The Open Table

As a matter of practice, I learned long ago that a basic principle of interfaith dialogue and understanding is to “stay in your own lane” when critiquing religious beliefs and traditions. Perfectly fair for one to scrutinize the beliefs of their own tradition, it is a whole other thing to scrutinize the beliefs of someone else’s tradition. It is the old story of taking the log out of your own eye before attempting to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. A Christian, for instance, who would complain about the violence in Hebrew scriptures needs to spend considerable time reading the book of Revelation, without question the most violent book in the Bible, and then address the issue of violence in Christian traditions before saying one word about violence in anyone else’s tradition.

As a Protestant, therefore, I am not inclined to criticize the U.S. Conference of Bishops for their recent decision to call into question Catholic politicians who do not abide by Catholic teaching on abortion while continuing to partake of the Eucharist. Much better to let Catholics sort that out with one another. I do find the timing of their action a little disconcerting, given that nothing has really changed except that we now have a President who happens to be Catholic and unlike his most immediate predecessor, is an avid practitioner of his faith. But my understanding of the Eucharist is wholly different from the Catholic tradition and hence it just isn’t appropriate for me to tell the good Bishops what they should or should not teach about a central tenant of their tradition.

What I can do, however, is talk about my tradition and understanding of the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper as we call it, and why that understanding is just as important to the beliefs and practices of my tradition as it is to the Catholic tradition. A single scene in an old movie sums it up better than a book of sermons. Sally Field is married to the town Sheriff in Places of the Heart. Early in the movie, her husband is accidentally shot and killed by a young black man who is drunk. He is quickly lynched, not with a rope on a tree, but a rope behind a truck. The rest of the movie is about the struggles of this widow as she tries to make her southern farm work in the midst of the Depression with the help of a blind white man and a black farm hand. A most unlikely trio against nearly impossible odds. (Spoiler alert!) In the final scene of the movie, the town’s people are in a church. People who had bitter disputes with one another are all there. A married couple, their marriage broken by an affair, sit side by side. Communion in trays, the style used in the tradition in which I was raised, is passed down the aisle. Each person serves the person seated next to them. When it comes to the final row, there is the black farm hand who had to flee for his life from the threats of the KKK, he turns to serve the blind man who then serves the two young children of Sally Field. Next is their mother who then passes the tray of communion cups to her formerly deceased husband and the deceased sheriff serves the man who killed him, last seen bloody and lifeless at the end of that rope. The last line of the movie is uttered by this young black man, as he turns slightly to the man he killed, smiles and says, “Peace of God.” And that, my friends, is true Eucharist.

I’ll never forget my experience of that final scene, sitting in the theater absolutely stunned. Nothing about the movie suggested any kind of religious theme and yet here it was, as big as could be on that screen. Those around me where going, “Huh?” I was saying, “Yes!” The word “eucharist” comes from the Greek word for “grace”. The Eucharist is many things, but most of all it is the expression of the grace of God and for that reason, I have always insisted on an open table that expresses the radical hospitality of God’s grace as illustrated in that scene where all are included.

One time I failed as a parent was when I wanted my children to have an experience of other traditions and therefore took them to a different church when we were on vacation. This particular church had a tradition of people coming forward to the chancel and kneeling at a rail to receive communion. A minister came around and placed a wafer in the outstretched hands of each parishioner. After him another minister or perhaps an assistant came by with a chalice filled with communion wine. Without even thinking, I knelt and held out my hand. My young daughter, then 8 or 9, completely unfamiliar with the tradition, watched carefully and dutifully did the same. I received my wafer and held it for dipping in the chalice (the practice known as “intinction”). Just as I was about to do so, I saw the minister place his hand on my daughter’s head and say, “Bless you, my child,” and move on. The crestfallen look on my daughter’s face as she looked at her empty hand was a stab to my own heart. How could I have not known she was too young in that tradition? I swore then and there that I would double down to make sure EVERY child that came to a table where I served would be included. Don’t tell me they are not old enough to understand the meaning of that act. My daughter understood perfectly well. Whatever else it meant, it didn’t include her. And that communicated plenty of meaning, just not what was intended.

