Introduction
What do Senator Ted Cruz and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez they have in common? At first glance: Nothing. He’s a Republican and she’s a Democrat, on opposite ends of the political spectrum. But there is one thing: Both are performers. Both use their positions, identifiable brands, and performance platforms, along with various mediums to promote their beliefs and visions for moving forward, along with critiquing and condemning the other.
Cruz and AOC are performers on the stage called Congress. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing as it’s important for our leaders to have high profiles. If you support them, you certainly want them to have influence.
But often when a person takes a stage, problems will arise. As one who takes to a platform regularly, I know how true this can be.
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NPR recently interviewed Yuval Levin, author of the book, A Time to Build, who has discovered that when institutions become more about performance and less about formation, people lose trust.
Levin writes, “We trust an institution when we think that it forms the people within it to be trustworthy, so that not only does it perform an important social function … but it also, at the same time, provides an ethic that shapes and forms the people within it.”
Think of the military, or the church, which forms a particular kind of person. In years past, Congress was a formative institution, shaping people in such a way that they could fight for their positions but also work to build a consensus. A good example is Bob Dole and George McGovern, who were at opposite ends of the political spectrum but could work in the Senate to build a broad, nonpartisan consensus in support of anti-hunger programs.
Unfortunately, institutions are now less formative and more performative. When politicians, and the like, take the performance approach, the purpose of institutions undergoes a shift.
Levin writes, “We have moved from thinking of institutions as molds that shape people’s characters and habits, toward seeing them as platforms that allow people to display themselves. There is nothing liberal or conservative about this. It is a completely bipartisan cultural shift.”
According to Levin, “We see people using institutions as stages, as a way to raise their profile or build their brand. And those kinds of institutions become much harder to trust.”
This is true even for the church. When the Church becomes performative focused, the institutional church loses the trust of the people. Which is why this approach of finding a stage for a performance to present from is a slippery slope that can lead to loss of trust. Institutions and individuals need to find a better way—a way to present not a performance, but rather a way for formation. Because formation leads to transformation.
Moses and World Communion Sunday show us how to do such.
Move 1
The book of Exodus makes clear that Moses was not looking for a big stage. After God appears to Moses in the burning bush and God tells Moses he will be sent to liberate the Israelites, Moses says, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). Moses is clearly not looking for a platform.
Then Moses says, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent … I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (4:10). He knows that he is not a good performer. So God allows Aaron, the brother of Moses, to speak to the people for Moses.
After God sends the first nine plagues on the land of Egypt, God gives Moses and Aaron instructions about the tenth plague and what the Israelites will need to do to be spared from its consequences. These instructions become the basis for the celebration of the Passover.
Passover, as we know, is a sacred meal that “shall be a day of remembrance for you,” says God. “You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance” (12:14). Passover is an institution that is formative for the Jewish people, shaping their lives from the time of Moses to today. They don’t need Moses to perform for them, because they have something else to form them— the Passover. The institution is called Passover because God said, “I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” (v. 13)
Passover is a holiday about freedom because it celebrates the Jews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. The traditional Passover dinner is organized around telling the Passover story; it’s an opportunity for Jews to connect themselves with their history; to think more consciously about those who are still oppressed today; and to hope that all people today will know freedom.
But Passover’s influence is not limited to the Jews. African-Americans in slavery, used the story of the Exodus as a metaphor for their struggle. Think of the spiritual, “Go Down, Moses,” which linked ancient Jews to African-American slaves. Or Harriet Tubman—the great liberator of slaves— who was called “Moses.”
Passover shapes and forms the Jewish people, reminding them that God worked powerfully to liberate their ancestors from slavery, and it connects them with this important history. It then awakens their compassion toward people who are oppressed today— migrants who are traveling toward freedom, as well as people who are trapped in poverty or ethnic strife. Passover shapes a certain kind of moral and ethical person because it is formative, not performative.
Move 2
So what are the institutions that can be formative for Christians?
Well, more important than any preacher on a platform are the traditions of the Lord’s Supper, along with the Christian community itself. Both are focused on formation, and make the institutional Church more trustworthy.
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The first comes out of Passover itself: The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus was celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he took a loaf of bread, gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:26-28)
The sacrament is an institution that forms us and feeds us as followers of Christ. We eat the bread, which is the body of Christ, so that we can become the body of Christ, the physical presence of Jesus in the world today. Nourished by this bread, we are strengthened to be the hands and feet of Jesus, showing his love and advancing his mission and ministry.
