The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of what I call unitive awareness, which Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Also called Holy Communion or the Eucharist, this Christian ritual is a symbolic proclamation of nonduality.
The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of what I call unitive awareness, which Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Also called Holy Communion or the Eucharist, this Christian ritual is a symbolic proclamation of nonduality.
Holy Communion and Nonduality
The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of what I call unitive awareness, which Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Also called Holy Communion or the Eucharist, this Christian ritual is a symbolic proclamation of nonduality. Of course, that is not the way it is presented in traditional Christianity. You have likely never heard it presented that way before. But that is the way that the Gospel of John presents it.
This sacrament is said to commemorate the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples, which was a Passover Meal. At least that is how it is portrayed in the first three gospels in the New Testament. But in the Gospel of John the Last Supper is not a Passover Meal like in the other three gospels. The Lord’s Supper is not instituted at the Last Supper. There is no mention of bread or wine. Nothing about his body or blood.
John’s Gospel changes the calendar of events surrounding Jesus’ death so that the Passover Meal does not happen until after Jesus dies. John does this deliberately so that the Lord’s Supper would not be interpreted as a sacrificial meal with all the theological ramifications that implies. At the Last Supper, instead of a ritual of bread and wine, interpreted as the body and blood of Christ, a different ritual is established – foot-washing, communicating the importance of serving one another in humility.
But at the time that John was written, the Lord’s Supper had been adopted by the early church with that “body and blood” interpretation – as the other gospels reveal. So the Fourth Gospel tries to reinterpret it. This indicates that there was an alternate understanding the origin and meaning of the Eucharist in the early church. There was a minority voice that saw it not as sacrifice for sins but as union with God. That is why one of the terms used to describe it is communion, which means literally “union with.”
In John’s Gospel Jesus discussion of his body and blood is placed much earlier in Jesus’ ministry in the context of a meal called the feeding of the Five Thousand. The Feeding of the 5000 is the Lord’s Supper in John’s Gospel. It is not Jesus offering the food in this story, but a young boy, echoing Jesus’ words that we have to become like a young child to enter the Kingdom of God. The meal is not a Jewish family ritual. It is an outdoor picnic with friends and strangers where abundance is celebrated when people offer what one has in generosity, like the small boy does – and like Jesus does. This came to be called the Love Feast in Christianity, mentioned in the little Book of Jude.
This is an entirely different way of approaching the Lord’s Table. For John it is a symbol of everyday living that reveals the abundant presence of God. It teaches us what it means to abide in Christ in union with God in what I call unitive awareness or nondual awareness. Using the theological vocabulary of the Gospel of John, this is about the eternal I AM that is Christ and us.
In the context of the Feeding of the 5000 in John 6, Jesus’ offers one of his I AM statements, which is shorthand for spiritual identity with the Divine. This is the pattern in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus does a miracle – called a sign in this gospel – and then gives a sermon that explains the meaning of the sign. Each of those sermons includes an I AM statement in which Jesus proclaims his true nature as I AM, as Eternal Being or Nonduality. His words echo the story of God revealing his eternal nature and name to Moses at the Burning bush where calls says he is the I AM.
Jesus feeds thousands of people with a few little rolls of bread and fish, and then says, “I am the Bread of Life.” He calls himself the Living Bread and the Bread that has come down from Heaven. He draws a parallel to the manna that the Hebrews ate in the wilderness after their escape from Egypt. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” Just like the manna in the wilderness gave the Hebrews’ physical life, so does the bread of life give spiritual life. So there would be no doubt that this passage is talking about the Lord’s Supper, Jesus explicitly speaks about his body and blood.
Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”
Such language about eating his flesh and blood can be offensive to people. That is what prompted nonsacramental groups like the Quakers and Unitarians to abandon the rite. I have had parishioners in my churches refuse to partake of Communion. The ritual has parallels in the pagan mystery cults during the time Christianity was forming. Ritual consumption of a god was widely practiced by religious groups. Osiris, Dionysus, Attis and others were ritually consumed by their devotees. Although Christianity was drawing primarily upon the sacrificial motifs of the Hebrew Bible – where a sacrificial meal was eaten - it was likely influenced by the religious practices of its Greco-Roman culture as well.
But whatever its origin, ritually eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood is not a pleasant imagery. Especially when you have to do it on a regular basis in a worship service. Most Christians are so used to the ritual that we don’t think about how it must appear to outsiders. The early Christians had to deal with charges of cannibalism, which is why John’s gospel omits the Lord’s Supper in its story of the Last Supper, and substitutes a more acceptable ritual of foot washing.
In the Gospel of John instead of blood and wine we have bread and fish. The elements of the Eucharist are called “true food” and “true drink” or Food of Truth and Drink of Truth. John’s Gospel interprets the Lord’s Supper as about Truth and abiding in Christ. Jesus says, “My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.”
Communion is about being one with Christ. That is the meaning of the tem “abide in me.” This is also translated “dwell in me” or “live in me.” This is the same truth that the synoptic gospels proclaim as the kingdom of God being within us. Jesus explores what it means to “abide in him” in much greater detail in what is called his High Priestly Prayer, which he offers in the Gospel of John on the night of the Last Supper. I will deal with it more in that chapter.
Abiding in Christ is nondual awareness. When my mind rests from the fleeting images and ideas of the world, I abide alone in the Eternal Christ that does not change. That is what happens at the Lord’s Supper in worship. I abide in Christ. I identify with the Eternal Christ. The two become one because they are one. Just like physical food become the elements of our physical body, so we are one with Christ in the Lord’s Supper.
That is why I like the term Communion for the Lord’s Supper. It communicates the true meaning of the ritual. Abiding in Christ is not just a ritual or a spiritual practice. It is the everyday reality of our lives. It is always present. It is the substratum of our consciousness, which only needs our attention to come to the forefront. This is unitive awareness. This is what we are. We are always one with God, abiding in Christ, no matter what we are doing. That is why Brother Lawrence can say he was as close to God in the monastery kitchen washing dishes as on his knees at the Eucharist. We are one with Christ in God. That is the meaning of the Lord’s Supper.