Category Archives: Eucharist

Take this Bread

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Last week, I read Sara Miles‘ Take this Bread. It is a memoir of her life leading up to her encounter with Christ in the Eucharist at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, her conversion and efforts to create a food pantry at that church. It’s a remarkable story, well-written and full of passion. I’m especially interested in how she created the food pantry and made it a place that did more than distribute food. In fact, the distribution of food takes place around the church’s altar and over time, she created eucharistic community among the volunteers (many of whom began as pantry guests) and among the larger group of guests as well.

Her work and life is not without controversy, however. She came to the church via open communion–the practice of extending the hospitality of the Eucharist to anyone, not just the baptized, and St. Gregory of Nyssa does not clearly distinguish lay and clerical roles in the Eucharist. Many Christians are uncomfortable with the former, and many ordained clergy are outraged by the latter practice.

I’m intrigued by much of what she writes about the hospitality we offer as churches and as Christians, and about the role food places in nurturing community and the sense of the sacred.

More on communion

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I had a conversation yesterday about “open communion” with a new parishioner who shared with me the story of her journey to the Episcopal Church. She came to Grace from a church in another state where open communion was practiced; that is to say, communion was not restricted to baptized Christians. I have written before on this issue and needn’t repeat myself. Certainly, our practice does exclude people–the unbaptized.

But there are other ways to exclude people. I’ve also been asked by members of Grace why I don’t address people by name when I distribute communion. The answer to that is simple. To do so is to elevate the relationship between priest and parishioner above the relationship between Jesus Christ and the one receiving communion. When I place bread in someone’s hand, or offer them the chalice, I am sharing Jesus Christ with them, not myself. I came across an interesting observation concerning this at Anglicans Online. You may read it here.

But there’s something else even more important. I don’t know everyone’s name who comes to the altar rail. I will never know the name of everyone who comes to receive communion, and to name some people while leaving others unnamed is to create distinction between insider and outsider, between those with whom I have a relationship and those I don’t.