I recently visited a friend who is in hospice care.

I listened as she shared memories of her ministry. She recalled being tasked with presiding over communion after her Association had declined to accept an Open and Affirming church into its communion.

That’s all history now. That church was eventually welcomed and is now thriving in that Association.

But the image of her presiding in this moment of sadness for many LGBTQ Christians and their allies (and she is one) worked on my unconscious:

Remembrances of Communions Past:

In college, I read Henry Nouwen’s Can You Drink The Cup? I preached a sermon inspired by it, “Sharing Our Lives,” to my rural hometown church. After hearing it, a friend observed, “I don’t think you know it, but you just came out to your church.” Looking at the text of my sermon now, I get it. I described lifting the cup as coming out and sharing (i.e., intimate connection) as a lifestyle. I even read a story from the book, Holy Homosexuals. I don’t have Nouwen’s book in my library today. As a college senior, I was invited to speak at a gay youth support group. I remember giving the book to a high school student. I wonder what the book did for him?
One of the first things I did when I moved to Chicago (and mostly out . . . though I had not yet explicitly told my family!) was force myself to begin exploring the city. I jumped on a bus, and I headed downtown. I made it to Michigan Avenue (on the south side of the river) and chickened out. I ducked into Subway(!) and sat down to read Leonardo Boff’s Sacraments of Life, Life of the Sacraments. Boff describes the old aluminum mug he and his ten siblings drank from: “It has shared everything. It has always been there. It is the ongoing mystery of life and mortal existence. The mug endures, old but still shiny . . . . We must drink in other people before we can love them. Eyes that drink in people speak the language of the heart.”

Several times, as others spoke to her, our eyes connected. I felt her love, and I smiled lovingly–and we looked, I am sure, lovingly sad.

On the last day of a challenging ecclesial assignment, I received my friend’s ordination gift in the mail: a beautiful communion chalice (pictured). Before leaving my friend’s bedside, I told her I would use her chalice whenever I preside over communion.

I’ll lift the cup up and share, through Messiah, communion with her.

May it be so.