Alien Life: Communion
We Are Made One in Christ
1 Peter 2:2-10
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. May 7th, 2023
I have in my pocket a device called an “iPhone.” Over two billion of these have been sold since it was released sixteen years ago. When I was growing up we had a rotary phone and I thought my grandparents car phone was incredibly novel. If I wanted to “surf” the “world wide web” I had to go to a local cyber cafe because we didn’t have the internet in the house. Now with the iPhone not only can I made phone calls wherever I want (as long as there’s reception) but I can also go online as much as I want (as long as there’s enough reception).
It’s a wild world we live in.
Apple likes putting the prefix “i” in front of its products. iPhone, iPad, iPod. It started with the iMac, which first came out 25 years ago now. The “i” has a dual meaning. In the first case it means “internet.” Apple wanted to emphasize that the iMac went online out of the box. Which was somewhat novel at the time. They also wanted to emphasize that they had applications pre-loaded on the computer that made use of internet connectivity. But secondly the “i” stands for individual. Or me. It was a personal computer after all.
So the iPhone is the internet connected me phone. It is a powerful communications device that allows me to talk to billions of people around the world. I can check the news, watch tv and movies, play games, argue with people, spread false information, and more. And it’s all in the palm of my hand, and fits in my pocket.
My iPhone reminds me of Psalm 115. “But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands./ They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see./ They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell./ They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats./ Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.” My iPhone matches the psalm frighteningly well. It’s made by human hands, it has a speaker, but does not speak. It has a camera, but cannot see. It has a microphone, but does not hear. Though I don’t think it has smell-o-vision yet. But the more one is glued to their phone, or whatever device, we have a danger of being made in the form of that device.
The more I use a computer the more I imagine myself like a computer. I “communicate” with people, “connect” with people. I might imagine my soul as an operating system powering my brain that might one day be downloaded into a chip. I understand my interactions with others in real life as on par with my interactions with others online. I begin to see the world the way my friends on facebook see the world. Which is a very frightening and angry place. Quite unlike the one I would experience in this community where we might have our differences but are family.
And, I think most importantly, I become alone. Because I interact with my friends not in person with all that entails, but through a screen. I understand myself as isolated. Going from app to app, webpage to webpage. Consuming various media. I am the individual hooked up to the machine, receiving various inputs, producing various outputs.
Today is Communion Sunday, so I want to contrast this state of affairs with what we are shown in communion. In the communion prayer I say, “By your spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.” And, after I break the bread I tend to say, “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. The bread which we break is a sharing in the body of Christ.” And “The cup over which we give thanks is a sharing in the blood of Christ.”
When we share communion together at this one table. When we share from a common loaf and a common cup, we acknowledge that God will not save us as individuals, but God saves us all together. That to be Christian means to be made part of the body of Christ and it is by being in Christ that we are those who receive forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. Salvation is not afterlife insurance that we, as individuals, may subscribe to. It is a common life offered to us, a common life that is eternal life, a common life modeled and foreshadowed for us in this meal.
This, too, is why we read in 1 Peter this morning that, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” We are the people of God, though we were once not a people. We are the recipients of his grace and mercy, though we once did not know mercy. We have been made into a nation, a priesthood, set apart and offered to the world.
Communion is not simply our own personal connection to God, as my iPhone is my connection to the internet and therefore the world. Communion has a horizontal and vertical aspect, and these two aspects cannot be separated. But it is because we are united in Christ that we are united together. And being united together we may be united in Christ. This is not a pill, it’s a meal. A common meal we share at a common table. And in this meal we are made into a common body. That we might have a common witness to the world. That whatever our differences, we may witness to our common Lord.