A Week Thinking about Eucharistic Practices/Supper Clubs of Resistance

I have spent this week thinking about Eucharist practices, which may not be unusual for a seminary student.  In my Thursday night class, we talked about language and ritual and how they are linked to time.  We talked about Eucharist practices.  Some of my classmates talked about how they liked knowing that Christians across the world were celebrating communion the same way.  Because the class was almost over, I didn't raise my hand to point out that we probably assumed more similarity than was actually there--or maybe they just meant that we would all be using bread and wine/grape juice.  As a Lutheran who has spent a lot of time thinking about issues of transubstantiation and symbolism and food and liturgy, I know that we are not all celebrating communion the exact same way, and some Christian practices won't be recognized by other Christians.

Early in the Thursday night conversation at the end of class, I raised my hand to say that I appreciated the words of the Eucharist ritual because I felt it linked me to past generations, although I had spent part of the week writing a paper about Paul's view of the eucharist in 1 Corinthians, so I know that from the beginning, there's been disagreement about how to celebrate the Eucharist.

I want to preserve a Twitter thread that I found as I was finishing that exegesis paper on 1 Corinthians 11:  17-34.  Tuesday morning, March 22, I read these tweets from Diana Butler Bass, which she wrote on March 21: “So far my Lent reading has convinced me: 1) Maundy Thurs and not Good Friday is the point of the Gospels, and 2) there’s actually no “Christianity” until the 3rd century. How’s your Lent reading going?” and “Also, the early gatherings of Jesus people were basically supper clubs of resistance to Empire. (I’m so on board with this).”  Bass is reading Holy Thursday Revolution by Beatrice Bruteau and After Jesus / Before Christianity: A Historical Exploration of the First Two Centuries of Jesus Movements by Erin Vearncombe, Brandon Scott, and Hal Taussig.

I love the phrasing Bass uses:  supper club of resistance to Empire--yes!

And now, it's time to get ready to celebrate Eucharist--time to start shifting into getting ready for church mode.  I wish our church service was more of a supper club of resistance.