Communion-Meditation

Sports, Ritual, and the Lord’s Supper – A Communion Meditation

These remarks were presented as a communion meditation at the O’Fallon Church of Christ on January 19, 2025.

In October 2024, the World’s truthiest news source, the Babylon Bee, posted an article with the headline: “Alabama Pastor Placed On Leave After Giving Sermon Without College Football Analogy.”

Like many of the wildly satirical Babylon Bee’s bits, the headline was better than the article, but it did make me wonder if Shane’s frequent sports references were a job retention strategy.

I kid, of course, but Shane did ask a question during his sermon last week that I am convinced has a much deeper meaning than he let on, including how we think about the Lord’s supper.

I may not have the exact words, but Shane asked, “Why is it that people get this worked up about sports?”

The answer, in shorthand, is this: models, the search for community, and rituals.

Humans are, after all, imitators: we learn by observing and copying others. We model ourselves after those we admire. We seek out these models so we can act like them.

Remember the “Be Like Mike” campaign from the 90s? And of course, we’re frequently reminded that athletes are “role models” for young people.

Humans are also social animals. We search out communities and we often do that around similar models, looking to be like that someone else. We take on those desires, and act like the model. When this happens with bigger and bigger groups, the conflicts get correspondingly bigger and bigger in society, as all the conflicting desires come up against each other. Without a release valve somewhere, chaos ensues. In short, it’s the madness of the crowd. So the search for community has a strange downside too.

Sports acts almost like a guidance system to curb these massive potential problems. It is, in fact, a ritual. Think about it: Without the ritualized controls of the game’s rules system, and even the developed culture around it, a sport is essentially a mock battle. A miniature war. A strange and violent event. It may as well be gladiatorial combat. So, these things are encouraged precisely because it is a kind of release valve in society. In some sense, it lessens the occurrence of the bigger violent events.

Think about what happens when a city’s favorite team achieves victory. The city, or sometimes a country, goes absolutely crazy for a while. There’s massive celebration, an almost spiritual elation. You can even probably recall instances where big wins were accompanied by some violent happenings – mini-riots, looting, stuff like that. That’s the madness of crowds at work.

Antiquity, for the most part, didn’t always have ritualized occurrences like sports. Instead, there were actual killings, started, spurred, and led on by the mob. You’ll recall this is exactly what happened to Jesus. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Romans, the zealots – all of those groups and more in the crowd, ultimately riled up and killed an innocent man, the Son of God himself. Through the Gospel, this madness is put on display, and what man intended for evil God used for Good. We are ultimately redeemed through the event. 

Thankfully, the leavening of Christianity throughout the world has partially civilized us. We still have problems, but we have outs as well. 

One of those outs is the Lord’s supper. In partaking of Christ’s body and blood, this ritual brings into focus a better model of being, that of the way of Jesus. His sacrifice reveals the madness of the world, makes it plain to us, points us to the better way, cleanses us of sin, and urges us to “Be like Jesus.”

So is communion a contact sport? No, not exactly, but it does ritually recount the most significant death in history, of the person we call Savior, Lord, and Master. Prophet, Priest, and King. It reminds us that we ourselves, each one of us, were symbolically part of the mob that day, calling for Jesus’ murder. And Jesus said that we knew not what we were doing, and provided the path of forgiveness and redemption to us. Now we know, and he is now our model, our mediator.

Let us pray.

Lord, we recognize that we are no better than those who nailed you to the cross, who scorned you that day on the hill of Calvary.

We remember your body broken, and your blood spilt, and through these elements we partake in your means of bestowing your grace upon us.

You are the way, the truth, and the life, and there is no way to the Father except through you (John 14:6). We remember, Lord, and we praise your name for giving us this grace.

For further reading and edification:

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