Sacred Mystery: Communion
Almost 100 years ago, Evelyn Underhill, British author, mystic and writer on the spiritual life said, “God is the interesting thing about religion.”
What she meant by that, and explored in her writings, is that there is something quite ungraspable and yet still intimate about God, not easily defined and yet closer than the next breath. There is a mysterious nature about even what we say and believe. We’re conscious of the fact that words do not adequately contain – nor were they ever meant to – the fullness of who God is. We make do with the limitations of human language, but we understand that that’s what we’re doing. We’re making do.
‘We Know in Part’
That’s a part of what Paul means when he says in 1 Corinthians 13:12b, “I know only in part.” In other words, we don’t have the whole story. Even in Romans 9, when Paul is trying to wrestle out the relationship between Israel and the church and election and will, he finally throws up his hands rhetorically and says, “Who knows the mind of the Lord?” (see Rom. 11:34). And you can hear the frustration in his writing when he says that, because the rhetorical answer to his question is, “Well, we only know a little bit.”
The good news is that God, in an act of love, reveals to us the things we know in what he has shown us in his Son. In other words, there is a genuine reliability to what we do know, if it is in accordance with that which has been revealed.
And that’s an important “if”: If it is in accordance with that which has been revealed in Jesus himself. That’s why Jesus says, in the way that we continue to find shockingly definitive, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6b), which is why in the collect for Communion, Communion itself is described as “a sacred mystery.”
‘This Is What We Proclaim to You’
A part of what that gets at is the fact that our words to describe what God is doing in the bread and wine are inadequate. They only tell us so much. And it has everything to do with the slightly unknowable and yet revealed nature of God himself. It’s that juxtaposition of both unknowability and intimate closeness that defines both our relationship with God and the very nature of the Eucharist itself. So that on the one hand, the writer of First John could say, “What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands” (see 1 John 1:1) and literally in the Greek, “which we have handled with our hands.”
He’s talking, of course, about his relationship with Jesus: “That is what we proclaim to you.” In other words, there is, in fact, a deeply intimate knowing about our relationship with God as he is revealed in Jesus Christ that is an extraordinarily intimate treasure.
It is that intimacy that Jesus is getting at when he talks about “eating my flesh” and “drinking my blood.” “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” we read in Psalm 34. There is and meant to be a visceral, experiential aspect to that which invites us into the very kingdom of God in which we know him and love him and adore him. It’s not as if somehow our bodies and our emotions are not involved — just the opposite. They are involved at an extraordinarily profound level. And not only Evelyn Underhill but any Christian will tell you: That which I experience can only be partially articulated by words.
I can tell you what the Lord has done for me, to quote the scripture. But that’s a very different thing from trying to explain it.
‘Taste and See’
I may know, as in “know the Lord,” but that does not mean I understand, which is why words only go so far as to describe the Christian life as “faith seeking understanding,” and not the other way around, “understanding seeking faith.” Because I must know the first to be able to even begin to explain.
So what does all of this have to do with receiving Communion? Well, everything. We understand that we’re entering something bigger than ourselves. And it is a mystery. All the efforts of the churches made throughout history to try to define what actually happens in Communion, particularly as mechanism or as delivery device, always fall short. Always. Which is why Anglicans historically have wanted to use the language of “real presence” to talk about what happens in the Eucharist as opposed to a particular definition of the delivery system.
We know that when we receive the bread and wine, we receive the body and blood of Christ. That’s clear; the scripture is definitive. But what does that mean? And is it transmitted through the elements themselves, or does God come directly to us as we receive the elements? Are the elements changed in some way? And if so, what does that look like? In all those ways, the scripture is absolutely silent.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of theologians who want to fill in the gaps. But the important piece of Communion is not mechanism; it is “that which we have handled with our hands.” It is “taste and see that the Lord is good.” It is receiving into our body that which God chooses to receive and give us. It’s not a cerebral operation that happens here. It is in fact, an inner change, because if you are ingesting – in any way you want to describe it – the very presence of God, something’s happening to your body, whether you know that at a conscious level or not.
You are, in fact, being changed. Because no one can come into the presence of God and not be changed – either in saying yes or no.
During this Lenten season, in what ways have you experienced the mystery of Christ? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.
(This post is an adaptation of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on June 17, 2017, in the chapel of the diocesan office, Orlando.)
Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.