Lately when I meditate on the Supper my thoughts are led to the radicality of the incarnation. You can paint a strikingly gruesome picture of the Cross in a communion meditation that literally remembers the Lord's death in the supper (thus fulfilling the literal demand of the Scriptures). However, I find it equally enriching to extrapolate from remembering the actual death of Jesus and try to lead worshippers to meditate on the incarnation. But by "meditating on the incarnation" I do not necessarily mean a literal meditation on Jesus humbling himself to become that which he created (although that is a good possibilty for a strong meditation - the "kenosis" of Philippians 2.5-11). Rather I try to emphasize to the congregation that God permeates the secular. We tend to believe that the secular negates the spiritual. But such a notion violates the essence of incarnation. In the same way that God holds together all things in and by his being as part of the divine act of Creation, so God in Christ radically comes to be a human creature. While this is radical to us, it is natural to God. God doesn't break any rules or violate anything when he comes in Christ, rather it is to be expected of the Creator God in whom we live and move and have or being. God continues to be involved with his Creatures immediately in Creation and the coming of God in Jesus is not absurd, but simply part of this participation. In the incarnation then the sacred and secular are inevitably intertwined.
Because sacred and secular are intertwined in the incarnation, it is also natural that we consume bread and wine during the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Jesus fills the bread and wine with divine significance relative to his being. Yet the bread and wine, as creatures designed to uphold and sustain life, and as signs of God's blessing to this end, are also very secular. In my meditations of late, then, I try to demonstrate God's encounter with humanity in the secular. This perspective opens up an entirely new horizon and breathes life into the "old standard" communion meditation. One way that I have tried to do this is through popular culture. I mean, what could be (at the same time) more secular and yet more open to God? I pull fragments from popular culture that speak to the reality of the things that we observe in the Supper. I do this with narratives from film (Gran Torino comes to mind - the final scene solidifies that this is a redemption story on many levels). I have yearned to draw from the music of U2 to guide us in meditation on the Supper. Bono's poetics offer a rich resource. The song "White as Snow" alone is a meditation. The possibilities here are seemingly endless. I have even thought of negating an instance of popular culture, showing how the Cross answers the hopelessness and emptiness of some of our expressions in popular culture.
So, that is where I am led these days in helping worshipers prepare themselves to participate in the Supper. Speaking more generally, I try to do the following when I offer a communion mediation: Take the congregation through their experience to the death and resurrection of Christ as that calls us to ministry to a watching world. I key on the bread as the substance of our experience. I key on the cup either as the divine affirmation of our experience or the divine response in the cross of Christ (or the incarnation) to our experience. Then for the offering, I leave out the phrase "separate and apart," because I think it a travesty to divorce the two liturgically, and I talk about the call to serve implicit in the Incarnation and the Cross as meditated upon from the substance of our experience.
Inviting people through these stages using something from popular culture (1) blows their minds because we do not often relate these two sides of ourselves and it is healthy to do so and (2) makes an immediate connection with many and, in a sense, redeems popular culture (or us as participants in the broader culture) demonstrating where it points from time to time. So start the meditation with the recitation of lyric, then de-mystify the recitation by naming the artist/film, then demonstrate the clear, direct connection with the Christian story/experience illumined by this film/lyric. In the end, show how this theological reminder from within our own experience calls us to love, worship and serve God. This sounds formulaic, but it is one framework that I think works well when we consider honestly the mixture of the secular and sacred in the experience of our congregation. If we can use the meditation to bring that secular self into the Supper and in that Supper find redemption and rest for ourselves (rendering the "psyche" often translated "souls" as "selves" here), then the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus remains transformative and the corporate response will be the greater worship of God in our daily experience.
I believe that limiting our communion meditation opportunities in Churches of Christ by making 1 Corinthians 11 a mandated framework sells the congregation short of a genuine encounter together with the Lord and with one another in the Lord's Supper. My suggestion of moving in and out of both Scripture and contemporary culture connects the worship context with people at a more substantial level and I believe the result is the redemption of the self.
Another broad thread that can run through the eucharist is the emphasis on community inherent in the supper. I love thinking with the congregation about this as well relative to the supper. We are served one loaf in the supper and we share it. The cup takes its origins from the cup of messianic hope in the Passover haggadah, so we anticipate the return of Christ together as God's expectant people who wait upon the Lord. The collection represents our "collective" work as a congregation in our communities.
There are myriad ways that Communion refracts theologically. Hopefully I've given you something to go on here, Darin, and hopefully others are somewhat enriched by my meanderings. Peace in Christ, Carl
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