“One Body in Christ”

Communion Talk by David Schaal, First Presidency

A few moments ago, Brother Veazey shared with us a call to worship from the letter to the Ephesians--a letter written during a time in which the infant church was no longer a small band of persons from the same region. This was a time in which persons were being drawn to the gospel from many places, languages, and customs. It was in the midst of this increasingly diverse church that the Ephesian letter presented a bold and prophetic statement when it proclaims, "You are one body."

The very image of being ONE BODY is powerful. Nothing is more immediate to us than our bodies. When one part of our body is wounded, we are comprehensively aware of the pain. When one part of our body experiences relief, healing, or pleasure, our entire person shares that awareness. And so, to suggest that we are to be ONE BODY in Christ says something profound about the level of intimacy that we are to have with one another and with God.

We must confess, though, that the experience of being one body in Christ cannot be arrived at through legislation nor can it be programmatically willed into being. However, when we come to this sacramental table, the invitation to be one body is presented to us as a profound reality. When we come to this sacred table, we see in it the very elements that are necessary for our unity in Christ.

As we come to the sacramental table, it is a time of kneeling. When we kneel--and I'm not talking only about the physical act of kneeling--when we truly kneel in our hearts and minds, it is an act in which we surrender personal agendas and over-extended egos as we humble ourselves in the presence of One who views all people precious. We become one body when our kneeling is an outward symbol of what is happening in our inner lives.

As we come to the sacramental table, it is a time in which we focus attention upon prayer. It has always been the testimony of the church that we are made in God's image which implies--at least in part--that we have the capacity to create. Yet how easy it is for us to become so carried away with works of our own making that we disengage from relating to the One who is seeking to create us. And so, when we kneel at this table it is a time of prayer, precious for its own sake, but also reminding us of the priority place that prayer must take in the life of the church if we are to experience the closeness with Christ that is envisioned when we refer to ourself as his body.

As we come to the sacramental table, it is a time of remembrance. Of all the things that Jesus could have said to his disciples during his last evening with them, he chose to take bread and wine and say, "Remember me." Remembering has the capacity to reorient us, to help us reclaim where our hearts and minds belong. Some of you have heard me share before the experience of going to the beach one day with my wife. She found a tree, spread out a blanket, and sat down with a book. I headed into the water for a session of body surfing. After a few minutes of riding a few waves and getting buried by several others, I looked up to discover that my wife was gone...and her blanket was gone...and the tree was gone. It was then that I realized that this stretch of water had a gentle but persistent current in it that ran parallel to the beach. Gently, almost imperceptibly, it had bumped me down the beach. So I looked back up the beach, and sure enough--there was the tree...and the blanket...and Michelle. There are so many things in life that have the capacity to gently, persistently bump us off course and distract us from what is ultimately important. In the Lord's Supper, though, we are asked to slow down...eat...drink...and remember the One whom we serve, so that we may be reoriented around that relationship which is to be primary for us.

As we come to the sacramental table, it is a time of tasting. It is a time to stop and savor the taste of bread and wine and, with that, to savor the presence of Christ with us. It is also a time to recall the hunger resident in the human soul, and to remember that while the church is graced by God's spirit, it is in the world where the majority of God's great work is unfolding, and therefore it is into the world that disciples are called.

And so here we are, even more diverse than the church in Ephesus. We are young and old, rich and poor. We come from small villages and large cities. We come from around the world and speak a host of languages. Yet here, in this place, the vision of the peaceable kingdom--the vision of Zion--is rekindled among us. God stands at the doors of this place awaiting our re-entry into the world. As we meet at the sacramental table, the voice of Ephesians echoes down the corridors of time and speaks to us a profound and prophetic truth: "You are one body."