Sermon

Communion

The Rev. Jack D. Bryant

Hope Unitarian Church

April 20, 2003

Reading: From: When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough – Harold Kushner

I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sand castle by the water’s edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a bit wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle. I realized that they had taught me an important lesson. All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.

Sermon

This morning we celebrate the Easter tradition. But Easter, in the Unitarian tradition, has a different meaning than found in orthodox Christianity. Orthodox Christianity is centered on the death of Jesus. Unitarianism arose out of a concern for the life of Jesus. That is why we will celebrate the Flower Communion this morning, because unlike the traditional communion or Eucharist of orthodox Christianity, the Flower Communion is a celebration and acknowledgment of the meaning and purpose of life.

Communion is something Unitarians seldom discuss. I suspect most Unitarians are uncomfortable with the word because we associate it with its orthodox Christian forms. But I believe we Unitarians practice communion on a regular basis. We just don’t think of it in those terms, but perhaps we should. That’s why I think it’s appropriate to consider just what communion is and how and why we have come to apply that term to the Flower Communion we celebrate this morning.

If one mentions communion, I believe most people think of the gospel accounts of the last supper. Those stories claim that Jesus offered his disciples bread and wine and said they should eat them later as tokens of his blood and his body. Some people take that literally. The Catholic church, for example, maintains that the bread and wine are literally transformed into the actual blood and body of Jesus. The Gospel stories, however, are, on their face, not credible. They are not credible because two of the great boundaries for Judaism in the time of Jesus were first, a rejection of human sacrifice, and second, strict dietary laws – the Kosher laws – that absolutely prohibited the consumption of blood. When one remembers that Jesus was a Jew, as were his followers, it is obvious – from the social and religious context of Judaism – that the Gospel stories about the wine and bread being the blood and body of Jesus cannot be true. I believe the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that the Gospels – which were written from thirty to seventy years after the death of Jesus – were written by people from the Hellenistic and Greek world who incorporated common religious beliefs of their culture into what became Christianity.

But there is another source of the communion tradition. Most people have never heard of it. It is from a document known as the Didache, or The Teaching of the Apostles. The dating of the document is uncertain, but some scholars believe it may have been compiled as early as the year 60, perhaps even the year 50, making it older than any of the Gospels. The Didache mentions a sharing of bread and wine that it describes as the Eucharist, but it makes it a part of the Love Feast. What was the Love Feast and why was it important? It was the original potluck supper. It was a central feature of every worship service by those who claimed to be followers of Jesus. People were expected to eat and drink together until they were full. It was a real meal. And in the language of thanksgiving specified in the document, there is no mention of the blood and body of Jesus – only words of thanksgiving for his life. Interestingly, orthodox scholars try to explain away the failure to mention the blood and body of Jesus on the grounds that “obviously it was a central secret” of early Christianity. The more reasonable explanation is that this early document reveals the true religion of Jesus instead of the religion about Jesus that developed later. I believe the Didache reveals a meal that was a part of what John Domminic Crossan, the great scholar of the life of the historical Jesus, has called the life tradition. Unfortunately, over years the life tradition faded away, leaving us with the death tradition that transformed the Love Feast into the symbolic meal of the Eucharist.

Unitarianism, which began as a Christian reform movement, rejected the death tradition and embraced the life tradition. And the life tradition lives on. Modern Unitarianism is the institutional manifestation of that tradition – and you can see the difference in how we approach communion. In orthodox Christianity, the love feast slowly faded away. By the time Trinitarianism triumphed in the year 380, the love feast was gone. All that was left was the Eucharist. Only those who were part of the church could partake of that ritual. It became a symbol of separation and exclusion.

In our own tradition, it is the Eucharist that has faded away. It is still practiced occasionally, but the heart of our tradition is found in a return to the love feast. You may wonder, when have we had a love feast? We had one two weeks ago when we shared our Fellowship Dinner right here in this Great Hall, our sanctuary, when we broke bread and drank wine together until we were full and gave thanks – just as the Didache instructs. Members of our church participated in such a meal yesterday when they prepared and served a meal as part of our Feed the Homeless Program. We will have such a meal this coming Saturday night with Unitarians from around the Southwest Conference as part of our Spring Meeting. We will have such a meal this next Sunday when we will share Breakfast on the Hill before our church service. We’ve started having such meals – such love feasts, such communions – on Sunday nights before the Adult Religious Education classes I offer. We do so at every Supper Club and every time we sit down together and break bread – even if we don’t have wine with the meal. I say this is what real communion is, what it is supposed to be. It is a tradition of communion that affirms life.

But there are other forms of communion. Some of them come in unexpected places and at surprising times. I had the experience of such a communion many years ago. It was 1971 and I was at Fort Riley, Kansas. I was there to attend a summer camp as a ROTC cadet. Fort Riley is in the plains of Kansas – prairie grasslands that extend in rolling waves far beyond the horizon. Occasional trees dot the prairie, but they are not numerous.

Our training that summer included a course on escape and evasion. Late one night hundreds of us were taken out to a remote part of Fort Riley. We were given two canteens of water and told we had until dawn to reach a road about fifteen miles away. We would be chased all night by helicopters and ground personnel. They fired off something big and noisy and off we went.

