Experience Life in Remembrance of the I Am
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
Luke 22:7-20
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
“Where do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked. He replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”
They left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
John 6:53-68 (responsive reading)
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father,
so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”
He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them,
“Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.
The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.
Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”
For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Read the written message below with music videos
The story of the first communion with Jesus and his disciples celebrating their Jewish Passover is essentially the story of the Lord telling us to remember him when we eat. Eating is something we do daily, but we can also define communion more narrowly, saying that communion only happens in community or at a church, with only bread and wine, etc., but I think broadening our idea of communion can be worthwhile in our exploration of what it means to commune in remembrance of God and our loved ones. You see, Christ’s message wasn’t one of exclusion but of inclusion, and although I believe he was establishing a lovely ritual for his followers to enter into together, at the same time I believe he was doing what he always did: pointing all of us back to a mode of living that no longer forgets its roots and its inherent Divine life. Indeed, to remember Christ is to remember what he was all about, otherwise the ritual of communion may easily become exclusionary and hollow.
As Christian churches, although mystical and typically open to and inclusive of those with other beliefs, the communities of the Swedenborgian Church of North America often employ communion as one of our key sacraments. Although this isn’t a requirement within our denomination, many find deep meaning in the ancient ritual, a ritual that seems to date back to soon after the death and resurrection of Christ. There’s something important about coming together as community with a shared ritual, it ties us to prior generations and brings us together (in communion!). With this ritual, we are asked to remember Christ, and at the same time we can’t help but remember those who have taught us best what being Christ-like is about, those with us and those who have passed, whatever their religions. When we enter this kind of remembrance during communion, we are remembering the Light within all of those who have come before, and ultimately, we remember the very core of ourselves. We call it Christ, God, Love, Light, and Life, among many other words across cultures and religions.
In a way, consuming and sharing is the all of life. We bring in light in order to see, air to smell, sound to hear, and with breath we are literally consuming oxygen. All life is a type of consumption of experience and an offering to others’ experience. So, if we were to broaden communion to its fullest extent, we would enter communion in every moment. Indeed, all of experience (whether receiving or giving) arises within awareness, the sense of “I am,” the openness of being. We often get so wrapped up in our attachments, ideas, and feelings that we miss our fundamental being – what Christ called “the light of the world.” This is why he so often tasked us with releasing our attachments and demons in favour of our inherent unity with God.
Christ called us “light” and he was called this himself. When he said that he “overcame the world” it meant that he had become in tune with the light that the world arises within and was no longer beholden by the trappings and yearnings of life. He had found fullness and unity in the Spirit, in Life, in the Light of this World – also called the Father. This light, like earthly light, is the source of both warmth and brightness in our lives, which is our love and our wisdom, knowing, and understanding. Which is why, like Christ, so many religions and traditions at their core point us back to beingness and awareness of the present moment. When we remember Christ during communion, we are called to remember what Christ knew that he and us are. He called us to “unity” and perfection “as your Father God is perfect,” which is our fundamental inner state, the things that all beings share even if we ignore it for the trappings of the world.
Remembrance is a good way to put it. When we look back on those that we have lost, we think of their light. The light of life as it lit their faces with joy, peace, warmth, and connection. We remember the light of their actions with both its loving and wise elements. And most of all, we remember our sense of unity with them, even if we may believe they are now distant from us. And not irreverently do I say that we miss consuming their presence and communing with them. In them we see the infinity of light within ourselves reflected back in beautiful and diverse ways, we see God in them.
Further, Christ knew that all “substance” was one with him, and so he wasn’t wrong in saying that as we eat and drink we consume his flesh and blood. You see, he wasn’t bandying pretty words just for our inspiration and adoration but expressing the reality of his experience. He no longer defined himself as a body and a mind, but as the light that all things are experienced as, through, and within. The light of life is the very energy underlying what we know of the universe, as no things are experienced (and, according to quantum physics, solidified) outside of awareness. And although our old way of looking at things typically starts with our belief in “material” as the basis of the universe (which is why we think of ourselves as our bodies), if we were to turn to our experience and leading edges of science, we would have to start by looking at things as stemming from the very “thing” that allows “material” to coalesce, as well as allows us to understand and undergo scientific study. That is, the open light of awareness, the thing that sees our confusion, our wisdom, our feelings, our ideas of ourselves, and our earth.
That being said, how much remembrance of awareness do we ever do? Like a good parent or the very ground underneath us, it can often be taken for granted as too close to us to truly appreciate, but even more so! It is only through teachers like Christ that we often hear a call to repent (“turn around”), back toward the only thing in our experience that isn’t a thing: the openness of consciousness. In practice, we tend to gravitate toward certain bodily feelings, affections, and ideas to define ourselves, which is why we become addicted to things. But what is it that sees these experiences and what is it like? Awareness itself in our experience is like an infinite openness that solidifies for moments as thoughts and feelings, but remains open around and between these sensations (and able to hold many of these at once). It’s no coincidence that our own light is like a Prince(ss) of Peace, and the more we get to know it the more we uncover the natural love that is our very root. Christ said, “I am the root and you are the branches,” and then tasked us to dwell within him just as he dwells within us!
Communion is something we are called to every moment, which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate the sacrament itself in community. We are all called to commune with each other and become more and more aware of the gift that every moment brings, in remembrance of all of those that have come before – all of whom are expressions of God’s love and wisdom in their own way. The Lord calls us to repent from our false ideas of ourselves and return to a true understanding of our infinity and eternity, both of which become apparent in the open light of love within us – if we but come to remember it. May we all come to this remembrance, celebrating the light of God within those around us and those we seem to have lost to the sands of time. All that we ever know are expressions of the light of awareness itself, the sense of “I am” in every moment, so let us allow this understanding to free us from our limited idea of ourselves, further allowing us to find the true joy, peace, and love inherent to every moment. This is the root of the communion of life in remembrance of the Living Lord.
Peace is you,
Cory