Five Moments of Communion

And why the table still matters

One // “I get bread and wine this year!” Charlotte whispers to me every Sunday beginning the summer before fourth grade. She’s been counting down until her First Communion for months. Our church offers the traditional communion class to fourth graders. Something about the table and walking forward and receiving small pieces of bread and a plastic cup of wine speaks to Charlotte. Communion is a mystery — it’s *just* bread and wine, but it’s also God's presence, love and forgiveness. The table is full with those who’ve gone before us, the saints we’ve known and those we’ve only heard about, their stories passed down from generation to generation. The table is full of forgiveness. The table is full of friendship. Charlotte has been coming forward since birth to receive a blessing, but soon she’ll open her hands and be handed the bread and the wine. Every week Charlotte turns to me with a smile, “I get bread and wine.”

Two // I don’t remember much about my own first communion, but I do remember one evening at church baking the communion bread. I learned the term “elbow grease” when I asked the pastor what we needed to bring and his reply, “Hope you have elbow grease.” But that’s the gift, too. We don’t need anything to come to the table. We come as we are with whatever is on our hearts and minds. When I started working in the church, I remembered my childhood church baking experience. I asked my first communion families to gather with me to bake bread. We talked about Holy Communion and what it means to gather at the table. I taught them those churchy words: paten, chalice, flagon.¹ Throughout the conversation we poured, measured, and mixed.

Three // If you dig into the Greek practices during Jesus’ time, you learn that people would eat at tables by reclining around them. During the Last Supper, Jesus and his disciples were most likely not sitting upright, but reclining as they ate. I think about Jesus reclining and I imagine comfort and ease. The places where Jesus gathered — with sinners and tax collectors and women and everyday people — were open to anyone. I like to remind those coming to communion that this is their reality too. The table is meant to be a place not to be feared or a place that is withheld from others. At the table we’re all the same — in need of grace and love, hungry, dependent on God. The political fighting, the sides no one wants to cross, the ways we've let one another down: there is no room for this at the table.

Four // We sit in the front row for Charlotte’s First Communion. She and her friend, Lena, want to be together. They are as close as they can be to the table and taking communion. I watch them flip through the bulletin and follow along in the service. “How much longer until communion?” they ask me. During one of the hymns the girls are holding hands and singing together. Their voices soaring. Their bodies bouncing in the seat, dancing to the hymns, just waiting to come forward for their turn to receive the bread and the wine.

Five // The tradition of St. Paul’s invites those receiving their first communion to gather around the table with their friends and family. Living hours away from many of our extended family members and godparents, we invite our neighbors to join us for the morning. More accurately, Charlotte sends them a text inviting them to come to her First Communion.

When we gather up front, I notice it isn’t just our family and the neighbors we invited standing next to us, but others who love and care for Charlotte, others who have watched her grow up and promised to nurture her in faith. This is the body of Christ: people willing to be present in the quiet and simple ways of text messages, hand-written cards, prayers, and words of welcome: you are loved and valued; we are here for you. Charlotte holds out her hands to receive the bread given by her father and she hears the words that are hers, have always been hers, and will follow her all of her days: given for you.

Where have you experienced communion recently? I’d love to hear!

1. Paten is the small plate to hold the bread
Flagon is the container for the wine with a handle and spout and shaped like a pitcher
Chalice holds the wine after it’s been consecrated and is then poured into smaller cups or shared as the common cup