In my denomination’s recent history, communion has sometimes been somewhat ominous; I’ve heard stories about how church members were required to appear individually in a closed room before the elders for spiritual examination before being allowed to take the meal. People “unsaved” or with unresolved sinfulness were not welcome to partake of the juice and bread, since taking it without the proper preparation, seriousness, or faith credentials merited weighty divine paybacks.
This strictness is changing: I have never been examined, and in most churches I’ve visited the only communion caveat is to partake only “if things are right between you and God and everyone else.” Unbaptized kids are often welcome, too, although they might be handed grapes rather than the wine or juice. I’ve appreciated this liberalization of boundaries.
However, these more loose communion practices, like traditional ceremonies, often are framed as part of remembering the Passover. It was at the observance of that Jewish holiday that Jesus served that first communion, and we have concluded that “do this in remembrance of me” means to continue coupling the two. This unfortunately only furthers the accentuation that God chooses sides, in the Exodus story’s case the side of the Israelite slaves, on whose behalf the Egyptians’ firstborn people and animals were killed.
Now, the Passover story is part of all that is hugely relevant to the history of the Jewish people, to any underdog movement needing inspiration, and to anyone who wants to understand Western literature. However, it is, like many other Old Testament stories, mostly relevant to non-Jewish, contemporary Christians because it informed the context into which Jesus was (to some, so rudely) plopped and, in this case, which he confronted–by voiding litmus tests for joining with the religious “in” crowd. Did not Jesus himself serve communion to–of all people!–Judas Iscariot and Peter? In short, Jesus so threatened (in part by eating with questionable characters) the religiously right’s self-righteous boundaries that he was arrested–and during the very celebration of Israel’s chosen status, at that.
I appreciate and believe that, as the Exodus story suggests, God does care about (and maybe even side with) the downtrodden. Jesus did, too, after all (and so does the Statue of Liberty). That’s scary, as I’m not particularly downtrodden, which means I’m probably downtrodding. Even scarier is Jesus’ declaration of who really is “in”: “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.”
Jesus blurred Pharisaical “saved” versus “unsaved” dichotomies by eating with many different stripes of sinners, even at his last supper. This effectively frees communion from excluding or delineating schemes that deny bread and wine to people just as eligible as anyone for becoming the everyday body and blood of Christ.
Instead of continuing to tie communion observance to the story of the Passover and framing it as a special ceremony reserved for a special “in” crowd, perhaps the world would be better served if communionists celebrated, as holy communion, the meal that Jesus took with Zacchaeus, where the only prerequisite to pulling up a chair was interest and the outcome of joining in was change for the better.
