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The Meal Jesus Gave Us: Understanding Holy Communion
In this short piece (as short as Tom Wright has ever written) Wright expounds upon the historical origin of the Lord's Supper and upon it's eucharistic significance. Wright begins with a discussion of a birthday party here on earth that a Martian arrives at. He discusses how funny the questions seem that the Martian is asking like why people are wearing funny hats and lighting candles on a cake. The whole ritual seems very strange to someone who has not grown up celebrating birthdays.
In the same way, Wright says that we are like the earlings that are celebrating the Lord's Supper out of ritualistic habit and have not reflected particularly long on why we do the things we do. It is in this vein that Wright takes the reader through the exercise of thinking about the meaning in the ritual of the Lord's Supper. He takes the reader, like the Martian, to a pre-Christian Pesach (passover) meal. The story of the exodus unfolds and those partaking of the meal find themselves in God's story of the exodus.
Wright draws the reader into the exodus narrative and shows the reader how the church is also partaking in God's story of the exodus, the story of freedom. This freedom comes from a new Moses, Jesus. This unfolds in the next scene during Jesus' last Supper (or was it the first) with his disciples. Wright shows how the meal that Jesus led was the same meal and yet so different from the others that had taken place before. Everything from the expectation of the disciples that Jesus was going to usher in God's kingdom through an overthrow of the authorities to the unexpected declaration of the bread being Christ's body and the wine being the blood of Jesus which would be shed for the forgiveness of sins.
Wright has shown how this old meal became a new meal for the people of God. The old story of the exodus has become the new story of freedom from the bondage of sin through Christ's blood. Wright is able to expose the Text in a most masterful way by pointing us to the larger narrative of God's story and where we find ourselves in this story. Wright discusses how in this new meal for the people of God we are able to bring "all the past - all the story of Jesus - and all the future - the time when he comes back again, when God makes the whole world new - all together in one moment".
The second half of the book focuses on the eucharistic or thanksgiving element of the meal. Wright begins with a reflections on the various historical names for the meal, namely, the breadbreaking, the sharing, the thank you meal, the Lord's meal and Mass out of the Latin 'ite - missa est' or 'Go - you are sent out'. The issues of how Communion or the Lord's Supper has change through history and largely during the reformation was handled briefly and a much deeper discussion could definitely take place in a more scholarly work but Wright did not find this the place for such a discussion.
Wright focuses on the way in which "God's future came rushing into the present to meet us" in Jesus. This is very helpful to inform us and focus on the good news that came in Jesus. Wright uses the analogy of us on a train headed for an ultimate destination in time but suddenly it was met by another train on the same track rushing in the other direct. This train came "crashing into them", "smashing their hopes to bits" but all was made clear and they could see what God had planned all along on Easter morning. Wright says, "God's future came into the present in Jesus, and so has become part of our past." This is a very foundational statement to Wright's understanding of God's story and this idea can be seen in his other works.
The moment you have all been probably anticipating, Wright does touch on the issue of transubstantiation. He discusses the disagreement among Protestants by telling a small story about Luther and Zwingli. They we meeting in Marburg in 1529 and Luther and Zwingli were discussing the Latin for 'This is my body' or 'Hoc est corpus meus'. Luther underlined 'est' and held fast to the belief that this bread did not merely 'signify' Christ's body but rather it is Christ's body. Wright then enlightens the reader that this same phrase in Aramaic results in a literal translation of 'This - my body' throwing a wrench into the disagreement between Lutheran (predominantly German) and Reformed (predominantly Swiss) Churches. Wright settles the matter by telling of how the early church also disagreed on this matter but all came in true faith to really 'feed on Christ'. In his own words, "they really were nourished by the person, the presence and the love of Jesus".
To conclude, Tom Wright focused on the drama and the specific actions in the supper. The four actions being found in the statement 'Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them'. He briefly reflects on the implications of each of the actions. The one in particular that I found to be most interesting was the blessing. Wright goes into an extended discussion of whether of not we should be about blessing things. He touches on how this blessing becomes a prayer "that [the elements] may become , within the rhythm and drama of the whole event, the vessel and vehicle of God's Jesus-shaped love for each recipient and so for the world". I take disagreement with this understanding of the blessing and understand differently that a first-century Jew would have never blessed the bread in that sense but rather would have blessed the giver of the bread, the King of the Universe, God. The good creation, the bread is already good and does not need blessing. It is God who we must bless as giver of all good things. The blessing likely went something like "Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-olam hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz." (Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the universe who brings forth bread from the earth.)
Overall, Wright's excellent historical and literary scholarship can be seen through this very accessible read. I would recommend this to anyone without reservation. The way in which Wright writes for the heart and the head is unique. I was excouraged and exhorted through reading this small book.
