Basement communion

Tonight was basement communion. 

It was a bowl full of broken bread and glasses full of blackberry wine. Everyone came hungry despite eating supper at home. And we sat, eight to the table, and we feasted.

We feasted on laughter and spinach dip. On tears and green grapes. On liturgy and church and doctrine and salsa. 

We dug deep into a cheeseball and the meaning of communion.

“Francis Chan says communion means intercourse,” one offers. Koinonia. Meaning, intimacy.

So much more than just wafers and plastic cups.

But we try – and that has to count for something.

Being hospitable

“Oh man,” said Chan in a recent sermon. “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy, we’re not worthy! I say that because the church is more divided than any time in history… And for a thousand years there was just one church, you know that? We’re so used to growing up in a time when literally there are over 30,000 Christian denominations right now. But for the first 1,000 years there was just one. What was interesting is, communion was at the center of the room every time they gathered.”

And here, around communion, one girl says she wrote a letter to her church on how it needs to become more hospitable. But before she could send it, her church threw a bridal shower for a new woman in the community.

Now and not-yet

Another girl says she’s church-hopping, that everything feels in limbo right now. I say that all my life I’ve felt in limbo, and I’ve come to realize, that’s okay, because earth is not my home. Like Paul says, we’re strangers here. 

They ask me if my world was “wrecked” by experiencing church in Africa. They mean in a good way, and I say yes, but in a bad way too. In that sometimes church can be a cult in Africa, where they teach you how to curse someone just because you don’t like them. 

So I’ve learned that church is one big mess everywhere, and that’s okay, because it makes me long for heaven. One girl says her church doesn’t feel like home yet, but then I think, home is both beautiful and broken. Home is people and people are both sinful and sacred. So maybe church does feel like home, but home isn’t what we want it to be. But one day it will be. And church will be, too.

Restoration

Before they leave, one girl turns to me and says she loves how I laugh. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she says. “But when you laugh, you almost seem like a little girl.”

I tell her that is the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. Because I never laughed as a little girl. So it means God is restoring me. Every laugh a rebirth, like the forming of skin. Just like he’s restoring the Body of Christ.

And we pray and hug and linger in the kitchen and then finally say goodbye. 

That was church, I say to myself. And it was good.