Communion

 Today was Communion day in my little church. We take Communion once a month and I always find it to be a sacred time of faith renewal. Well usually.

See here’s how it goes; in my church we serve Communion by passing a platter of little bread cubes, followed by a  tray that holds a bunch of teeny tiny little glasses of grape juice representing the wine. The bread is usually some kind of white or whole grain bread.  First the bread is passed, and we all hold our cube in our hand until the pastor speaks a few words and invites us to eat the bread, which we all do at the same time.   Then the juice is passed, more words are spoken, and we do the same. 

So today, as I took a piece of the bread and held it in my hand, I noticed that it looked different and was kind of firm.  One might even say HARD. I discreetly squeezed it a little.  Yup.  Hard.  So I just thought, “Oh well. It doesn’t matter, it only matters what it represents.”  So after the pastor’s words were spoken and we were invited to partake of the bread, I put it in my mouth and tried to chew it.  Imagine a mouthful of baking soda and sawdust.  It was apparently someone’s failed attempt at a soda biscuit.  There wasn’t enough saliva in me to dissolve it.  A camel wouldn’t have had enough saliva to dissolve it.  I concentrated on not choking and just did the best I could to mangle it enough to swallow some.  Chew chew chew, try to swallow. I started thinking, “I hope they hurry up with that juice.” 

After a few more words, thankfully they passed the juice.  Of course we all had to hold onto our tiny little thimbleful of liquid until pastor gave the word.  Soon we all had the little miniature shot glasses in our hands and the pastor was saying a few more words.  That’s when I heard it.  It sounded like someone across the aisle a ways back was crying.  There it was again, someone trying to stifle sobs.  Soon the sound was undeniable.  It seemed that someone was overcome by the moment, filled with the Spirit to the point of tears.  I finally had to turn and look.

There was one of our leading church ladies sitting in the pew, shoulders shaking, holding the little glass in her hand, laughing so hard her face was red. Soon others around her, already smiling, began to chuckle.  Poor pastor plowed ahead with the liturgy, backed up by a chorus of chortles and snorts.  After an eternity he finally gave the word to drink the juice.  Finally.  Hard as I tried to focus on the true meaning of the sacrament, I was mostly just relieved to have that tenth of an ounce of liquid to help wash down the sawdust.  (I later found out that another lady in the back told the deacon who was passing the tray of little glasses, “I’m gonna need two of those.” )

Well by now the laughing was raging out of control.  You know how it is when you’re NOT supposed to laugh, you laugh all the harder.  It’s just a law of nature, it’s not your fault. 

Everyone was at least smiling, smirking, or glancing at the pastor.  Even he had a smirk on his face by now and said, “I assume all the mirth has something to do with the quality of the bread.”  Well now the whole place erupted.  Permission to laugh.

Through a Herculean effort, the congregation finally pulled it together and we continued with the service. 

So today was not your average Communion.  But you know what, there really shouldn’t be an ‘average Communion’ anyway.  No one was intentionally disrespecting the sacrament.  Circumstances just threw a touch of comedy into the mix.  The laughing church lady later said, “I sure hope God has a sense of humor.”  Pastor said, “Oh I think He has a great sense of humor.” 

That’s just what I was thinking.