Hospitality — the greatest moral challenge

My earliest recollection of communion was at the First Baptist Church of Fairbury, Ill. The church celebrated communion only four times a year. Communion was not a part of any regular worship/preaching service.

Once each three months following regular Sunday morning service, the baptized members were invited to remain for a special celebration of the Lord’s Supper. A person’s baptism had to be by immersion and the participants had to be members of First Baptist Church of Fairbury. The juice in the small cups was grape juice and the cubed bread was ordinary bread. Participants were reminded that Jesus Christ was not present in the communion elements. The service was a bare memorial of the death of Jesus for our sins.

A new pastor was called and he loosened the reigns a bit. Celebration of the Lord’s Supper became a part of a regular Sunday morning service once a month and the invitation was broadened to include all those who had been baptized by immersion and membership in the Fairbury church was not required.

Today, I can trace my spiritual history through my understanding and practice of the celebration of communion. Pressure to examine my understanding of the Lord’s Supper first came from my reading and study of the Bible records. The second influence was a felt necessity to translate Biblical faith into modern practice.

The Bible record is most important. New Testament scholars have come to broad agreement about the historicity of a list of events in the life of Jesus. One event usually in that list is that he ate a meal with his disciples the night before he was crucified. Whether or not it was a form of the Passover celebration is debated. Their meal together fits the pattern of Passover celebration in which the participants eat and remember. In the practice of our faith, some things ought never to be forgotten. Jews were never to forget their years of slavery in Egypt. That is what the Passover Seder is about. The disciples of Jesus, a collection of nuisances and nobodies, were never to forget the path on which Jesus had set them. The meal of remembrance was the key to maintaining the vitality of their faith.

In my theologizing, I concluded that communion or the Lord’s Supper was about remembering who we are and what we are about. Jesus from Nazareth brought to the world a fresh call for the establishment of the reign of God on earth through love of God and neighbor. Justice was to be brought to everyone, beginning with the least of all — society’s outcasts. The death of Jesus on a Roman cross is certainly a part of our remembrance. The cost of discipleship is very high and we dare never forget. However, moving the emphasis of the Lord’s Supper to a re-enactment of Christ’s death for the sins of the world and making the cross into an altar misses the point of the meal of remembrance.

As a pastor, I began moving away from the altar and sacrifice tradition that had become dominant. I began questioning the validity of every aspect of the communion celebration. Why should there be rules that exclude anyone from the table of Christ? Was not Judas present? I asked about the essence of the meal that was shared by the disciples and Jesus. Why should a special class of men be required to lead the meal of remembrance?

Rapid social and scientific changes laid bare the folly of traditional understandings of the Lord’s Supper. Women were no longer second-class citizens in my congregation. Speculation about Christ’s presence in the grape juice and the bread made no sense in a modern world. Changes in the service appeared. Leading a communion service required no special election or appointment. No baptismal requirement was again mentioned. Women served alongside of men. The invitation to participate had no standard except a willingness to participate. The mystery of the presence of Jesus was assumed and claimed for all. There were no magic words to be uttered by a person with special ordination. Participation in the kingdom of God was for everyone and no role was withheld from anyone.

My journey with the Lord’s Supper has covered a lifetime. In actual practice, one huge stumbling block remains. Communion has been used to exclude for so long that excluding has become habitual. Rules to exclude have persisted.

In the stories that Jesus told for our remembering, he left us with images of banquet halls with seats for everyone. Imbedded in his stories and teachings were examples of unrestricted hospitality. The only folk excluded from the family of God were those who excluded themselves.

I love singing the hymns about the cross of Christ. By faith, I hold dear the death of Jesus for my sins and the sins of the world. However, the heart of Christian practice is the banquet table to which everyone is invited and offered full participation. Hospitality is the church’s vocation and grace is our tool.

Christians are always under pressure to live out the Faith they proclaim. The communion table is the testing ground and the extent of our hospitality is the relentless test of our faith in Jesus our Christ.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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