OLIVER’S CUP

 

The early church celebrated communion with a common loaf.  When the church got too big to meet in one place a piece of the common loaf was taken to each congregation. The common loaf was a powerful symbol of their unity as the Body of Christ—and their diversity.  St. Augustine captured this symbolism in a sermon about the many grains of the common loaf joined together by the water of Christian baptism.  Over the last 2000 years the church has gotten bigger, more scattered.  Now we have rules about who can come to the table and who can’t.  We spend more time arguing about the frequency and manner of communion and not enough time creating community.

 

A year ago I had a powerful experience of communion that brought all of this home for me.  It happened in one of the most unlikely places—a chapel service at a seminary in Georgia.  The chapel service proceeded like all the others had during the week with singing and scripture and a spoken meditation.  But when it came time for communion all the discussion of the week caught in my throat as Oliver, an African American man in this predominately white seminary got up to take his place as one of the communion servers.

 

At the beginning of the service we had been asked to make and wear name tags.  I assumed this was so the servers could call us by name as we took our piece of bread from the common loaf. I knew Oliver’s name, not because he was wearing a name tag like mine, but because of the patch on his uniform.  He was on the maintenance staff of the seminary.  I felt drawn to this man.  As we filed out of our pews and formed a line down the aisle I hoped I would get to dip my piece of bread in Oliver’s cup.

I counted the number of people in front of me to see if I would get Oliver’s cup.  I decided the math didn’t matter.  I was going to wait, to forgo the nice young white woman standing there in front of me with her cup--no offense, I just had to dip my bread in his cup.  When I lifted the soaked bread to my lips, I was caught by the taste of the wine more than the words he softly spoke with lowered eyes. 

When I returned to my seat I began to notice there were other people waiting for Oliver’s cup.  My first thought was, “Maybe everyone is going to the only black person in the line out of their white guilt.”  Then it dawned on me.  We sought out Oliver’s cup because we were thirsty for true community.  A community of many grains—black, brown, yellow, red, white, male, female, differently abled, gay, straight, faculty, student , clergy, lay—all moistened by the waters of our baptism, lovingly shaped by the master baker into one loaf.