We Are One
Communion as an idea has been around for a long time. It means oneness, fellowship, or joining. In ancient Greece it was usually a business partnership or the fellowship of a marriage. Sometimes it was used to refer to a relationship with the Divine.
Unitarian Universalists have two communions which are widely used in our churches. We celebrate water communion to mark our homecoming after summer, or the start of the church year, and we celebrate Flower Communion around the end of the church year. These are wonderful rituals, and they have deep meaning rooted in community.
But today we are going to do something different. We are going to participate in a bread and wine, or at least non-alcoholic grape juice, communion, drawn from our Universalist roots.
Food and drink are one constant in every human life- without one or the other, we die. Because we can’t avoid this constant, it becomes a perfect way to create behaviors and taboos that tell us who is a member of our tribe, who believes and worships the way we do.
Thousands of years ago the sacred meal was central to religion. Indigenous groups shared a meal with their God, often through sacrifice, and over the years this changed to actually eating the god or goddess to take on their strength. According to Oxford scholar Robin Fox:
“The Aztecs made huge loaves in the shape of the gods, and these were thrown down the temple steps to be devoured by the multitude. Human sacrifice and cannibalism come to be linked again in the idea of the sacred meal, with the supreme food being used — human flesh.
There are various versions of the eating of the ancestors. South American Indians grind up the ashes and bones of dead parents and mix them in a soup which all their relatives share. This is another version of incorporating the ancestor or god into one’s own body. Our funeral feasts are a pale reflection of some of these more extreme types of sacred meal. But the idea of a memorial to the dead through eating is still there, and at Irish wakes the dead body often joins in the merriment. While such feasts, like wedding feasts, serve a practical purpose in feeding the guests, they also serve the ritual purpose of uniting the celebrants in the common act of eating, with all its rich, symbolic associations.”
Fox is talking here about a communion.
Many native tribes have sacred relationships with certain animals, and they see them as Divine messengers, or even as Gods. They refused to allow tribal members to eat these totem animals, other than perhaps once a year, when they were consumed ritually. Sigmund Freud actually worried that this was a way of teaching children to see the male parent as God, and of instilling a taboo forbidding children from killing their father.
Anthropologist Meyer Fortes thought that food was more useful in defining your group by marking not what was “good to eat” but instead what was “good to forbid.”
Observant Jews keep kosher, avoiding pork and shellfish and following strict dietary laws. Observant Muslims eat only halal food, avoiding the same pork, and eschewing alcohol and even tobacco. Catholics used to avoid meat on Fridays, some Buddhists avoid all meat.
Both the Jewish Seder and the Christian Last Supper are more modern versions of the sacred meal.
We eat with the Divine, we eat the Divine to reinforce the fact that we are all one. We take in the holy, and we become the holy in return.
And ritual grows up around the sacred meal- sometimes amazing incredible, beautiful rituals. There are aesthetic groups who regard each meal as sacred. They eat simply, minimally, only enough food to keep the body powered- food chosen for it’s pure simple taste and cruelty free nutrient value.
Others are sensual, recognizing the Latin tradition of Carnival, where food and drink are enjoyed ravenously, to thank the Divine for providing such wonderful things.
Mardi Gras- when fats are consumed in abundance is the foil for Lent, when people historically abstained from almost all treats. Passover is usually celebrated with a wonderful dinner, but one which follows the strictest dietary rules.
A Humanist or atheist would not perhaps agree that they would ever use food in such a sacred sense, but there is a strong similarity in the sacred diner and the lunch of a devout vegan.
So this all sounds lovely. What’s the problem with it?
The problem is that the rituals begin to stand in for the reality. We begin to think it matters if you get every word exactly right, if you set up the ritual perfectly.
We mistake the symbol for the substance.
We think it matters if we are a UU, a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or a Jew.
I have a Communion table set up here, and I can tell you all about it. I was trained to do that. I can tell you that the clean linen on the table represents the covering of grace we are born into. The golden candlesticks and burning candles are the light of the Divine.
