For many years the communion cup was not a central symbol of my faith. More common to me was the image of the congregation sitting alone in their chairs taking part on their own. This most recent Ash Wednesday jolted me into a new perspective on the practice of communion. I knelt at the altar awaiting the cup. As it passed down the line, I noticed the strange feeling that I had as the man beside me, an elderly gentleman, took his share and prayed. As it moved to my lips, I was struck by the strangeness of this central practice in the life of the church. To those who claim no affinity with us, this practice must seem unintelligible. And the confusion is understandable given the modern understanding of hygiene practices. Making my way back to the pew, I wondered if that wasn’t the point? Perhaps, the discomfort of those who do not call themselves Christian, and admittedly a fair number of those who do, is just what is needed to help us see the importance of this practice. The observance of communion, particularly the practice of the common cup, alerts us to the fact that we share a common identity.

The life of Christ was lived in close proximity with others. His group of disciples remained his companions throughout his ministry, and the gospels are full of instances of close friendship. It is not a stretch to say that Jesus loved people. In fact, this is a claim near to the heart of the Cross. It is in the Cross that we see Jesus as the promised redemption of God (Gen. 3). This very God is sacrificed for us, out of love for the world which he created. However, I have found that in this way of thinking there is a danger of making the Incarnate Word a lopsided being: in an effort to let Jesus be God we forget to let Jesus name himself as the Son of Man. It is often easier for us, in a culture that actively seeks to be saved from death, to wish that Jesus did not die, or at least did not die the death that all humanity is subject to. In this discomfort, we fail to see the Incarnation. We emphasize the divinity of the man who hangs on the cross and forget that this is also the man who began life in Mary’s womb.¹ We would rather not admit that God’s providential salvation had to learn to be human. God not only loved people, but he also became one, the Word made flesh, who lived a human life and died a human death. The claim we make as the Church is that we are all saved through this death on a cross. The cup that Christ was to drink was the cup of death, but a death that made life possible.² 

It is through the cup of redemption that Christ welcomes us into this life. But not only do we receive life but also a purpose for that life. As those who have been – and continue to be – redeemed, are called to be a part of the redemption project. We are called to go out into all the world bringing this news of the inaugurated Kingdom with us, and to share with others the truth of the redemption made possible through the cross. We see in the Incarnation the refusal on the part of God to save us without us,³ and in that same way we are welcomed into the Kingdom, depraved as we might be. It is precisely because of our notion that the saving God should not die that we are able to say the Word becoming flesh is no less than God himself in human form. If our idea of power is to triumph over wrong and rid the earth of evil, then how do we make sense of a God who made his home among us? The redemption of the world through the new human is what gives us currency to welcome others into this redemptive reality, and within this reality we are made to feel uncomfortable.

It is this claim that unites us: that Jesus Christ, God in Flesh, died to make death powerless, to inaugurate a new life in him. This claim becomes the common language of the church, because in it we find the deep truth of the Gospel for all people. We are all in need of the redemptive work of the cross; we need Christ to drink the cup.⁴ This common neediness among all people may just be that which causes us to shy away from the Eucharist. A common ideology in the West is that individualism reigns supreme, that we are addicted to self-sufficiency and freedom. We would rather have a moment of private vulnerability, accept our free gift of salvation, and then continue life having been redeemed. However, redemption is not pinned to a singular moment in time. The cross reverberates through the ages to us here and now. God chose to become human to save us, and he asks humanity to participate in this saving work. We often view ourselves as mere puppets of the plan that God has for his world, redeemed at one moment and then let off the hook. The commissioning of the disciples at the end of Matthew’s gospel indicates that this is not what God had in mind for the redemption brought through Jesus. Throughout scripture, God uses humanity to bring about his purpose for creation, a process which culminates in Christ, but continues on through the Apostles. As disciples of the one who made life possible, we are tasked with bringing that reality to the places around us. This call to a new life highlights our current state of need, and it is in our need for this redemptive life of Christ that we are made common.

As we meet and worship as the church, we are made increasingly aware of commonality. We are made particularly aware of this in the practice of the common cup at Eucharist. We declare our solidarity through an uncomfortable act of sharing in the very same sustaining cup that the one who is knelt beside us takes. While the imagery of the blood is nice and makes us feel something inside, the reality runs far deeper. We are made family, and we are welcomed by the one who then asks us to go and do likewise.⁵ And it is because we are welcomed as tax collectors, prostitutes, thieves, and liars, that we are able to welcome those who kneels beside us as family. And perhaps it is even as we are family that we experience discomfort. When we unite ourselves with our neighbour we must acknowledge that they may in fact have something to say that we should listen to. We cannot get around the fact that to be united as family means that we must look after our altar companions. We must hear them, take care of them, and strive to welcome them in our politics, liturgy, and economy. Our only option is humble, gracious, and merciful solidarity. Through the death of Christ we are made common, and through that same death, we are redeemed. Our ability to share the gift of redemption only makes sense if we are part of that redemption reality. Through the common cup, we see the familial relationship that we share in one claim that Jesus is Lord, and we observe that this truth has come to bear through the death God-in-flesh on the cross.

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