In the Bread, the Cup, the Cross

Seeking communion and community in times of trauma and suffering

In my ecclesial tradition, communion happens on the first Sunday of the month, so I am putting this song offering out there a week early for those who also have that tradition, and invite those who celebrate communion more or less often to use this as seems good. I wrote this song in 2018, and I think I used it during Lent, but I hadn’t recorded it even for my personal archives until this past week. I can hear it as an invitation to corporate communion, and have been using it as a private meditation as well. This morning it served as the beginning of my morning devotion, with the scriptures that inspired it.

1 Corinthians 11:23-29

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.

Luke 14:27

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

1 Corinthians 1:18

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

In the Bread, the Cup, the Cross by Nancy Willbanks

In the bread, in the cup, we remember.
In the cross we take up, we remember.
Though foolish as the cross may be, 
love's wisdom heals and sets us free.
In the bread, in the cup, we remember.

Noticing

What did you notice? What caught your attention in the song or in the images?

Communion is a time of gathering and remembering with people and ordinary things that are also sacred, as are all ordinary things in God’s creation. “In the bread, in the cup, we remember.”

The cross I use in the picture above is the only cross I have on display in my house. It is a cross that my nephew made for my mom out of barbed wire and it hung in her living room, and thus over the hospital style bed in her living room where I and my family cared for her as she died. In the picture below, you can see the shadows of the foot of the hospital bed. Many crosses in the Protestant tradition have been sanitized, and don’t include the pain and trauma. As someone who grew up with barbed wire fences, and as I stood by this cross as my mother died, this cross speaks to me of pain, suffering, and loss. I remember and I grieve.

I remember that my mother did not suffer and die alone. And that even in these days of suffering and chaos and trauma, we also are not alone. We are called to community, and to bearing one another’s burdens. “In the cross we take up, we remember.”

In the trauma informed ministry studies that I have been doing, we are reminded that healing from trauma is a communal activity. Remembering, grieving and lament—in community—are necessary steps in healing, and even in coping with trauma. “Though foolish as the cross may be, love's wisdom heals and sets us free.”

Prayer

God of song, of bread, of compassion,

Today we pray for and grieve for and lament with those who are hungry because bread and food aid have not been shared, with those who have lost their jobs, with those who are being denied their own personhood and identification, like our trans sisters and brothers, with those who are targets of hate and violence. We lament the chaos and disruptions and the heightened trauma response of constant hyper-vigilance, triggered by each news headline.

We remember that we need to examine ourselves and make amends. We remember that we are and can be better and more compassionate than what we see in the news. We remember we are called to love one another, to love our neighbors, and even to love our enemies. We remember that we are all beloved of God, made in God’s image.

In the bread, the cup, the cross, we remember. Amen.

Other songs for reflection

I listened to these songs as well this morning, if you need a longer time of reflection for remembering. “In the bread, in the cup, we remember.”

For the Bread which you have broken-Lorenz Publishing Choir (by Lloyd Larson)

Let Us Be Bread-Katie Hughes, voice, Podge Kilbrde, piano (by Timothy Porter)

In the Breaking of the Bread -Sunday 7pm Choir (by Bob Hurd and Michael Downey)

In Remembrance of Me-Ecclesia Choir (by Courtney Ragan and Buryl Red)

In Remembrance of Me-Cheri Keaggy (by Cheri Keaggy)

Reflection Questions

How do I sit with the sacred ordinary in times of trauma, pain, loss and sorrow? What and how do I remember about sustaining and supporting communion and community?

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