It was never a thing for me growing up in church, as my home church was a big downtown congregation at the heart of the nation's capital. Even if there'd been a service there, it'd have been such a pain navigating traffic that my parents wouldn't have tolerated it.
As I've spent my ministry career in small congregations, I've always run the service in the simplest of ways. No complex liturgies or innovations, just a good ol' potluck, framed by the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup. It's as simple a way as possible to mark the Last Supper, and the command to celebrate communion with one another.
As a creature that takes deep comfort in habit and ritual, I've always brought both bread (challah, typically, because it's way tastier than matzoh, and the Lord's Supper ain't a Seder) and soup. The soup is always the same soup, several boxes worth of Trader Joe's Tomato and Red Pepper. It's pretty tasty.
This year, I started out to do the same thing. But three things changed the arc of the evening.
First, there was already going to be plenty of soup for everyone, a tasty homemade vegetable stew. My contribution wouldn't be necessary, and if prior years were any guide, I'd end up taking it home. Despite my best efforts to consume it, most of it would go bad, and then get dumped into my compost. Composting meant that at least it returns to the earth, but it still felt like a waste.
Second, earlier in the day I'd chatted with church volunteers about the ever expanding demand for food in the town. Our tiny Little Free Pantry pushed through twenty five tons of food last year, and with more and more economic pressure on the DC area, that seems to be increasing. The stream of souls coming to our door in search of sustenance is swelling. Across the way at the town's food bank, the shelves are increasingly bare. Wasting food in that context seems even less tolerable.
And third, well, there were the words of the Apostle Paul from his letter to the endlessly frustrating Corinthians. In preparation for the service, I'd re-read the section where he challenges them over the mess they'd made of the Lord's Supper. They'd modeled their communion after the cultural expectations of the Greco-Roman feast. There, the important and influential guests ate first and abundantly, and the poor and unknown were served last, getting scraps or nothing.
This annoyed the bejabbers out of Paul. As The Message puts it:
I find that you bring your divisions to worship—you come together, and instead of eating the Lord’s Supper, you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of yourselves. Some are left out, and go home hungry. Others have to be carried out, too drunk to walk. I can’t believe it! Don’t you have your own homes to eat and drink in? Why would you stoop to desecrating God’s church? Why would you actually shame God’s poor? I never would have believed you would stoop to this. And I’m not going to stand by and say nothing.
With Paul's words echoing in my soul, I set those boxes of soup into the donation crate. Afterwards, church folk ate and drank together, partaking of bread and cup and remembering Christ's call to love and serve. It was a gracious time of fellowship, and there was more than enough for all.
And for those who come to us in need today, that soup will be there waiting for them.
It's pretty tasty.
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