"This is Christ's body, broken for you. Live for him, love him, and remember his sacrifice." Kristy hands me the plate, and I break off a piece of bread - then turn to my left, and hand it to Jade, sitting next to me on the ratty, faded couch.
"Jade, this is Christ's body..." I begin.
Within a few moments, each of us has been offered a piece of bread, and poured a cup of grape juice. And we sit, together, quietly eating, and encountering Christ.
I tell people I'm a "baplican" - short for "Baptist Anglican". I used to mean by this that I went to an Anglican church, and had Baptist theology. These days... it's a bit more complicated.
I'm actually a lot of things. To be precise: I'm an emergent egalitarian inclusivist Arminian sacramentalist liturgist who proclaims the Priesthood of All Believers. And the last
three of those seven things are what makes me a baplican.
The candle flickers into life, and I lay the match down next to it. I take a moment to look around my living room, taking in books, piano, dirty carpet, dvd collection, and try to pull my thoughts back from wondering about each - what book I'll read next, when I'll be able to afford a new vacuum cleaner, whether I'm going to miss interesting tv shows if this takes too long - back from the ridiculous, trivial thoughts that crowd my mind, and into a sort of peace I'd really like to experience someday.
Then I pick up my book, hunker forward, watching the candle flame, and begin:
"Blessed are you, Sovereign God,
our light and our salvation,
to you be glory and praise for ever.
Now, as darkness is falling,
wash away our trangressions,
cleanse us by your refining fire,
and make us temples of your Holy Spirit..."
I proclaim the Priesthood of All Believers.
This doesn't mean that I walk around ringing a bell, and carrying a sandwich board that says "ASK ME ABOUT THE PRIESTHOOD OF ALL BELIEVERS". Nor does it mean that, in theological conversations, I say "Well, as an inclusivist, I'm not too worried about defining salvation - oh, and by the way, I'd like to take a moment to proclaim the Priesthood of All Believers. Just so you know."
I proclaim the Priesthood of All Believers when I receive communion at the hands of a friend, on the floor of their living room. I proclaim it when a friend asks me if I'll come over next weekend and baptise her in the river, and I say "sure!" instead of telling her to contact a minister. I proclaim it when I come before God in my own time, in my own way, and trust him to meet me there. Every time I choose to behave as though I am a priest, as though other Christians are priests, and allow us to perform "priestly" functions, I proclaim it to myself, and to anyone else who's watching.
I'm sitting at church, feeling the familiar sensation of my butt gradually starting to go numb from far too long sitting on the hard wooden pews. Up the front, the youth pastor has just reached the middle part of his Thoughts On Communion - so, give it maybe three more minutes, and they'll start handing everything out.
"There's nothing magical about the bread and wine," he says. "It's just a way to remember what Jesus did for us."
I have heard this at every communion service I've been to in my life. It's not magical; it's not special; it's not any different from ordinary old bread you buy at the supermarket; God doesn't do anything with it; we don't do anything with it; it's plain old bread and grape juice. That's all.
I'm starting to wonder if they might be missing the point.
Liturgy, according to the infallible Wikipedia, is a "communal response to the sacred".
More specifically, liturgy is a ritualised way to response to God's presence, often done through lighting candles, reading out responsive prayers, reciting creeds, celebrating communion, and kneeling or standing as a group.
When a group of five people shares communion together, we aren't just sharing with each other; we're also sharing communion with everyone who ever has, or ever will. When I read a prayer from the Prayer Book, there are thousands of people in the church who have said it too - and I am sharing, in part, with their prayer, just as they are sharing mine. The liturgy is not just about the here and now, but about the before and the until. It binds us together.
Oddly enough, it's a lot easier to see the point of responding to the sacred if you believe the "sacred" isn't just a symbol.
I move along to the third place of contemplation, and kneel down again.
This one has a bowl of water, a painting of a busy street overlaid with words from a Psalm, and a small card suggesting that I think about Jesus, and how he stepped down into the real world. "We shouldn't think of Christ as only being interested in spiritual things," it says. "He walked on dirt, cooked over a fire, and felt the sun on his face."
I stay kneeling until I'm ready to move on. Then I reach into the bowl of water, pull a stone out from the bottom, and hold it. It slips into my pocket - a heavy reminder that God became one of us - and I stand up, and move onto the fourth contemplation spot.
The sacraments are tangible signs of intangible grace. God can create them anywhere he likes - but he's got two permanent ones right now: baptism, and communion. Both are physical ways that God meets with us and gives us grace. (Not the only ways - but some pretty important ways.)
I'm a sacramentalist - so I think these are real, sacred, actual ways that we encounter God. They're more than a symbol, inexpressibly more, and very special.
Since I proclaim the Priesthood of All Believers, I also think that communion can happen in a church, in a living room, or on a cliff; from bread and wine, or crackers and grape juice, or rice and green tea... God blesses what he blesses, and he loves us to come looking for him, in whatever ways we do.
It's pitch black up here, and freezing. I can hear waves hitting the cliff face, far below. I sit on the grass, hug my knees, and turn my thoughts towards Jesus.
We all stay silent for nearly ten minutes. And then we start, still without talking: the person next to me passes across the bag, and I manage to locate a slice of bread and pull it out, before passing it to someone else close by.
Pouring out the grape juice is even messier, given the lack of light, but I only spill a tiny bit on my jeans - the rest straight onto the grass - so it's okay. At any rate, some of it makes its way into my plastic cup, ready to drink.
More silence, for a few moments, and then our leader says quietly "It's midnight. Happy new year, everyone. Let's remember Christ's sacrifice together," and we all start munching...
Sometimes I wish I was a Pagan.
In a world where church has become a form of ritualised socialising, with lukewarm coffee to wash down the taste of the sermon, it's easy to forget that we're supposed to be encountering the sacred somewhere in there. I'd love to bulldoze the building, get rid of squabbling over the pastors' salaries and the flower arranging committee, throw out the songs and sermons, and get back to the idea of coming together to meet with Jesus.
I love the formality, the ritual, of liturgy. I love the creativity that appears when someone suddenly says "we should have communion" and you all start rummaging through the pantry, trying to figure out what you need. I love seeking out the sacred. I love discovering how much God places the sacred into the ordinary. I love it when bread and wine become a physical piece of grace - and still just bread and wine, as well. I love being part of these things we have been doing and saying for so many centuries, and feeling the church say the creed right along with me, right there in my living room.
When I call myself a baplican,
that's what I mean.
--
Deird
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