I don’t remember the first time I ever received communion, but I do remember the time the lady in charge of communion at my church growing up accidentally bought prune juice instead of grape juice!  You know that expression, “I’ll never live that down”?  Well, she did not live that down.  I heard through the grapevine that someone even brought it up at her funeral!  This is not what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”, that’s for sure!  There is nothing funny about the sacrament of communion, of course. But prune juice instead of grape juice?  It wasn’t just the kids in my church who are still laughing about that!

Do you have a favorite communion story?  My hope is, every time you take communion is your favorite time.  But some experiences stand out in our minds more than others.  Do you remember the first time you partook of the elements?  That may have been a very special occasion.  Maybe you remember communion at a wedding, or an unusual worship service.  Or you had communion at church camp or while on retreat.  One of my favorite communion experiences happened in 2017, when I was blessed to serve communion while in Israel.  That was amazing.  The exact location of the Upper Room where Jesus celebrated the Last Supper is unknown, but receiving communion in Israel was so powerful, because even if we weren’t in the exact spot, it was the closest I’d ever be to where Jesus was when he first blessed the bread and the cup and offered it to his disciples.

And being close to Jesus, isn’t that what communion is all about?  Of course, it’s not a geographical closeness we’re after so much as a spiritual closeness.  But it’s hard to get any closer than ingesting the real presence of Jesus!  That’s the official term Methodists use to describe what we think Jesus meant when he said, “this is my body, take and eat”, and “this is my blood, take and drink”.  In some mysterious, mystical way we cannot fully explain, we are ingesting the real presence of Jesus when we present ourselves for communion.  Even if we are physically unable for some reason to eat the bread or drink the juice, just by offering ourselves, we open ourselves to receive the real presence of Christ around us, and within us.

This to me is one of the most amazing things we will ever experience, yet we rarely talk about it.  But isn’t that something, that as we eat and drink, Christ is coming into us!  Even if we cannot eat and drink but we desire Christ, Christ becomes real to us.  Real spiritual food.  Real spiritual companionship.  Real spiritual communion.  Is there anything we could possibly want more than that?

That is why I gave this sermon the title, “Come, Union.”  When we come to the gospel feast, union happens.  Union between us and God.  Union between us and each other.  And union between us and the broken world in which we live.  Does that surprise you, to hear that there are really three kinds of union that come out of the sacrament of communion?  Let’s spend a few minutes thinking about this.

Most of us take communion in hopes of feeling closer to God.  Communion is one of the ways God’s says, “I love you!”  My friend Barb makes her husband a heart shaped meatloaf every year on Valentine’s Day, as a way to say “I love you.”  The meatloaf is a symbol of her love.  But holy communion is not just a symbol of love.  It’s actual love, because God is love.  That’s one the reasons the United Methodist Church practices what we call an “open table”.  You don’t have to be a member of the church, to be welcome to commune.  You don’t have to be a certain age or a certain status, to be welcome to commune. Everyone who desires to follow Jesus, everyone who wants GOD’S LOVE, is welcome!

And I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want love.  We’re all in the same boat.  That is one the reasons we can say that communion not only joins us to God, but joins us to each other.  As we share in the one loaf, we express our common humanity.  We are all NOT GOD.  But we are all equally loved and valued by God.  So we are called to treat each other with respect, to work for unity, to live in harmony as much as possible.  When we come forward for communion, we are saying, in effect, “I am here to be part of this loaf of bread, this community of faith.”  The communion meal becomes a prayer, that we pray with all five of our senses, a prayer that we would be one with God, and one with each other.

But there’s more!  In the sacrament of communion, God breaks and disperses one loaf of bread, the Body of Christ, so we can taste and know God’s love.  As a congregation, we are also one loaf, which God breaks and disperses so the world can taste and know God’s love.  When we come forward for communion, we are not only saying, “I am here to be part of this loaf of bread, this community of faith”, we are expressing our desire to become bread for our neighbors.  We’re saying to God and to each other, “I am available now to be in mission.”  We don’t receive the real presence of Christ just for our own nourishment.  Receiving the real presence of Christ aligns us with God’s redeeming work in the world!  We become means of grace!

It’s a lot to think about, all this spiritual power coming from a small cube of bread and a little cup of juice.  It’s not the size of the piece of bread or the ounces of juice we consume that matter.  It’s the size of the power within them.  And that power is God-sized!  It is powerful enough to transform us, with each communion experience, from being people who want to receive for ourselves, to people who want to pour ourselves out for the world.

John Wesley called holy communion a “means of grace” because it is a pathway through which God conveys God’s self to us.  God is always setting the table for us—we don’t have to receive communion to receive God’s love.  But this meal is a very special opportunity to receive God’s love because in receiving the elements, we receive God’s love.  In celebrating together—whether in person or virtually—we see God’s love in each other.  And that love changes us!  It restores and puts back together that which has been broken.  And then it sends us out into the world, to be broken apart and shared with our broken world.

About ten years ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a series of retreats for young clergy, focusing on using writing as a spiritual practice.  We took turns on these retreats leading worship, and one day it was Maria’s turn to preside over communion.  Maria is an Episcopalian priest, and instead of taking the one loaf of bread and breaking it in half life we often do in our communion liturgy, she took the break, broke it in half, and then broke it again and again. Carefully she counted all the pieces to make sure there were exactly enough for everyone in our group.  Seeing her count the pieces made me feel as if I really counted.  That communion experience stands out in my mind as a time when I heard loud and clear God saying, “I love you.”

If you need to hear those words, this communion table is for you.  You might want to picture the altar table turned into a blanket fort, like in the This Is What God is Like book (by Rachel Held Evans) we are using for our children’s sermons during Lent.  Come to this safe, quiet place apart.  Be fed.  Be nourished.  Be held in God’s love.

But the communion is not complete until we take God’s love into the world.  Every time we take communion, we hear the words, “And so, in remembrance of these your loving acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us…”  Our communion table is not just for us.  It is also for the world.  We come to the table in remembrance of Jesus’ self-giving love, and then we go out to re-member—to become the Body of Christ at work in the world.  Communion is an act of corporate prayer.  We are praying to receive all of Christ’s life, and in return, committing all of our lives to Christ.

Come, union.  Come, union with God.  Come, union with each other.  Come, union with the broken world that God loves.  May this meal give us life, so we can share that life with others.  Amen.