Justice and Liberation

in the Eucharist
BRIAN WREN

UPPOSE YOU are given the freedom scraps of bread and meat left in the
S of an ancient European city. In a
public ceremony, the mayor presents you
dish—the debris of a meal.
The eucharistic "breaking of bread"
in the spirit of Jesus' scandalous table
fellowship will be open to all—including
nonmembers and nonbelievers.
with a silver key and an illuminated in the context of a real meal where The Last Supper was a Passover meal.
scroll. You are honored and recognized. the most basic human needs are met The synoptics describe a Passover meal
But the key opens no doors, and the was taken for granted in the early in which a group of Jews gathered and
freedoms listed in the scroll no longer church. reminded themselves that they were
give tangible rewards. You will get as It should be a major concern that our slaves in Egypt, but God delivered them
many traffic fines, and pay as much in observance of communion has reached from oppression. This memory is not
local taxes, as before. Yet the mayor and the point of "trying to have a meal poetic fancy, but personal identifica-
corporation solemnly insist that the without having a meal," in what seems tion.
ceremony must give you real benefits— to be "an unconscious attempt by the The whole people is present in the
because the scroll says so. The sym- church to protect itself from the radical, slavery of the ancestors, and it
bolism has become detached from reality. communal, transforming power of the remembers the whip lashes, forced labor,
Something similar has happened to the rite" (William H. Willimon, The Service hardship and cruelty. The whole people
Eucharist, whether we call it a sacrament of God [Abingdon, 1983, p. 132). Hav- is present in the slaves' longing for
or an ordinance, use wafers or bread and ing the Eucharist as part of a real meal— freedom and in their joyous experience
receive it standing, kneeling or sitting. whether with ten, 50 or 200 people- of liberation. The whole people
It is not that the rite gives no real helps one discover what has been so remembers that little cluster of tribes,
freedom, or that affirmations about it grievously lost. trekking out from the superpower em-
should be denied. Rather, the problem is brace of Pharaoh's Egypt to be God's
that the actual practice of the Eucharist HE EUCHARIST should be an in- covenanted confederation. It is all very
has become so ritualized, privatized and
abstracted from its historical basis and
T clusive meal Though the first sup-
per on that fateful night included only the
earthy and material—a matter of politics,
flesh and blood. It is also all very God-
communal beginnings that we are like the disciples, it recalls those other meals- filled, Spiritized.
deluded mayor and corporation. meals together, meals with unvetted Jesus chose to share bread and wine in
We get the words right, and take, crowds, meals with the outcast and the context of that foundational memory.
bless, break and share, don't we? So all undevout. In the Eucharist, it is the There is more to be said about the
must be well. Or is it? "Do this in Christian believers who are offered Eucharist than a longing for political and
remembrance of me.'' What is the * 'this" peace, trust and forgiveness. But, as economic liberation, but never less.
we are asked to do? Choan-Seng Song observes, unlike Jesus' In the Eucharist, we follow Passover
I believe that the "this" is four- openness as he sat at table with sinners— precedents by telling the story of God's
dimensional. A two-dimensional commu- which was a skandahn, an offense, to the liberating acts. But our story must move
nion service has the right words and religious authorities—the offer in from the safe, uncontroversial past to
actions—bread and wine are shared and churches today is conditional. "Now," give thanks for what the Spirit of God
eaten. A four-dimensional Eucharist in- he writes, "the eucharist appears to be seeks to do now. The liberating power
cludes a sharing community moving a skandalon not to church authorities but of the Eucharist would become more visi-
toward justice. The extra dimensions are to sinners outside the eucharistic com- ble if we continued the story beyond ex-
not optional, but lie at the heart of the munity. The eucharist has become odus, cross and resurrection.
original rite. Examining the original descandalised insofar as the church is What, then, are our stories of the Spirit
practice may help us recover these two concerned, but rescandalised in relation moving through history? What are the
missing dimensions. to those who have no access to it" (The different, conflicting stories that call us
The Last Supper was a real meal, not Compassionate God [Orbis, 1982], p. to join confession with thanksgiving as
ritualized worship. There was the smell 123 ff.). we break bread? There are the stories of
of roast lamb and herbs, the clatter of Our various theologies say, in effect, prairie pioneers—and Native American
dishes, the splashing of wine poured in- You can't come because you don't suffering and resistance. There is the
to a cup, and table talk—whispering, believe, because you don't belong, story of world mission seen from the
laughter and questioning. There were because you belong to the wrong church, white West—and from Third World
because you haven't joined us, because Christians, whose cultures were on the
Dr. Wren, a free-lance hymnwriter and you're not old enough. Is it any wonder receiving end. There is the story of God's
consultant on worship, justice and peace, that many of the invited stay away Spirit making one interdependent
lives in Oxford, England. because they feel unworthyl A Eucharist world—even though it has been con-

October 1, 1986 839

structed and persists as a flawed in-
terdependence of domination and
dependence.