I can show you the flowers that symbolize the Beauty of the Ultimate, and I could have bought an elaborate cup and plate to hold sacred flesh and holy blood.
I could wear holy clothing to show that I am set apart among your tribe.
But we don’t need any of that.
Because none of that matters.
What matters is the community of love you have created in your hearts. What matters is the act of sharing what you have with one another.
Spirit of Life and Love, Spirit of Sacred Humanity
We gather today at a simple table.
We come from many places,
And we differ in so many ways
As we come together
we discover that our differences are not something we tolerate
but that they are indeed a blessing,
the more difference we bring, the more fully we experience
the presence of the sacred in our midst.
Children of the Divine
Wherever you are on this journey of life, you are welcome here,
here in this place, here in this community, here at this table.
All of the elaborate ritual, all of the do this and don’t do that, all of the religion and all of the arguments, all of the symbols, all of that came later.
What matters, what came first, is a story.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, a little girl got pregnant. Her boyfriend knew the child wasn’t his, but he loved her enough to marry her anyway, and to raise the child as his own.
The child was born, a brilliant boy, and he grew up loved as much as any child could ever be.
And as he got older he realized that the world as he knew it was on the edge of destroying itself. His people had become divided into warring social and religious factions, some groups had begun to be absorbed by the Roman Empire, others were at risk of being wiped out by Rome as a nuisance.
He knew if someone didn’t see another way forward, there would soon be no way forward.
So he began to teach and preach in new ways, blending together pieces of the Persian religion of Mithras, Jewish wisdom, common sense, teachings from Asia, and holding it together with a thread of love for one another.
He called for listeners to put aside their differences, to forget which Jewish sect they belonged to, to ignore the divisions between Jew and Gentile and non-believer.
In a few short years he had gained an incredibly devoted body of followers, and the furious anger of diverse groups from Rome to the Jewish High Priests and lawmakers.
He called for social justice, for civil disobedience, for equality. He called for people to love one another, to put aside their swords and to love their neighbors.
He was no fool- he knew that his activism would cause him to be killed. But in martyrdom he knew that his message might live on. And he was willing to die if it meant that his people found another way.
So during the Jewish Feast at Passover he called his disciples and friends together. Rumors had reached him that his enemies were planning to have him arrested, and he knew that they would not allow him to preach again to the gathered Passover crowds.
He had one last chance.
On that night, the night he would be betrayed by a friend and given over to Rome, he gathered his disciples at a simple table set low on the floor of a hot attic room.
There were no fancy trappings or elaborate goblets. They were a group of friends, they ate, and passed the oil, and told jokes. And when dinner was almost over he took the bread, and he broke it in his hands and he said “Take this and eat. This is the web of life and you each have a piece of it. Remember me, and remember that, each time you share food together.”
Eat and know that you are a part of the holy. Know that in doing what every human does, you are sacred.
And after they had eaten the bread he took the simple clay cup and he filled it with wine and said “This is respect for everyone, love and forgiveness for all. It should be like the blood filling your veins. Remember how much I loved you, how many times I forgave you when you messed up, and each time you drink, remember to love and forgive others. Do this to remember me.”
Drink, and know that you are part of the holy. Know that by your heart beating you are perfect enough. Drink and remember. Drink and forgive.
You are a miracle, just as you are, so join with me now in the communion of all human beings.
Take this and eat, and know that you are sacred. Take this and drink and know that you are the Divine.
The ushers are going to help us pass the bread- please take a piece and pass the plate to the next person. David or I will bring the cup to each row. We will hold the cup for the first person in the row to dip their piece of bread lightly into the liquid, and I’ll ask that each of you hold the chalice so that the next person can dip as you pass it down the row.
(Communion)
In thankfulness, let us offer praise for the provisions of the Universe we have enjoyed. May we, with all creation, dedicate ourselves with integrity to the completion of our calling as human beings. May we enter the fellowship that is both matter and spirit, human and divine, time bound and everlasting.