In the Lord ’s Supper, the blood of the covenant is not used to mark doorways and escape death, but it nonetheless has saving power— reminding us that the blood of Christ was “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 28) When we drink the cup, we are freed from sin and liberated to be Christ’s people in the world.
The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is formative, not performative. Its power comes from the Holy Spirit of God, not from a pastor on a platform. And because it does, the sacrament can be trusted.
Move 3
Another institution that can shape us is the Christian community itself. Now it is true that churches are full of fallible people, and no congregation is flawless. But the Apostle Paul is right when he says to the Corinthians that the church is the one body of Christ, and “in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)
No leader on a stage can be as supportive or inspiring as a community that is open to the power of the Holy Spirit. But often we forget about this transformative power, opting instead for something that performs for us.
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Renewed preacher Fred Craddock speaks to this truth by doing what Craddock so often did— by telling a story.
He said, “I was walking down a sidewalk in Decatur, Georgia, on the way to the church where I was to preach when I met an acquaintance sitting at an outdoor coffee shop. We chatted and she asked me to join her, but I said that I needed to get to church. I invited her to join me, but she held up her Sunday paper and said, ‘This is my Bible,’ and then her coffee cup, ‘This is my communion.’
I think the days of that nonsense are ending. I believe our traditions are going to return with strength, both to the Eucharist and to carefully crafted sermons that will demand to be published and reread after they are heard, because coffee and the Sunday Times are not sufficient. But the church has work to do. The question is not whether the church is dying, but whether the church is giving its life for the world.”
Craddock reminds us that the world will always offer an alternative—one that is alluring and even seductive—and don’t try to tell me sitting outside with a good cup of coffee and the newspaper isn’t seductive. But the allure of the things of this world will never be able to form us and transform us like the Holy Spirit, especially when we are part of the Christian community.
Conclusion
It’s for these reasons why I love World Communion Sunday so much.
World Communion Sunday shows the world not a stage for people to observe, but it sets the Table where all are invited to come.
Moses knew that no performance could be as powerful as the institution of Passover. He knew it wouldn’t need performers on stages with platform positions and identifiable brands. He knew though the formation of Passover would lead to transformative and lifesaving power.
And Jesus knew it too, which is why he set a table and not a stage. It’s why he didn’t invite people to observe, he invited them to come and join him—eat, drink, partake, remember. And this is what we are reminded of on World Communion Sunday. That the church is not about performing—rather it is about forming and transforming.
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So let us ask ourselves… Are we performative Christians—simply trying to be seen for being Christians? Or are we formative Christians—who, like Moses and Jesus, seek to share with others the transformative power found in God.
As we gather with the world around our Lord’s Table let us come not because of an alluring brand. Let us come because communion forms a way of life that gives life to us, and to the world. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, October 4, 2020, World Communion Sunday
God of new life, in a wearisome world, we gather in solidarity with the faithful around the world, breaking bread with all in the body of Christ, remembering that though we have different languages, cultures and traditions; that though we have different ways of worship, praying and praising; we are all knit together through the life, death and resurrection of your Son.
And in doing so, we can push past the weariness, knowing there is more that unites us than divides us.
Holy God, in a world which floods our souls with weariness, the communion table becomes a place where we are reminded there is a faithful way through the weariness.
The communion table is where we remember your Son faced the worst of the worst, and found new life.
The communion table is where we remember that though death may come, death never gets the last word—that only love and life get the last word.
But as we remember such—we pray also it would also implore us to let go of the need for guarantees and certainties, and instead embrace the moment now, knowing that no matter what comes tomorrow we already belong to you.
So on this day gracious God, may you remind us that we will not find a way through our weariness in our apathy. We will not find a way through our weariness by quarreling. We will not find a way through our weariness with an attitude of opposition to any we cross paths with, nor doesn’t look or sound like us. We will not find a way through our weariness with hate. We will not find a way through our weariness in our well nursed grudges.
Rather what will show us a way through is you, and your son, who show us that when we follow in your ways, we will find a way through with grace and forgiveness and love.
We ask that you would hear now the prayers of our hearts as we offer them to you in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of Christ Jesus or Lord and Savior, who taught us to pray saying, “Our …”