We Are One Loaf

My experience of communion, owing to my varied church membership over the years, has been almost as diverse as Christendom itself. I was raised a Methodist, and the rules of that denomination regarding communion state that each congregation can schedule communion as it wishes but must observe the sacrament at least once a quarter. My church had it once a month. We would go to the altar rail and kneel, and the minister would give us first the bread (in our case a literal cube of bread), and then a small cup of “wine” (i.e., grape juice), murmuring “the body of Christ, given for you,” then “the blood of Christ, shed for you.” Once we had received the elements, we were welcome to stay at the altar for as long as we wished; the experience had a meditative quality. When a person arose, the next person in line would take their place.

As a young adult just post college, I attended a congregation of “Jesus People” which had spontaneously arisen from a coffee-house and street ministry in my college town. This body of believers, none of whom were over 30 years of age, had a very hippie-like flavor. Each Sunday that we had communion (which was not every Sunday), one of the “sisters” (for we called each other “brother” and “sister”) would make a loaf of bread, and it would be torn or cut into pieces, which would be passed among the group in a basket. One of the members, who was an art student, had made a large, ceramic chalice with a cross on the side, out of which we would all drink. We assumed that if there were germs, the Holy Spirit would kill them.

 Eventually our numbers increased, and we moved out of the old coffee house. A visiting minister who was a mentor of one of our young pastors gave a sermon on communion. He made the point that just as we were one body (the body of Christ), we were also one loaf. This was a very vivid metaphor for me, and every time after that, as I took the elements, I would envision myself as being one with every other Christian on earth. It is a powerful image that stays with me to this day.

That young church is where Eric and I met. When we were planning our wedding, we decided to incorporate communion into the service. In those days, it was common for weddings to include a candle-lighting ceremony, but for us there was no stronger symbol of oneness than communion. Our wedding’s communion ceremony would include just the two of us. We chose a bottle of our favorite wine and stashed it behind the pulpit of the church where we would be married.

But imagine our surprise when instead of wine, grape juice flowed across our taste buds! We thereafter referred to the incident as “The Reverse Wedding of Cana Miracle.”

And we have had 40 years of taking communion together. The sacrament of communion is such a special thing for us, that we decided we preferred attending a church that celebrates it every week.

Eric and I have a little ritual at the end of every communion service at Aspen Hill Christian Church. After we have drunk from the cup, we stack our little plastic cups, one inside the other before putting them in the holder in the back of the pew. This is something we had never discussed with each other until the other night; but we both felt that the action was an abbreviated version of the feeling of being one; as if with that small motion of placing our communion cups one inside the other, the sacrament of communion echoed the sacrament of our own marriage.