Amen.
Unitarian Universalists have two communions which are widely used in our churches. We celebrate water communion to mark our homecoming after summer, or the start of the church year, and we celebrate Flower Communion around the end of the church year. These are wonderful rituals, and they have deep meaning rooted in community.
But today we are going to do something different. We are going to participate in a bread and wine, or at least non-alcoholic grape juice, communion, drawn from our Universalist roots.
Food and drink are one constant in every human life- without one or the other, we die. Because we can’t avoid this constant, it becomes a perfect way to create behaviors and taboos that tell us who is a member of our tribe, who believes and worships the way we do.
Thousands of years ago the sacred meal was central to religion. Indigenous groups shared a meal with their God, often through sacrifice, and over the years this changed to actually eating the god or goddess to take on their strength. According to Oxford scholar Robin Fox:
“The Aztecs made huge loaves in the shape of the gods, and these were thrown down the temple steps to be devoured by the multitude. Human sacrifice and cannibalism come to be linked again in the idea of the sacred meal, with the supreme food being used — human flesh.
There are various versions of the eating of the ancestors. South American Indians grind up the ashes and bones of dead parents and mix them in a soup which all their relatives share. This is another version of incorporating the ancestor or god into one’s own body. Our funeral feasts are a pale reflection of some of these more extreme types of sacred meal. But the idea of a memorial to the dead through eating is still there, and at Irish wakes the dead body often joins in the merriment. While such feasts, like wedding feasts, serve a practical purpose in feeding the guests, they also serve the ritual purpose of uniting the celebrants in the common act of eating, with all its rich, symbolic associations.”
Fox is talking here about a communion.
Many native tribes have sacred relationships with certain animals, and they see them as Divine messengers, or even as Gods. They refused to allow tribal members to eat these totem animals, other than perhaps once a year, when they were consumed ritually. Sigmund Freud actually worried that this was a way of teaching children to see the male parent as God, and of instilling a taboo forbidding children from killing their father.
Anthropologist Meyer Fortes thought that food was more useful in defining your group by marking not what was “good to eat” but instead what was “good to forbid.”
Observant Jews keep kosher, avoiding pork and shellfish and following strict dietary laws. Observant Muslims eat only halal food, avoiding the same pork, and eschewing alcohol and even tobacco. Catholics used to avoid meat on Fridays, some Buddhists avoid all meat.
Both the Jewish Seder and the Christian Last Supper are more modern versions of the sacred meal.
We eat with the Divine, we eat the Divine to reinforce the fact that we are all one. We take in the holy, and we become the holy in return.
And ritual grows up around the sacred meal- sometimes amazing incredible, beautiful rituals. There are aesthetic groups who regard each meal as sacred. They eat simply, minimally, only enough food to keep the body powered- food chosen for it’s pure simple taste and cruelty free nutrient value.
Others are sensual, recognizing the Latin tradition of Carnival, where food and drink are enjoyed ravenously, to thank the Divine for providing such wonderful things.
Mardi Gras- when fats are consumed in abundance is the foil for Lent, when people historically abstained from almost all treats. Passover is usually celebrated with a wonderful dinner, but one which follows the strictest dietary rules.
A Humanist or atheist would not perhaps agree that they would ever use food in such a sacred sense, but there is a strong similarity in the sacred diner and the lunch of a devout vegan.
So this all sounds lovely. What’s the problem with it?
The problem is that the rituals begin to stand in for the reality. We begin to think it matters if you get every word exactly right, if you set up the ritual perfectly.
We mistake the symbol for the substance.
We think it matters if we are a UU, a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or a Jew.
I have a Communion table set up here, and I can tell you all about it. I was trained to do that. I can tell you that the clean linen on the table represents the covering of grace we are born into. The golden candlesticks and burning candles are the light of the Divine.
