Getting Closer to God: Sharing a Meal

The scriptures referred to are Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, and John 13:1-17, 31-35.

We meet a lot of people for the first time over a meal: the person you date, your future in-laws, your friend's fiancée. You also get to know people better over meals: your coworkers, your gaming group, your fellow church members. We bond over food. It starts when mother and child get to know each other as one suckles at the other's breast. It used to be that families ate dinner together and talked over how their days went. And we may be returning to that. But it seems that feeding our bodies and feeding our social needs are somehow connected.

And our Creator knows this. So maybe that's why he decides to come together with us in a meal.

We having been talking about getting closer to God. And from the beginning of priestly Judaism, some sacrifices have included a meal. Specifically, in the fellowship offering. While some of the sacrifice was burned, the rest was shared with the worshipers. And the instructions were that they finish it up, so family and friends were invited and it was a feast. (Leviticus 7:15) And because some was burnt as an offering to God, in a sense the worshipers were sharing a meal with him.

On Maundy Thursday we commemorate the last supper, which is called by various Christians the Lord's Supper, Communion, and the Holy Eucharist. And we read the oldest account of what Jesus did at that meal, the one in the first letter to the Corinthians, written perhaps 15 years before the first gospel, Mark's. In fact this is, as far as we know, the first account of any words Jesus said to be put to paper (or papyrus). That's how important it was.

Paul points out that this isn't just a regular meal but a sacred one. Christians used to dine together in the same way guilds or clubs would. The host was usually a rich member of the church who had the space for them all to meet in his or her home. The host often had a triclinium or dining hall. They might also provide the food and drink or people may have brought their own. At a certain point in this Love Feast, as they called it, they would commemorate the Lord's Supper. But some people were not getting a fair share of the meal and others were getting drunk. So Paul says, “Don't you have your own homes to eat and drink in?” (1 Corinthians 11:22) Paul is starting the practice of making the Eucharist a separate ritual meal rather than just a feature at a drunken party.

To that end Paul warns about eating the bread or drinking the cup of the Lord “in an unworthy manner.” He says “Everyone should examine themselves before they eat the bread and drink from the cup.” (1 Corinthians 11:28) We have already talked about how God regards those who worship in the wrong spirit. So how should we approach it?

Jesus says of the bread, “This is my body that is for you.” And of the wine, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” Of both he says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” He was taking elements of the Passover meal, that commemorated God liberating the Jewish people and delivering them from Egypt, and reinterpreting them. The unleavened bread at Passover represented “the bread of affliction our ancestors ate” (cf. Deuteronomy 16:3). Jesus takes it and declares it to be his body, which will be afflicted to save the world. In Passover the blood of the lamb was smeared on the door frame that death might pass over the inhabitants of that home. Jesus is the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world. (John 1:29) As it is his actual blood that will be shed the very next day, he takes one of the cups of wine and declares the blood of the grape, as they called it (Deuteronomy 32:14), to be his blood, shed for the new covenant. He was no doubt thinking of the passage in Jeremiah where it says, “'But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land,' says the Lord. 'I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33) Covenants were sealed with a sacrifice.

So the proper way to approach the meal in which we share bread and wine is to see them as his body which was torn and his blood which was shed, for us. As the Passover meal takes Jews back to when God redeemed them from slavery in Egypt, Holy Communion takes us back to when Jesus redeemed us from our slavery to sin and death. So this is not something we approach lightly or in a perfunctory manner.

When we were going through my late father's belongings we came across a bullet. It had come from a Japanese sniper who had shot at my dad when he was a Marine in the South Pacific. It was meant to kill him but miraculously got lodged in his helmet. Had it not been stopped by his helmet it would have not only ended his life, but neither I nor my brother would have ever existed. Nor would my brother's daughter, nor my son and daughter have lived. Nor would my granddaughter be here. It's about as close to a holy relic in our family as you could get. My son has it now.

