All of us have stories about why we are in church today. Why we follow Christ. Why we listen to stories of Jesus with such attention. Why we pray.

Afterall, we no longer live in a world where belief in God is basically mandatory. And we certainly don’t live in a world where we can’t choose to sleep in on Sundays without a whiff of judgement … or at least I hope so.

I celebrate this freedom that we have to choose to come to God and each other on Sundays.  

Because we all have this freedom, it means to me we all have a why, a story … or two … or many more about God’s action in our lives and what Jesus means to us. Or we come with our hearts and needs in our hands, looking for something to lift us out of our dead ends. Or, most likely, it’s a mixture of all of the above.

I was raised in the church when I was little. After my parents’ divorce, there were long stretches of time when I was a basically a spiritual vagabond, visiting here and there, reading this and that. There’s a lot of beautiful wisdom in other traditions in my experience, particularly Buddhism imho. But when I decided I needed to have a community of faith and some grounded spiritual focus to my life, I came back to the Lutheran church.

I chose to come back to the ELCA for a number of reasons. First of all, I love Lutheran teachings on grace, being both sinners and saints at the same time, and the theology of the cross to name just a few wonderful things about Lutheran theology. Another big reason for me coming back to the ELCA, oddly enough, was the Dalai Lama. I read a quote of his somewhere that basically said that western people do not need to turn to eastern spiritual teachings, that we have our own deep teachings of spiritual truth that are embedded within our cultures. We can go and drink deeply from the wells that we already have. His challenge and suggestion were to engage in our own traditions and to dig deep into it.

What great evangelism for the ELCA by the Dalai Lama!

When I started going back to church, I noticed after a while that I was changing in subtle, but good ways. I was becoming happier, calmer, and less fearful of life bit by bit. I noticed these tiny changes after a few months of going to church, even if I was often bewildered by the readings and not necessarily following or remembering the sermons. I was just showing up, because it felt like I needed to do so. And it was enough.

The one part of the service that I had no trouble connecting with was receiving communion.  It’s not that I even understood communion, along with all the other things I didn’t really understand. But I knew it was changing me and for the better.

You’d think by this time in my life, now, I’d really have a handle on what communion means. But I don’t really. There is some amount of mystery that will always be at the heart of communion for me, because I know it changed me without my doing. It was not an intellectual process or something that had really anything to do with me, beyond me just showing up and accepting the meal.

Because of that experience, I know communion is bigger than just a symbol of Jesus’ life given for us, as some churches teach. I know it’s something I miss on the rare weekends I don’t make it to church. And I know when I bring communion to those at home or in the hospital, there are often tears of relief to receive it.

It’s kind of a big deal.

And why this is so, is mysterious. I guarantee you in those moments of deep relief and gratitude of receiving communion, folks are not thinking about the mechanics of it all. While people have written thousands and thousands of words about this question and have had major fights about it, all of that doesn’t matter at the bedside or even on a regular Sunday.  

In our gospel, Christ tells us that in his love for us, he gives us all that he has to give, including his body and blood. Accept this gift of God’s very being, take him into your very being, and slowly you find yourself in connection to the infinite expanse of all that is. Don’t accept this gift of enmeshed, embedded, and visceral relationship with God and your life will feel like a dead end. This has indeed been my experience.

I won’t pretend that I completely understand communion on an intellectual or analytical level. And I’m frankly OK with that, because I do understand it on the level of my body, my life, and my experience. And understand it in others as I see them melt into tears with communion, particularly during an illness or circumstances that keep them separated from their communities.

What communion means to me, at least in part, is that we do not need to do life alone, under our own power. God is with us, feeding us, lifting us, loving us, guiding us, and connecting us to all that is and to each other. Communion is the very real offer of God to snuggle us into God’s warmth and care and to connect us to all that is in the universe.

We are not on our own. Communion is a way we practice accepting the gift of God’s very self. And as we practice, as we are softened to accept God’s gifts, we can lean on God’s real presence in our lives.

I asked earlier this week for your stories about God’s action in your lives; how you’ve been changed, guided, or supported.  

Lori’s story (Watch the video to hear her story!)

The gift of communion, of Jesus’ body given for us, is a real and tangible gift that is also forever mysterious. You don’t need to understand it like it’s an analytical puzzle. However, it is worthy of contemplation. What does it mean for God to say to you, “This is my body given for you. This is my blood shed for you.”

While communion is a gift in itself, the true gift of God’s love and care is not contained in just the bread and the wine. We are transformed through communion. Our lives change from dead ends where we need to work, hustle, and muscle our way through life to a life where love, safety, and community unfold for us even amid our struggles. As you receive communion today, consider what communion it means that God has said to you, “I give you all that I am for the sake of your flourishing in unending relationship.” It is a mystery of our transformation in God’s great care that is done in the most simple of ways, in bread and wine.   

AMEN

AMEN