Jesus took bread and a cup on the night
when he would be betrayed. Much im-
aginative ink has been spilled about the
man by whom Jesus was betrayed. The
quest for the historical Judas goes o n -
only mildly inconvenienced by the near-
complete silence of the sources.
Rather less attention is focused on
recalling to whom Jesus was betrayed,
though the evidence here is unam-
biguous. He was betrayed to his people's
religious-political authorities and to a co-
lonial power ruling an occupied country.
His impact on those authorities was the
reason for his betrayal. His entry into
Jerusalem was a public challenge, mid his
cleansing of the temple was an attack on
the ruling families' economic power-
not a reformist critique of the local stock
exchange.
Though not reducible to a political pro-
gram, the announcement of the impend-
ing Kingdom of God challenges and
criticizes the structures of society. To
celebrate the Eucharist is to remember to
whom Jesus was betrayed, why he was
betrayed and executed, and why follow-
ing him will bring us into conflict with
today's corrupted political, economic
and, yes, religious powers and authori-
ties.
The Last Supper included an acted sign
in the Hebrew prophetic tradition. Just
as Jeremiah publicly smashed a clay jar
to announce, dramatize and explain the
impending destruction of Jerusalem (Jer.
19), so Jesus took bread and a wine cup.
His action was neither magic nor mere
symbolism, but declared what would
happen, dramatized its reality, and inter-
preted its significance. A prophetic sign
announces what God is about.
First he took bread: "This is my flesh"
(Aramaic), he said, meaning his whole
person, and then he announced that he
would be handed over ("to the authori-
ties" is unstated but implied). Next he
took the wine cup. In Hebrew thought a
person's life is in their blood. So Jesus
said that his lifeblood would be shed. His
disciples are to remember this handing-
over and execution with the full sense of
remembering that is brought to the
Passover liberation. Thus, by his words
and actions, Jesus declared that God was
at work in this betrayal and execution,
which will therefore—somehow—be lib-
erating.
Foundational to the Eucharist is faith
that this same Jesus is resurrected and
840
presides at the meal. "This is my body"
becomes present tense.
Though this understanding reaches to
the heart of each individual, it cannot be
a private transaction devoid of political
significance. For the one who lifted up
the outcasts and was executed by the
To confront death is
to witness to and
collaborate with the love
that raised Jesus Christ
from the dead.
world's powers is declared to be alive.
God overturns those powers' verdict,
judges their injustice and demonstrates
the power of love against the worst that
they can do.
Demonic powers and flawed authori-
ties still rule (it is fanciful to say that they
have been defeated), but they have lost
their legitimacy and charisma. Today in
many places
The suffering churches sing his grace
and pray that we may hear and live
the gospel that they long to give.
Beset by hunger, fear and death
their hopes miraculously thrive:
they know that Jesus is alive.
And all the powers that wreck and rule
must lose their glamour, strength and
skill
to dazzle minds, or crush the will.
The waking hopes of God's oppressed
will not be beaten, bowed and awed:
they tell the world that Christ is Lord
["In Great Calcutta Christ Is Known,"
hymn text by Brian Wren, ® 1986, Hope.
Reprinted by permission].
To confront death is to witness to and col-
laborate with the love that raised Jesus
Christfromthe dead. A four-dimensional
Eucharist is celebrated when the eu-
charistic community critiques abuses of
political power, resists the powers of
death in our world, and stands by the op-
pressed in their struggles for liberation.
It draws hope and encouragement from
its founding events, and knows that "the
resurrection is the ultimate basis for
rebellion" (Rafael Avila, Worship and
Politics [Orbis, 1981], p. 47).
