Guest Blogger Connie Kottman

Connie Kottman is active in the Visual Arts Ministry and the Production Team at PCC. Married to Tom and the mother of three kids, Connie has traveled an interesting path in her faith journey. She was profoundly impacted by our communion celebration a few weeks ago. Here is her story:

A couple of Sundays ago we celebrated communion at PCC. It was the last week of the "Big Stories of the Bible 2.0" series, and the big story was about Jesus having his final meal with his closest friends.

This meal was especially meaningful to Jesus. In fact, He eagerly awaited it (can you imagine doing something with Jesus that you knew He was eagerly awaiting?) It was meaningful to Him for several reasons: it was the Passover meal, which has been celebrated by the Jewish people for generations to remember God's freeing them from slavery in Egypt. He also knew that He would transform this meal from a remembrance of God's saving His people from enslavement to men, into a remembrance of Jesus saving all of humanity from our enslavement to sin. He was also aware that at this meal, circumstances would be set in motion that would quickly lead to His arrest, trial, crucifixion, death...and ultimately His victory over death...for all who have faith in Him.

As Jesus broke the "unleavened bread" served at that Passover meal, and passed the cup of wine, he commanded His friends to continue to do this act in memory of Him. The bread, He said, was His body, which would be broken for them. The wine, which they drank as a symbol of God's promise to, or covenant with, His people, was now to be seen as Christ's blood...He was creating a "new covenant" with us.

I'm not sure, but I think this is the only symbolic act that Jesus commanded His followers to do. Everything else He told us to do is very direct: love God through prayer and worship, and love one another through tangible action. Jesus also had no patience for those who had replaced true worship with hollow ritual. So for Jesus to tell us to do something symbolic together to remember Him and His covenant with us, well..that's pretty important.

When I was baptized at age 31, I had traveled a 15 year long, meandering journey from a non-religious Jewish childhood to my commitment to follow Jesus. I joined the Roman Catholic Church. I loved the many small, worshipful remembrances that Catholics do. I saw these rituals as they were originally intended to be, as signs and symbols of our interaction with God's holiness. My husband was a Catholic, and I wanted spiritual unity in our family.

However, while I loved many things about the Catholic approach to Christian living, over time I became increasingly disaffected with Church teachings, irrelevant and harmful authority structures, and practices that got in the way of authentic faith. The bottom line was that our family was spiritually malnourished in a tradition-bound institution, and we didn't know where to turn. Thankfully, we were invited by friends to PCC in 2004. PCC was a complete "180" from what we thought church was all about. At PCC, we got a taste of what real freedom in Christ is like through meaningful worship, Biblical teaching and the welcoming fellowship of the church community. Our family wanted more of this freedom. We could not turn back. So we extricated ourselves, both physically and spiritually, from our old church and the Catholic way of life. Ironically, the final time we attended Mass as a family was to celebrate our youngest son's "First Holy Communion". The next Sunday, we were at PCC to stay.

Now, I just want to say that sometimes when you think you've left something behind, it can come back to you in surprising ways...and this happened to me over the act of taking communion. You see, the meal that Jesus told us to celebrate to remember Him, that we call communion? This has become the central act of worship for Catholics. It's the main focus of the service called Mass, which is celebrated at least every Sunday, and often daily at churches with resident priests. Catholics believe in transubstantiation, which means when the priest offers the bread and wine to God, it is literally transformed by God into Christ's body and blood, even as it retains its outward appearance of bread and wine. The Catholic believer approaches the act of taking Holy Communion with an extreme sense of reverence, because one is literally taking Christ physically into one's own being. Because this reverential act goes beyond mere remembrance, those who take Holy Communion should prepare themselves spiritually and act in a way that reflects that reverence. Behaviors and rituals have grown around the act of taking Holy Communion, from the way one approaches the altar, to what is said, to how the bread and wine are handled, and how the dishes and cups are cleaned afterward. Even churches who don't agree with that theological interpretation of the meal have also retained elements of these rituals to varying degrees, because, after all, we should behave respectfully when we participate in communion.

