Communion in One Early Church

Church newsletter post:

One of the ongoing projects that we are participating in at Open Circle, along with many other progressive churches, is the re-imagining of Christianity. This project has two major thrusts: first, to rethink the mythic underpinnings of a faith formed in a pre-scientific, pre-enlightenment age and restate it in a way that allows us to have intellectual integrity (or as I sometimes say that makes it possible for us to not have to check our brains at the door when we enter the church); and second, to recapture the diversity and vitality of the early Jesus, pre-orthodox, Christian movement. There was once more than one way to understand oneself as a Christian. There still is.

To give you an example of this second part, I invite you to think about what communion means to you, and if you grew up in a Christian church, how it was interpreted to you. More than likely you heard or learned that communion is about the body and blood of Jesus. We get this understanding from the writings of Paul and the gospels. It's in there, it's authentic, and it is "orthodox."

But in the early history of the Jesus movement it was not the only way to think about communion. We know this because we have an early record of at least one, and probably a network of communities, that practiced communion with a different interpretation. This record comes from a document known as the Didache. The Didache (or the Teaching) was discovered in 1883 in a monastery in Constantinople bundled among a group of early writings. It is dated between 50-100 CE. It's importance for early Christian research ranks right up there with the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas. And the Didache is less controversial; everyone recognizes its importance since it was referred to approvingly by the "Church Fathers;" it sits within what became known as orthodoxy even though it doesn't have an orthodox understanding of communion.

The Didache is a manual for Christian living. It addresses training for new members, regulations for testing the itinerant ministers who regularly visited, and norms for eating, baptizing, fasting, and communing. Significantly the Didache says nothing at all about the work or writings of Paul. The Didache understands Jesus not through the lens of his death and resurrection but through his life; it teaches Christians how to live as Jesus lived. The community or communities that used the Didache understood themselves as Christians, but their Christianity looked different than the Christianity we learn about from Paul.

Communion in the Didache consisted of drinking from a cup that symbolized the knowledge that they were part of the "Holy Vine of David." Eating the bread symbolized that they had life and immortality they enjoy by belonging to the kingdom of God made known to them by Jesus. There is nothing in their communion prayers and rituals, which are carefully described, associating it with the body and blood of Jesus.

There is nothing wrong with associating communion with the body and blood of Jesus, by the way. As long as we can reinterpret the symbols in a way that is meaningful for today. That is not my point. My point is that there once was more than one acceptable way to think about the significance of Jesus and his life and death. Here is a record of a community that was oriented around the life of Jesus; they retold his words and they tried to live as he lived. They called themselves Christians. And they were.

Did I mention that we are going to be celebrating communion during worship this week? Did I also mention that I am beginning a series focusing on what happened after Jesus? How did we get from Jesus to Constantine? I hope to see you Sunday.