A Conversation with Confirmands - Holy Communion

The confirmation class invited me to share with them about the meaning of the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  Knowing that 7th graders probably wouldn't want a lecture format, I shared off the cuff.  While sharing some thoughts on Holy Communion, these are the things that I thought were important to share with them.

• Holy Communion is a Sacrament because we believe that Jesus Christ is present every time it is celebrated.  Like Holy Baptism, we can know with confidence that Jesus is present even if we may not feel very spiritual or close to God.
• This Sacrament has many names - Holy Communion, The Lord's Supper, the Mass, & The Eucharist.  I told them that my favorite name for it is the Eucharist, Greek word meaning, thankful.  It's a thank you meal.  When we receive the bread and the juice, we received God's grace in Jesus Christ anew and we are saying thank you for this gift of grace.
• Holy Communion comes out of the Jewish Passover meal.  When we receive Holy Commuion, we are to remember the Passover when God had rescued the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt and led them through the wilderness to the Promised Land.  When Jesus was gathered at the Passover meal with the disiples, he pointed to the bread and the cup as symbols of his own life he was about to offer by dying on the cross (Good Friday.)  In a similar way, God was about to rescue the world from slavery to sin and death through his sacrifice.  And because of Easter, Holy Communion has a future dimension.  One day, Jesus will return and we will all share around a great heavenly banquet.  It's important to keep both of these dimension in mind when we receive the Sacrament - the looking back to God's acts of salvation through the exodus story and Good Friday and the looking forward to the time when Jesus will return and all of God's people will be reunited. This is the great hope of the Christian faith!
• The methods for receiving Holy Communion include intinction (dipping) and by trays in the pews.  I explained that both methods have important dimensions in helping us appreciate this Sacrament.  Intinction is more personal as people come individually to receive.  Trays provides an opportunity for us to receive at the same time which reminds us that we are all one in Christ.  In addition to sharing these methods, I also said that over my years of ministry, the method of communion has been sensitive for some people.  In most cases, this is because we tend to only want to use the method that was used when we were childen and youth.  Because of this, we can shut ourselves off from another method of receiving communion that offers an important symbolic dimension.
• When we receive the Sacrament by intinction, I think it's important to take a fairly large piece of bread. While this may seem trivial, the Sacraments are meant to help us taste and feel God's love.  When we take a very tiny piece of bread, we lose this sense of taste/touch.  Plus, on a practical level, small pieces of bread are difficult to dip in the cup!  I think people only take a very small piece of bread, because they are trying to be polite but my advice for most people it to take a much bigger piece of bread.
• When preparing for Holy Communion, I encouraged the confirmands to repeat little phrases like the Jesus' Prayer - "Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner."  It helps us to keep in mind  the theological meaning of the Sacrament, rather than it simply being something we do from time to time.
• We also talked about transubstantiation and consubstantiation.  Some people believe that the bread and the juice/wine literally becomes the body/blood of Christ after the elements have been blessed.  Others see the bread and juice/wine as only symbols.  As United Methodists, we lean more toward the symbolic side of the debate, but we still believe that Christ is present in the elements through the mysterious presence of the Holy Spirit.
• Since Holy Communion is a means of grace, we should receive the Sacrament as often as possible.  There is nothing that says we should only receive it sparingly.  When we worry about it becoming an empty ritual, we forget that God can still transform us even if we are not feeling very spiritual.

At the end of our discussion, we received the Sacrament by intinction.  As each confirmand came forward, they looked into my eyes as I shared with them Jesus' words about the bread and the cup.  With glad and thankful hearts, we communed together and celebrated the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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