This past weekend was the first time I experienced someone looking me in the eye, stating that they wouldn’t partake in communion with me.
Why?
Because of my views on homosexuality.
Is that what communion’s all about?
Clinking miniature plastic shot glasses with pre-filled grape juice as an “amen” to deeming what’s “abominable” in the eyes of God? A meal to lambaste a group of people who are “unnatural” and “cannot procreate?” Is communion all about reminding people that “‘they’ choose their own sexuality,” while you negate to mention that you didn’t choose yours? Does the act of communing only involve eating and drinking and doing life with people just like you, who think like you, who hate the ‘sins’ that you hate, who interpret scripture the way you interpret scripture, who vote the same way you vote?
Is that what communion is all about?
If that’s your version of gathering around the table, I’ll take a pass. Instead, I’ll go to the open field of freedom, where we sit in a circle, Kumbaya style, and each share the same cup and the same bread and say a glorious “Amen” to our maker, celebrating the imago dei in us all. We may not agree on everything and we each are passionate about different things, but together we create beauty and peace. Some of us are married; some of us aren’t. Yes, some of us like men; some of us like women; some of us don’t know; and, really, we don’t care either way. Because together, we know what we do care about: loving God and loving people. And anything we can do to advance the Kingdom of God- that Kingdom- we’ll do.
Because the last I checked, communion was about all of us being invited to the banquet table. Celebrating the Jesus who loves us as people first. People who feel pushed aside. People who are lonely. People who are searching for just one person to say, “Let s/he who is without sin cast the first stone.” People who love him. People who don’t. The world called them “prostitutes,” “tax collectors,” “Pharisees,” “sinners,” “adherent disciples,” “disciples-soon-to-be-betrayers.” The question is, though, Who would Jesus say he ate with? How did Jesus see each person he dined with? Does God see the prostitute? Or as author Shane Claiborne learned from a friend who was an atheist, “Jesus never talked to a prostitute because he didn’t see a prostitute. He just saw a child of God he was madly in love with.”
Realizing the beauty behind his friend’s words, Shane continues, “When we have new eyes, we can look into the eyes of those we don’t even like and see the One we love. We can see God’s image in everyone we encounter. As Henri Nouwen puts it, ‘In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile.’ We are made of the same dust. We cry the same tears. No one is beyond redemption. And we are free to imagine a revolution that sets both the oppressed and the oppressors free.” (The Irresistible Revolution, pg. 266)
It’s easy now to see, in this light, how beautiful our God is and how precious we each are one to another, one to the world, one to our beloved Maker. Oh sure, it’s easy to point out the dissension, the arguing, the “righting,” and “wronging.” But when you take a second glance, when you uncover our fears, dismantle our pride, and each reach out our hands, we discover the love that Jesus sees when he looks into each child’s eyes and whispers directly from God, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
Melissa Otterbein 