It was hot and dry that night and it wasn’t fun. A group of us, about a half dozen, had agreed we would stay together and help and support one another. We ran, stumbling through the darkness, trying to cover those fifteen miles. Every few minutes a helicopter would come by and we would have to run for cover beneath one of the rare trees. By two o’clock in the morning we were exhausted and out of water and feeling very dejected. We had no way of knowing how much further we had to go, but in the deepest part of the night, it seemed forever. It was then that we heard another helicopter. As tired as we were we once again ran for cover. This time we crawled into the bottom of a small ravine cut into the prairie. The helicopter circled our area briefly and flew onward. We sat there, tired and dejected and thirsty. We knew it would be hours and miles before we could rest or have a drink of water. But as the sound of the helicopter faded into the distance and the silence gathered around us we suddenly realized that the night was not completely silent – and the sound we heard was unexpected. It was the sound of running water.

We crawled through the underbrush to the top of that small ravine where we discovered a bit of exposed sandstone. And from that stone there flowed a natural spring with the coldest, cleanest water I have ever known.

We were amazed. In the depth of the night, at the moment of our greatest thirst, our greatest despair, we had discovered what seemed like a miracle. We drank until our thirst was quenched. We filled our canteens. And we sat there in silence for a brief moment, trying to comprehend our good fortune. We wanted to stay. We wanted that place to be our refuge. But it could not be, for we literally had miles to go before we could sleep. But it had served its purpose. We were renewed. We climbed up out of the ravine and went on our way. And yes, we made it to the end of our journey just before dawn. That was years ago, but even today when I think of that experience I feel renewed and refreshed. Looking back, I understand that event as a genuine form of communion. We had no bread, we had no wine – only cold, clean water – and the companionship of that small community – a community that had vowed to stay together through the night and face our trial together.

Not everyone has that kind of experience with communion – or a natural spring or well. T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, tells a very different kind of story in his memoirs, Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Lawrence and his guide, an Arab tribesman, were traveling in the desert. They came upon an oasis, a place where there was a well that had been dug to take water from a natural spring. They stopped and were drinking water from that well and resting when another rider approached. Lawrence’s guide panicked at the site of the approaching rider and ran to get his rifle. But it was too late. The rider shot and killed Lawrence’s guide. Lawrence was stunned. When the man came closer Lawrence demanded to know why he had murdered his companion. The rider explained that the oasis belonged to his tribe – the rider’s. Lawrence’s companion belonged to another tribe which did not have the right to use the well. The rider killed Lawrence’s companion to protect the well – to protect his tribe. It was only because Lawrence did not have a tribal affiliation that he did not also kill him.

For Lawrence, the event symbolized why the Arab people were unable to present a common front to the world. They believed that water was something to fight and kill for. They believed the strength and well being of their tribe depended upon preventing other tribes from sharing the water. As guardians of the well, it was there duty to protect it from outsiders.

Unfortunately, this has also been the attitude taken towards communion over the centuries. In the fifteenth century the church decreed that only priests could partake of the communion cup. The laity were only allowed the bread. A Czech priest named Jan Hus protested, saying it wasn’t right. Because of his protest, Jan Hus was put to death, burned at the stake. As a result, the Czech people came to recognize the flaming chalice as a symbol of religious freedom and tolerance. Our own flaming chalice can be traced to those events. The chalice is a reminder that communion – which we take today to mean our community – should be open to all; and the flame symbolizes the fire that put to death so many champions of religious freedom.

But there are other, even more recent examples. This last week the Pope announced that Catholics who have been divorced and remarried may not partake of communion in the Catholic church. They believe the strength and well being of their tribe depends upon preventing other tribes from sharing the water. As guardians of the well, it is their duty to protect it from others.

Today we will practice a different kind of communion. The flowers of our communion represent the beauty and fragility of life. Each flower is different, representing the special contribution that each person makes. The act of bringing a flower this morning and placing it in the basket symbolizes the contribution that each person makes to life. Every contribution is different and every contribution has its own beauty. When you leave this morning you will be invited to take a different flower, symbolizing acceptance of others. The flower you bring also symbolizes the contributions each person makes to the treasury of grace. The act of taking a flower symbolizes the gifts of grace, all the good things we do not deserve, that come into each person’s life. We accept them with humility. And our communion is open to every person. You need not be a member of our church to participate. I say that in the belief that no one has the right to exclude another from the communion of life. Everyone may drink from our well.

I think that’s a good way to think of our church. We may be on top of a hill, but our church is a well that offers the cold, clean water of liberal religion. It is the religion that affirms the answer Jesus gave when asked which was the greatest of the commandments. He replied, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The same idea is found in the humanist tradition. Robert Ingersol, a man known as the Great Agnostic, one of the most powerful and eloquent voices for modern humanism, said these words:

“Real religion means the doing of justice. Real religion means the giving to others every right you claim yourself. Real religion consists in duties of man to man, in feeding the hungry, in clothing the naked, in defending the innocent, and in saying what you believe to be true.”

That is the cold, clean water of liberal religion. It is a message so simple that even two children building sand castles on a beach can understand it. As Rabbi Kushner said,

All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.

That is why our Flower Communion – our community – is open to everyone. Because the essence of communion is community. Creeds and dogmas and beliefs and forms of worship – all these will pass away. What is eternal and permanent is the ability to take another person’s hand, to live our lives in right relationship with one another. That is what our Flower Communion symbolizes. And I believe that is what Easter should symbolize. Not a belief in death, but a belief in life; not a belief in the resurrection of the dead, but a belief in the resurrection of hope for a religious community that says its communion and its doors are open to all.

AMEN.