More than a Crumb and a Sip
One of the primary purposes for the institutional church is to remember the poor with a systematic effort to lift them up into the flourishing of a society’s structures.
If we understand the poor as the crucified people of God, then we understand that remembering the death of the Lord is connected to the suffering and death that fills the life of the poor.
The eucharist is a time to remember the poor. The table is the Lord’s as is all the fulness of the earth. There shall be no poor among you is an announcement of an unceasing effort to end poverty in the earth.
Lifting up the poor is also the task of good government.
We human beings tend to sacralize objects, symbols, locations, ceremonies, and exemplary persons. However, it is apparent in the scripture that it is life that is sacred to God, particularly human life. I understand God alone to be holy, that holiness is God’s nature, and that any ascribed sacredness to anything is purely association; as in a specific memory and meaning that communicates the divine.
I was staying at a fishermen’s village built along a beach, on the island of Biliran, in the central Visayan Islands of the Philippines. The beach was lined with small Bangka boats. A small Bangka boat is like a canoe with bamboo outriggers. There was a larger boat with a generator for operating an icebox to preserve the nights collective fishing effort. In the morning the larger Bangka boat brought the night’s catch to a market located in the city of Tacloban, on the adjacent island of Leyte.
I went out in the evening with the local pastor on his small Bangka boat to cast a long net and catch some fish. As we waited on the net, we would drop a hook to pull up the squid who were attracted to the light of a Coleman lantern hanging on a post rising from the structure of the Bangka boat. We pulled in the net with a few fish and let it out multiple times during the night. After several hours of fishing, we began rowing our way back to the shore. However, it was a cloudy night and there was no light to be seen. He assured me he knew how to get back home as he dipped his hand into the water to feel the current ant the temperature. We rowed for a couple of hours and I was imagining rowing until the sun rose and finding we were out in the middle of the ocean. To my relief, we rowed the Bangka boat right to the front of his house that sat less than twenty yards from the shoreline.
That morning I showered outside at a well. I went early because I had to shower outdoors where everyone showered, and my light complexion was an attraction for young kids. I returned to the small Bahay Kubo to eat rice, dried fish, and a duck egg for breakfast. Afterward, I went for a walk and entered the only concrete building in the village, it was a Catholic church. I entered to see, there hanging with wire, suspended from the ceiling, directly over the table of the Lord, was a larger than life statue of Jesus on the cross, in living color, complete with thorns and blood. This powerful image reigns across numerous Catholic nations where poverty abounds. The Eucharist is celebrated as a sacred ceremony and year after year the people remain poor.
That afternoon I spoke with the pastor about the importance of building a small out-house because the people in the fishermen’s village all used the beach and the tide to wash away their waste. While swimming with some kids in the bay I had noticed the floating remains of this practice. I had also seen people run out to the beach to squat and relieve themselves.
Lifting up the poor is often as easy as pointing out that Moses had to require the Israelites to build latrines with the reasoning that the Lord walked through the camp. Building simple outhouses brought a healthier environment and a sense of dignity for the people. The table of the Lord, the sharing of life improved that day.
The table of the Lord is a metaphor that needs clarification. A sacralized table reduced to a crumb and a sip is not the love feast setting that Paul called ‘the Lord’s supper...’ (1st Cor. 10:20). In Paul’s thought the Lord’s supper was a love feast ( a full on meal) that included the ceremonial procedure of the eucharist as an act to remember the meaning and significance of the Lord’s death. Within the context of a love feast, this ceremonial act inspires and enables conversation about the meaning of the cross. Likewise, the rich and the poor sit together, the barrier of elitist division is abolished, as love grows and relationship builds the needs of the poor are met at the Lord’s table. Meaning is always the intent of metaphors, symbols, and ceremonies unless they are misused or sacralized.
Paul Judges the wealthy separatists in the Corinthian church and exposes the harm they cause to the body of Christ. Paul judges their actions and in an extremely sensitive manner includes them in with the poor as subject to social neglect that produces weakness and ends in death (1st Cor. 10:30). This is so because they are all the body of Christ and are to be the blood that gives life to the world. If the elements of the eucharist are sacred, then crackers and grape juice in a plastic cup are profaning productions of modernity and lack all the humanness of warm bread and fresh wine. Imagine a love feast where the rich and poor are all sitting together as in Psalm 133.
Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil upon the head,
running down upon the beard,
upon the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.
The Psalm uses two metaphors, a religious metaphor (symbolic memory) in verse 2 and a nature metaphor in verse 3a,b. Verse 1 and the last line of verse 3 form an inclusio. When the people of God live in unity the blessing of eternal life enters the present. The eucharist is a time to remember our own mortality, for even the Lord Jesus died. It is a time to remember that God entered the world and was put to death by the will of political powers, religious powers, and the mindless spontaneity of the crowd. The love feast, a celebration of sharing, is kept alive by a ceremony that reminds us of death, of God’s love displayed in Jesus’ willingness to give himself to all of humanity.
We are all called to lift one another up into the blessing of unity in Christ, a unity displayed through sharing, listening, and contemplating the meaning of the cross. The eucharist is a time to share in the blessings of life with the poor, to lift them up into the social fabric. The lifting up of the poor is not just a simple response of temporary aid or relief, it includes a collective effort to move the world towards an egalitarian spirit of altruistic sharing. Lifting up the poor is to actively provide education for both children and parents. It is to help the poor develop their communities as autonomous agents.
Jesus’ favorite self-reference was / is ‘son of man’ or human being. Jesus revealed God to us as a human being. Jesus is the progenitor of a reborn humanity; he is the last Adam. As the humanity of Christ was crucified, so also are the poor crucified daily upon a cross where greed, power, and humanity’s madness reigns, continually imposing death upon masses of humanity. We cannot contemplate the meaning of the cross without including the ongoing crucifixion of the poor by the same powers that crucified God. It is not impossible for a government to function in a manner consistent with the heart of God for humanity. In fact, because institutionalism is inevitable in the present, we should all expect governments to affirm and pursue those inalienable rights of food, clothing, shelter, and just as essential, education, healthcare, and rights to land ownership for all persons.