The Eucharist is a sharing communi-
ty's meal. From the beginning,
celebrating the Eucharist involved shar-
ing goods and possessions. It used to be
fashionable to decry the early church's
"primitive communism" as naive and
unsustainable. Yet the unity of breaking
the bread and sharing the goods is a con-
tinuing strand of thought and practice
throughout the church's first four
centuries.
St. John Chrysostom tells us to feed the
hungry, and then decorate the table. The
temple of our afflicted neighbor's body,
he admonished, "is more holy than the
altar of stone on which you celebrate the
holy sacrifice. You are able to con-
template this altar everywhere, in the
street and in the open squares." De-
fending the Christians before the
Emperor Hadrian, the non-Christian
Aristides said: "If one of them is poor
and there isn't enough food to go round,
they fast several days to give him the food
he needs. . . . This is really a new kind
of person. There is something divine in
them" (Tissa Balasuriya, The Eucharist
and Human Liberation [SCM, 1979], pp.
26-27).
"Communion" is not merely in the
words with bread and wine duly shared,
but in these together with an open shar-
ing of goods and income. Difficult
though it undoubtedly is to recover
this communal sharing in an individual-
ized enterprise culture, such a per-
spective is at the heart of the Lord's
Supper.
Again, how we celebrate the Eucharist
makes a difference. I suspect that the
further we get from the real meal shared
by a relatively small group, the more dif-
ficult it becomes to regain the openness
and commitment that make eucharistic
sharing of time, goods and money both
gracious and glad. And I suspect that it
is also the small group that can most
deeply sense the global implications of its
eucharistic sharing.
Bread and wine are the products of
human labor, which Christ takes, blesses
and shares out equally. Whether leav-
ened or unleavened, bread signifies the
"daily bread" of the Lord's Prayer. It
is significant that Christ used food pro-
duced by human labor, not berries
plucked from trees. Someone has sown,
reaped, milled, kneaded, baked and
marketed the bread that the Lord blesses.
We bring to the risen Lord a symbol of
all the basic food produced in our socie-
ty. Our systems of production do not
distribute food equally, but Christ
takes food from us and ensures that all
are fed.
Thus, the Eucharist is God's witness
against grain mountains hoarded while
people starve, against food aid as a
weapon, against frontiers drawn to keep
the world's poor from the grainlands,
against every act that takes land and food
The Christian CENTURY
 from the poor. It is a witness to the hope
and vision of a good society where all eat
their fill.
Similarly, someone has pruned,
plucked, pressed, racked, refined, bot-
tled, labeled, advertised, transported,
promoted and sold the fruit of the vine.
Wine is a symbol of joy and celebra-
tion—intended for all. Yet we live in a
world in which some are deprived of en-
joyment by the process that delivers it to
others.
What wages did the vinedresser or
itinerant grapepicker receive? Did the
laborer who toiled in the fields for our
daily bread get a fair return for the labor?
To ask these questions is not to politicize
the Eucharist but to face its intrinsic
meanings. The eucharistic celebration is
not the occasion to study and debate the
causes of poverty and the mechanisms of
unequal distribution. But a church that
sees the implications of the Eucharist will
not just talk of the "fruit of the earth and
of human labour"; it will meditate—at
the Eucharist—on how food is produced
and sold. Before bringing bread and wine
to the table, it will confess the scandal
of starvation amid plenty. And it will take
time elsewhere to reflect, understand and
act for economic justice as part of its
eucharistic memorial.
Though bread and wine are shared
equally, this is not the equality of strict
parity. Our passion for equal-sized
wafers or bits of bread, or an equal
thimbleful or lip-sip of wine is unwar-
ranted. None should go hungry or have
too much to drink (I Cor. 11:21). The
food and drink are for eating and drink-
ing—to nibble slowly or bite off in chunks,
according to need. A freed community
will gladly pass round any remainder, for
the Eucharist is not for minimal justice—
here-a-little, there-a-little—but for the en-
joyment of God's generosity.
We are now the body that is to be
broken. The risen Christ now calls us his
body. For whom are we to be betrayed
and "broken" if not for the powerless,
excluded ones whom Christ loves? The
proper posture for the Body of Christ is
not static wholeness but bruised broken-
ness. Brokenness is the opposite of divi-
sion. Where there is division, there is
competition—a scrambling for the dif-
ferent bits of what was once a whole, that
has been broken. In contrast, brokenness
implies one body that has been broken,
offered in unity of purpose. When one
part is bruised, the whole body aches.
