Wednesday, Day 32: Bread and Wine

In the Orthodox tradition, the wine and bread literally become the body and blood at a particular time in the liturgy, while we are kneeling, expectant, ready. Communion requires a week of fasting from animal products, no food after midnight the night before, and a Saturday evening of contemplation. The faithful are supposed to also go to confession, but most don't go every week, just a couple times a year. 

Only a priest can offer the body and blood, and nobody is supposed to touch the chalice besides the priest. Luckily, it’s rare for more than a handful of people to go up for communion, except on major religious holidays, so in general, the process doesn’t take too long. (Side note: I learned recently that if you actually follow the fast days of the church--which is to say, refrain from meat every Wednesday and Friday all year long, and meat and dairy for the 40 days of Lent--and don't eat after midnight, and offer up prayer and contemplation on Saturday, you could, theoretically, have communion every Sunday--but I digress).

After moving to rural Minnesota, three hours from the closest Greek church, I began attending a United Church of Christ church, which professed a version of Christianity much closer to my own beliefs. However, beliefs and practices are two different things; I still miss the liturgy.

The first time communion (grape juice, not wine) was passed out in tiny glass cups, I couldn’t help it; I laughed. The little cups looked, well, kind of ridiculous, like they were made for little people. I wouldn’t dare partake at first—it had been so ingrained in me that I should not take communion at a church that wasn’t Orthodox that I couldn’t bring myself to do it for many years.

Over time, I came to appreciate the more communal nature of communion at this church, even if I sometimes feel we take the whole thing a little too casually. First, everyone is welcome, membership or affiliation or even beliefs aside. That sounds more like the kind of communion Jesus would condone—doors wide open, arms wide open. After all, this was the guy who ate and drank with Samaritans, prostitutes, tax collectors, and the list goes on.

Second, there is variety to the ritual. Sometimes we stand in a circle, partaking one by one, then holding hands for a closing prayer. Sometimes the bread and juice are passed around the pews, and we wait and eat and drink at the same time. Sometimes we approach the chalice, take a small piece of bread, dip it in the wine.  No matter how it happens, the minister is never the only one offering the bread and juice; we are all servers and receivers, eating and drinking together, the way Jesus and his disciples did.

In time, as I began to feel more a part of this church, I decided to take communion. I thought and prayed and weighed the pros and cons, and it just felt right to be a part of the process. 

But, this (American) Easter, I may have overdone it. I was asked to usher the 10 a.m. service at the last minute, and my daughter and I had already decided to attend the earlier sunrise service.  My spouse was working a 12 hour shift on Easter, and we figured we would get up around the time she was getting ready to go, say goodbye, then head to church.  Changing plans is rough for my daughter, so we stuck out the plan to go at 7, then returned later for the regular service. 

The sunrise service was held in the fireside room, a small library adjacent to the kitchen. There were several round tables with a beautiful bouquet of colorful carnations in the center of each. There were also coffee rolls, bowls of fruit, and beautiful Easter eggs on each table. Over the course of the service, we shared a meal, sang, prayed, and passed around communion to each other at each table, sharing in what felt like a family meal. At the end of the service, we each took a carnation from the center of the table and decorated a cross, then carried the cross into the sanctuary for the next service.

Later, at the regular, loud, crowded, joy-filled service, communion servers stood at the front of the church, and we approached, one row at a time, to take the bread, dip it in the cup, and eat it. I wasn’t going to take communion again—twice in one day seemed a little much--but then I saw that C was serving. C is one of my touchstones at church, one of the strongest women I know. She’s had an extraordinarily difficult year---and, for that matter, life. Still, although she is managing a barely-making-it small business, she opens the doors of her store to anyone who wants to gather for conversation and handiwork, and my daughter takes advantage of this hospitality at least once a week.

But lately my daughter had mentioned that C seemed more edgy, closer to tears more of the time. “She says I help keep her calm, but I don’t really know.”

I called, made sure it was OK for my daughter to continue to hang out there and take lessons—yes, C assured me. I love having her here, she said, and she sounded sincere. I had never known her to lie.

I was thinking about C’s radical hospitality when I went up for communion. I was thinking, also, of her daughter, and addict, who was missing, and her father, who had recently died.

When I got to the front, C said, “Body of Christ,” placing the bread in my palm. There were tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She hadn’t been to church in awhile. This would be the first Easter without her father, one of many when she wasn’t sure exactly where her daughter was. Still, she’d managed to find the strength in her soul to remain sober—and to show up on Easter—and to serve communion.  

How do you bless others when your own life is broken? How do you keep from returning to old coping methods, from giving up?

I dipped the bread into the wine, and then she said it again: “Body of Christ, broken for you, Argie.”

“And for you, C,” I whispered back.

“Amen,” we both said at the same time, and we grinned at each other, and I put the bread dipped in wine in my mouth and savored its taste.