive response. We can expel others or we can expel ourselves. We can spit the food out (expel others) or we can avoid the restaurant entirely (expel ourselves). We can kick people out of the church who are unfaithful or we can remove ourselves from a church we “know” is unfaithful. Until we address the disgust we Christians have yet to overcome we will find that the denominational splitting will never end. Until we have a church of one.

Communion is disgusting on purpose.

Why I no longer take communion and maybe you should not either

I have taken communion for years. I recall taking communion when I was a child. I recall how I took the bread and took the cup. As I matured in my faith practices I continued to take communion and it was one of the things that drew me to God and my neighbor. 

Then I attended St. Mary's University and was hired as an Ministerial Assistant. Some of my responsibilities included being a Eucharistic minister - that is one who assists in the distribution of communion. I often held the cup while the priest distributed the bread (hosts). While most people came forward for the bread, not as many took the cup. This gave me an opportunity to learn something that changed my world - my peers were trained to receive communion while I was trained to take communion. 

I saw how they came forward with their hands together, palms up and slightly elevated to their chest. It was amazing to see how as the bread (host) was placed in their hands there was an obvious sense of gratitude that came over many of them. With the bread in their hand and their eyes on the cross behind the priest, they would receive communion with eyes closed. 

Since those days in the early 2000's I no longer take communion, I receive it. I no longer reach out and take what is clearly a gift and something that I did not earn. I no longer grab for the bread with an underlying sense that if I don't take it then someone else will. 

This simple change in my posture toward communion has brought with it a deeper understanding and appreciation for the sacrament. While I have not arrived at the level of depth of my college peers those many years ago, I continue to dive deep into this sacred mystery, this holy gift, that we all are invited to receive. 

Remembering ≠ Thinking

When Christians gather for communion, part of the story we tell is the night in which Jesus ate the last supper. The story goes that he told his disciples to take wine, give thanks, break bread, drink and eat. Jesus told the disciples to do this ritual and "remember me". And to this day, Christians take, give thanks, break, drink and eat and remember Christ. 

And when we take communion we mentally think about Jesus - how he lived, what he taught, how he died, etc. This makes sense. The act of remembering is generally something we do to commemorate the past. We remember the love of our grandparent or the less than wholesome qualities of a loved one. We remember the the sacrifices made in wars when we have moments of silence or when we hear a national anthem played. We remember the past experiences of our childhood that shape us as adults. So it makes sense that when we have communion we think about the past of Jesus. 

The thing about remembering in the setting of communion is that there is little evidence that the remembering the disciples are asked to do is a cognitive exercise. Jesus gives the impression that the ritual itself is remembering. That is when we take, give thanks, break, drink and eat the body of Christ we re-member Jesus. When we do this act, we are putting the body of Christ together. We are re-membering the body of Christ. 

Remembering Jesus in communion is not about an intellectual or cognitive skill. The mystery of communion has little to do with what we are thinking and much more to do with what we are doing. When we eat together, we are putting the body of Christ together. We are re-membering. 

This is, in part, why discussions about the physical elements is missing the point. Can it be communion if it is oreos and soda? Should we dunk or have individual cups or share a common cup? Should we use wine or juice?

This is, in part, why discussions about the presence of Christ in the physical elements misses the point. Is it transubstantiation, consubstantiation, sacramental union, pneumatic presence? 

This is, in part, why discussions about online communion is missing the point. Can only those who are in physical presence with one another remember the body of Christ?

The remembering done in communion is not limited to the workings of your brain. The remembering done in communion is the act of putting the body of Christ together again, re-membering if you would like. And the body of Christ can be made manifest in the gathering of a group of people as well as in the heart of the individual who has shut their door. 

Aristotle, Plato, Communion and the Internet

A few posts ago there was a mention of our time’s preference to the Aristotelian ideal over the Platonic ideal. That is a fancy way of saying that we put the emphasis on the material (what we can see and measure) over the transcendent. Recently the UMC is engaged in a conversation about the viability of online communion. Online communion is the idea that an elder can invite someone at their home who is participating in worship via online/television to grab some bread and juice and take communion at their home.  

Needless to say people weighing in on the validity of the sacrament via the internet. I wonder if our resistance to online communion is rooted in the idea that what is real is what is material. "Real" community is those who are in the same physical space breathing the same physical air. "Real" community is that gathering of people that can be touched, counted, measured and seen. Could it be that our understanding of community is influenced more by Aristotle's teaching of what is "real"?

In a conversation with my friend Kyle he mentioned that the online communion conversation sounds something like reverse Gnosticism. Whereas Gnosticism elevated the Spirit over the material today we elevate the material over the Spirit. 

Elevating the Material or the Spirit over the other is neither helpful nor loving. 

If the Body of Christ is mystical, if we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, if we are all tied together in the single garment of destiny, then can we really say the sacraments are only valid in the material or the Spirit?