After leaving the Catholic Church, my family began to participate in communion at PCC's midweek services. Communion at PCC was a very different experience. At first I was taken aback by the piled little cubes of bread in a dish, and tiny little disposable plastic cups of grape juice (not wine) that were passed around the room in a silver cup holder that looked like a hubcap. We didn't get up and stand in line. Nobody put a little wafer on my tongue, or in my palms (criss-crossed, left palm on top). Nobody said "The Body of Christ...The Blood of Christ before giving me "the elements." I wasn't expected to make the sign of the cross. And I didn't worry about whether or not I felt more holy afterwards.

I was simply to take, eat, and remember Jesus.

Later on, after midweeks were put on hold, we were encouraged to celebrate communion in our small groups. Our group leader was trained in how to do this, and we all enthusiastically took up the practice. Every week or two, we'd haul out the Manischewitz wine (I mean, a nice Jewish boy like Jesus would have had real Maniscewitz at the Passover table). Someone had found a recipe for unleavened bread, which was definitely a step up from a little white cube or round wafer. We took turns each week reading one of the gospel accounts of Jesus' command to remember Him through this meal, and we'd eat, and enjoy, and celebrate. I still felt a little funny...here I am saying the words that Father Joe...no, Brian...no...me...Jesus wants to say these words of remembrance and invite others to eat in His memory! I had traveled a long way from where I had been.

Fast forward to PCC, on a Sunday in late August 2008. We were walking down the aisles of the high school auditorium to partake in communion. It was only the second time we had done communion at Sunday service, and it was special. I knew that it had been carefully planned for that day, and in accordance with the requirements of the facility. Because we could not pass food around in the auditorium, the tables holding the bread and wine were located up front, with mats under the tables to catch any spilled white (non-staining) grape juice. Doing communion that Sunday was important to our pastor, and staff took every precaution to make sure it was doable in our current sanctuary space.

What surprised me was my feelings and reactions, as a "post-Catholic" Christ follower, by the way we did communion that day.I hadn't walked to the front of a church to take communion since Mass four years ago.I had by now gotten used to passing the bread cube dish and hubcap full of grape juices while sitting down at table. I had grown to love gathering in a kitchen with close friends and eating communion like the meal it was meant to be.

So, I got up, stood in line, and headed down to one of the tables set up with the bread and the little cups of white grape juice. I had to fight the urge to criss-cross my palms, left palm on top. I had to remind myself that once I got to the front, Father Joe would not be there to raise up the little round, tasteless wafer baked by nuns...

And then I saw them, piled in the self-serve plate...those little round, tasteless wafers baked by nuns...I tried hard to remember Jesus in this serious moment. Instead, I imagined a kindly elderly Irish nun, knocking on the church office trailer door, rolling sample cart in tow, like a pharmaceutical salesman at the doctor's office, putting a pitch on Brian. "Oh, yes, Reverend, we make the finest >non-crumbling communion wafers around, and here, I'll just leave you a wee couple of hundred to try for your next Mass, er, communion service..." Brian's not the kind of guy to turn down a sweet little Irish nun. Or free non-crumbling wafers.

I didn't know what to do. The Catholic way of doing communion was colliding with my present reality. There's the wafer, but there's nobody to place it in my palm. I've got to take it myself. I reflexively stuck my tongue out and placed the wafer on it. Let it melt as much as possible, because you don't want to be chewing the Body of Christ...oh, wait, don't worry about that anymore. Swallow the wafer before drinking the wine -- no, grape juice --because that's intinction and you don't want to do that if the priest didn't dip the wafer first...no, wait, don't worry about that either. No priest. I wanted so much to make the sign of the cross over myself but I held back. Throwing out the cup felt like blasphemy.

I walked back up the aisle realizing I had just encountered a major part of my spritual identity that I thought I had let go of. Left behind. As I sat down, I felt challenged and humbled and shook up.

A few minutes later, Brian concluded the service by telling us we should be celebrating after communion loudly and joyfully (rather than being somber like many churches). Then he said and that we should enjoy communion so much that we want to go back for seconds. As the loud and joyful music started, my youngest son (now 11) leaned over and eagerly said, "Can I really go back for seconds??" "Sure, why not?" I replied. When the crowd dispersed, he scooted to the table, happily ate another wafer, drank another cup of juice and casually threw the cup in the trash.

Out of the corner of my mind's eye I saw Father Joe hurrying the Irish nun out of the auditorium...she felt faint and needed some fresh air.

Connie blogs - check out What Happens Next?