I should note in all fairness to the tradition of that particular denomination, infants are baptized whereas in my tradition one must be of an age of consent to be baptized. Thus all, regardless of age, are included in that tradition at the baptismal font rather than at the communion table. And so one must consider the totality of one’s tradition, not just one particular piece of it, in order to understand what is taught about grace and inclusion. It is perhaps one of the sad ironies of my tradition, the Disciples of Christ, that when we adopted baptism of believers by immersion in lieu of infant baptism, most congregations paired that with the practice of “first communion” used in those traditions where youth receive communion only after the confirmation of their baptism. In so doing we left children completely out of the two sacraments of our tradition. “You are not old enough to to understand,” we told them. In reality, it was the adults who did not understand. Grace is more about experience than understanding. Thus I would argue as a matter of theological necessity if the grace of God is to have any meaning in the Church, then one must either include children in baptism or at the table. To exclude them from both is a theological travesty. Fortunately many if not most of Disciple congregations today now include children at the table.

Alexander Campbell, the most influential of the four primary founders of our tradition, was just 17 when he had his transformational experience at the communion table. In the tradition of the Presbyterian church in that time and place, Scotland in the early 19th century, if you were deemed worthy you were given a token which you then presented to the minister presiding at the communion table. No token, no communion. Campbell, in an act of defiance that perhaps comes more easily when one is a teenager, put his token on the table, turned around and walked away. Meanwhile his father, Thomas Campbell, was sent to what was then the frontier of the new nation in North America to form new congregations. At the time there were a variety of Presbyterian traditions known by such names as “New Light” and “Old Light”, “Burgher” and “Anti-burgher”. The elder Campbell, finding a few of one kind of Presbyterian and a few of another in the frontier communities, simply invited all to join in worship. When the leaders of the association that was funding his efforts learned that he included the wrong kind of Presbyterians, God forbid!, they censured him and ordered him to cease such scandalous practice. Instead, he withdrew from the association and formed his own. Inclusion at the table, rather than exclusion, became a central theme of the movement.

The concept of the radical hospitality of the open table may have not been expressed by the Campbells, but it is a natural extension of the practice they began over 200 years ago. A central tenant of the movement was to eschew all creeds as divisive to the unity of the body of Christ. There were to be no tests of fellowship, no doctrinal requirements, only faith in Jesus Christ. Thus there could be and there was enormous differences of beliefs. In one famous exchange at a large convention when there was a fierce debate on matters of belief, a prominent leader in the movement stood up and proclaimed, “Though I am a Calvinist and Brother Raines is a Universalist, I will stick my arm through the fires of hell to extend to him the hand of Christian fellowship.” (I gave up my Disciple history books so someone is going to have to look up that reference for me to tell me who said it.) I know of no better way to show unity and overcome differences than to share a meal together at the same table. If one believes as do I, that all people are children of God, then all people should be welcome at the table of God.

My faith in the radical hospitality of the open table was severely tested one Sunday after Halloween. Three people came in their Halloween outfits after the service had begun, only their Halloween party was more of the adults only type. One young woman wore an open vest which covered what needed to be, but not much else. Another wore chaps that, I was told by someone behind her, didn’t even do that. I’ve no doubt that it was some kind of test. Would these “Christians” kick them out for their inappropriate dress to confirm their beliefs of our intolerance? We didn’t, so maybe we passed the test. It was our early service where we practiced communion by intinction. The trio came forward. (Only later did I learn why the mom behind them was covering up the eyes of her young son as the chap-wearing woman rose from her seat and came into the aisle in front of them.) I got the sense that none of the three had ever participated in this odd ritual before, so I gave each instructions for taking a piece of bread and dipping it in the juice. The last of the three was sucking on a lollipop. Taking it out of her mouth she held it over the chalice and said, “Can I?” Trying my best not to react, but also noting that no one else was in line, I just nodded. (I don’t think anyone noticed that when it came time for the two ministers to serve each other, I set my chalice aside and the two of us shared a common, more sanitary, cup.) Shortly thereafter the three left, avoiding any opportunity for dialogue and perhaps confrontation. Maybe it was all a joke for them. And maybe, just maybe, they got a taste of Eucharist, the grace of God, that included them.

Such is the grace I have known and have sought to share all these years.

Photo by Glen Campbell, First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Eugene, Oregon