In a sense Jesus took the bullet for us. So approach the elements of the Eucharist as you would something that granted you life, for indeed it does.

Speaking of life, another layer of meaning is embedded in the fact that we use real elements of food. After all, we eat because we need to. If we don't, we get physically weak. In the spiritual realm it works much the same way. We recognize that we come to the Lord's table because we need to. If we don't, we get spiritually weak.

And that's one of the problems we are facing during this time of a highly contagious pandemic. We are physical beings and so is the virus. So the wise thing is to isolate, as they did in the Bible when someone had leprosy or another communicable disease. But we are also spiritual and we long to share the meal with our Lord.

The internet pages I frequent are full of debate about virtual communion, people getting their own bread and wine and considering it blessed when the clergy does the Eucharistic prayer on video. Both of my bishops say “No.” But both say we can do something called Spiritual Communion. It's a long-time practice for those who cannot receive communion, like, say, when you are in medical quarantine. St. Thomas Aquinas defined it as “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Holy Sacrament and a loving embrace as though we had already received him.” (Emphasis mine) The prayer we will share during communion recalls the woman who merely touched the hem of Jesus' garment and was healed. I think more apt parallels are the times when Jesus healed someone from afar. Such as when he told the centurion that his slave back home was healed (Matthew 8:5-13) or when he told the Syro-Phoenician woman that her child at home was healed. (Matthew 15:22-28) Distance did not diminish Jesus' powers and he did not always have to touch people.

So I will share this prayer on camera at the appropriate time and we will pray it together. When the Samaritan woman asked about which of the two temples was the proper place to worship God, Jesus said one day it won't matter in what physical location one worships God. He said, “But a time is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4: 23-24) There have been other times when Christians, sheltered in place from persecution and plague, could not come together with clergy to take communion. God did not love them less nor was he less present with them. As Thomas Merton says in one of his prayers, “But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.” When your kid gives you a piece of paper with a scribble on it in crayon that in no way resembles you but says it is a picture of you, you are pleased. God looks at our hearts and sees our faith and love and not the particular results of our finite attempts to imitate him.

And we can all of us look forward to a meal we will share with our Lord whether we make it through this present trial or not. One of Jesus' favorite pictures of the kingdom of God was the wedding feast. In his day this was a very big thing. The groom was carried on a bier by his friends to the bride's house. They would usually take a route designed that everyone in the village could see him. Then his bride would be taken aboard and taken by the same circuitous route to his house or his parent's house. The procession would be accompanied by music, singing and dancing. And if it were night, lamps. Once at their new home they would hold the wedding feast and people would come in festive garments. If the groom were rich enough, he would provide the garments for those who couldn't afford them. And the wedding festivities lasted for a week or more, which is why Jesus had to make more wine at the wedding he attended in Cana. Jesus frequently calls himself the bridegroom and the church is his bride. Few people realize that one of the highlights of the book of Revelation is the “marriage supper of the Lamb,” the glorious gathering of Jesus and his followers. (Revelation 19:9) So contrary to the unbiblical picture of the afterlife being folks sitting on clouds playing harps, the Biblical picture is that of a great party! That's what we are looking forward to.

At the supper before his death, Jesus said, “I tell you, from now on I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.” (Matthew 26:29) If he can hold off that long, we can hang on until it's safe to come together again as the body of Christ to share the body and blood of Christ.

Jesus said of that interval while he is gone, “Who is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord finds doing so when he comes.” (Matthew 24:45-46) In other words, look for Christ in those around you and serve them as you would serve him. Jesus also said something surprising about how the master would treat such servants. He said, “Be like men looking for their lord, when he will return from the marriage feast; that when he comes and knocks, they may immediately open to him. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord will find watching when he comes. Most assuredly, I tell you that he will gird himself, and make them recline, and will come and serve them.” (Luke 12:36-37)

Which sounds like something Jesus would do. And he did do it on the night before he died. And we will focus on that shortly.