I sat quietly after
communion with tears filling my eyes and slipping down my face. Today I had the sacred privilege of taking
communion with a beautiful older woman suffering from dementia. I could not
help but think of my father who died in 2006 after seven years of struggle with
the disease. I never got to take communion with him after he became ill. I
lived too far away to see him more than once or twice a year. I wondered if anyone did—if after the onset
of his dementia he was able to participate in the shared meal with other
believers. I was brought to tears because I would have loved to experience that
with him. I was brought to tears because I miss him.
But sharing communion
alongside a beautiful older woman with dementia brought me to tears for much more profound
reasons than my own grief and loss. This experience of sharing the body and
blood of Christ together from such different places in life was a powerful
reminder to me of just how leveling the table is that Jesus set for us. At this
table there are no titles, no credentials, no superior intelligence or any
other hierarchy. There is only the table set for us with the gifts of God for
all who are willing to come with nothing but their sin and gratefulness. And
this reality—coming together with only our sin and our gratefulness—is what
allows us to experience the presence of Christ in the deepest way. With all our sin that stands against us, the
emptiness of our hands, the utter bankruptcy of any of our earnings, opens
our hearts and makes room for us to experience the fullness of Christ
who is completely for us. An older woman being stripped of memory and a younger
woman being stripped of pride together hearing the words, “the body of Christ
given for you,” and “the blood of Christ poured out for you.”
This precious woman
could only express in minimal words her delight in participating in the meal
but her serene face and her sweetness of spirit touched me deeply. And her
willingness to go to the table with me—a stranger to her—was also humbling. She
took my hand so willingly and so lovingly. Together we remembered—each as much
as we were able—Christ’s death on our behalf. All my seminary education, all my
years of preaching and teaching about the meaning and significance of the
sacrament of communion and this beautiful sweet woman suffering from dementia
taught me so much more.
The table that is
Christ’s is the great leveler. Rich and poor, strong and weak, brilliant and
simple, educated and uneducated, young and old, of every tribe and nation are
all welcomed to the table because of who Christ is and what Christ has done for
us. Nothing more.