In the Eucharist, all receive equally.
Christ draws all to himself, and loves
October 1, 1986
each one equally, yet uniquely. There is itself on relationships of love and
neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, mutuality, not power and domination—
master nor servant, director nor em- not for its own self-satisfaction, but as a
ployee. At every Eucharist, our president political witness, as a harbinger of the
is the servant without servitude, washing Kingdom of God.
our feet and speaking ironically of the We celebrate the Eucharist "till he
powerful who lord it over others and then comes. '' The Eucharist looks forward to
claim the title of benefactor. "It shall not a society in God, a city for all the nations,
be so among you," he says, in giving us in which the last are first, the humble
his body and blood. lifted high, and the powerful repentant,
The Eucharist is an unambiguous re- as grace and peace forgive and unite all
minder that the church is called to build humanity.
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CHRISTIAN CENTURY
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Now in paperback, WITHOUT
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If this is our hope, the supper should
be celebrated not as an anaesthetic against
the world's injustices but as a shout of
joyful defiance and rebellion—a provoca-
BOOKS
Ministry of the Laity.
By James D. Anderson and Ezra Earl
Jones. Harper & Row, 152 pp.,
$14.45.
Laypeople have been conditioned to the
role of passive observer. A sense of per-
sonal responsibility has given way to a
belief that "the government, the schools,
the churches—the institutions rather than
the people" are accountable for national
and world conditions and even for neigh-
borhood and family problems. The av-
erage citizen's deference to the com-
petence of professionals has reduced the
social web of our culture to tenuous
threads.
James D. Anderson and Ezra Earl
Jones hope to entice those who regard
themselves as the people of God into a
fuller engagement with their neighbors.
The authors have tried to articulate a vi-
sion of human connectedness that will in-
spire individual initiative for the public
good. "No one lives in American socie-
ty today in total self-sufficiency . . .
Every person born, every shot fired,
every breakthrough in science, every
child kidnapped affects every other life
directly, indirectly, or in terms of what
might have been." The good news, ac-
cording to Anderson and Jones, is that
even the smallest effort to help another
leads toward a higher quality of life for
all.
Anderson is an Episcopal priest and
dean of program at the Cathedral College
of the Laity in Washington, D.C.; Jones
is chief executive of the Board of
Discipleship of the United Methodist
Church. In this collaboration they em-
phasize the community as the starting
place of ministry and the laity as people
of the world rather than as representatives
of the church.
Ministry of the laity is defined as "the
outward, active life of baptized Chris-
tians." Anderson and Jones focus on
tion and inspiration to make that rebellion
real in love and a song of reinvigorating
hope that the future can break through in-
to the present. •
"the act of being neighborly" as perhaps
the most effective way of making a posi-
tive difference in the world. Establishing
supportive networks of family and friends
is also commended. Many examples of
opportune ways to contribute to com-
munity life are given. Peculiarly Chris-
tian activities are not discussed as possi-
ble avenues of service. The authors of-
fer incisive sociological analysis while
drawing only a little from the well of
biblical and theological understanding.
Several flaws plague the book. With
some of the aura of a moral self-help
book, Anderson and Jones write, "We
believe that you can be a good person—
as well as being well, fit, thin, and all
the rest." They insist on discussing
"moral literacy" and responsible
behavior in terms of "how to be good
people." Goodness is*too elusive a con-
cept to be meaningful when used as often
and loosely as it is here. The authors also
demonstrate an unfortunate propensity
for making sweeping statements, which
smack more of naivete than of faith.
The book develops a number of fine
ideas, and Christian leaders may read it
to enrich their sense of the mean-
ingfulness of all service and to gain an
important perspective on ministry in the
community. Most laypeople, however,
probably require a more personal presen-
tation to be moved to action.
Thomas E. Den ham.
Frustrated Fellowship: The
Black Baptist Quest for Social
Power.
By James Melvin Washington. Mercer
University Press, 226 pp., $29.95;
paperback, $12.95.
This path-making investigation,
originally a doctoral dissertation at Yale,
Reviewers
Thomas E. Denham is a pastoral
counselor at the Pastoral Institute,
Columbus, Georgia. Erling Jorstad
is professor of history and American
studies at St. Olaf College, Northfleld,
Minnesota.
The Christian CENTURY
 ^ s
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