I can show you the flowers that symbolize the Beauty of the Ultimate, and I could have bought an elaborate cup and plate to hold sacred flesh and holy blood.
I could wear holy clothing to show that I am set apart among your tribe.
But we don’t need any of that.
Because none of that matters.
What matters is the community of love you have created in your hearts. What matters is the act of sharing what you have with one another.
Spirit of Life and Love, Spirit of Sacred Humanity
We gather today at a simple table.
We come from many places,
And we differ in so many ways
As we come together
we discover that our differences are not something we tolerate
but that they are indeed a blessing,
the more difference we bring, the more fully we experience
the presence of the sacred in our midst.
Children of the Divine
Wherever you are on this journey of life, you are welcome here,
here in this place, here in this community, here at this table.
All of the elaborate ritual, all of the do this and don’t do that, all of the religion and all of the arguments, all of the symbols, all of that came later.
What matters, what came first, is a story.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, a little girl got pregnant. Her boyfriend knew the child wasn’t his, but he loved her enough to marry her anyway, and to raise the child as his own.
The child was born, a brilliant boy, and he grew up loved as much as any child could ever be.
And as he got older he realized that the world as he knew it was on the edge of destroying itself. His people had become divided into warring social and religious factions, some groups had begun to be absorbed by the Roman Empire, others were at risk of being wiped out by Rome as a nuisance.
He knew if someone didn’t see another way forward, there would soon be no way forward.
So he began to teach and preach in new ways, blending together pieces of the Persian religion of Mithras, Jewish wisdom, common sense, teachings from Asia, and holding it together with a thread of love for one another.
He called for listeners to put aside their differences, to forget which Jewish sect they belonged to, to ignore the divisions between Jew and Gentile and non-believer.
In a few short years he had gained an incredibly devoted body of followers, and the furious anger of diverse groups from Rome to the Jewish High Priests and lawmakers.
He called for social justice, for civil disobedience, for equality. He called for people to love one another, to put aside their swords and to love their neighbors.
He was no fool- he knew that his activism would cause him to be killed. But in martyrdom he knew that his message might live on. And he was willing to die if it meant that his people found another way.
So during the Jewish Feast at Passover he called his disciples and friends together. Rumors had reached him that his enemies were planning to have him arrested, and he knew that they would not allow him to preach again to the gathered Passover crowds.
He had one last chance.
On that night, the night he would be betrayed by a friend and given over to Rome, he gathered his disciples at a simple table set low on the floor of a hot attic room.
There were no fancy trappings or elaborate goblets. They were a group of friends, they ate, and passed the oil, and told jokes. And when dinner was almost over he took the bread, and he broke it in his hands and he said “Take this and eat. This is the web of life and you each have a piece of it. Remember me, and remember that, each time you share food together.”
Eat and know that you are a part of the holy. Know that in doing what every human does, you are sacred.
And after they had eaten the bread he took the simple clay cup and he filled it with wine and said “This is respect for everyone, love and forgiveness for all. It should be like the blood filling your veins. Remember how much I loved you, how many times I forgave you when you messed up, and each time you drink, remember to love and forgive others. Do this to remember me.”
Drink, and know that you are part of the holy. Know that by your heart beating you are perfect enough. Drink and remember. Drink and forgive.
You are a miracle, just as you are, so join with me now in the communion of all human beings.
Take this and eat, and know that you are sacred. Take this and drink and know that you are the Divine.
The ushers are going to help us pass the bread- please take a piece and pass the plate to the next person. David or I will bring the cup to each row. We will hold the cup for the first person in the row to dip their piece of bread lightly into the liquid, and I’ll ask that each of you hold the chalice so that the next person can dip as you pass it down the row.
(Communion)
In thankfulness, let us offer praise for the provisions of the Universe we have enjoyed. May we, with all creation, dedicate ourselves with integrity to the completion of our calling as human beings. May we enter the fellowship that is both matter and spirit, human and divine, time bound and everlasting.
Amen.