Sammy Stayton attends Rainbow Mennonite Church in Kansas City, Kansas. 

I remember sitting in my mom’s lap in a house church around age 5 as the elders served Communion. As they offered her the tray, I could smell the sweetness of the crumbs of bread and desperately wanted a little piece—just a snack. But as the tray passed by, I knew it wasn’t for me and didn’t reach out for a piece. Communion in my childhood church was limited to baptized members, and I couldn’t get baptized until I was at least 8 years old.

My conception of Christian faith and my inability to leave it behind (even when I’ve wanted to) are tied to the act of Communion. I grew up in a denomination called the Restoration Branches, which shared a history with the Mormon church and the Community of Christ. The Restoration formed out of a schism in 1984, breaking off from the Community of Christ over its decision to ordain women to the priesthood. I was raised in the Restoration, a loving, tight-knit and often fractious community. From my earliest experiences with Christianity, Communion taught me what the church was for, who the church was for and what Jesus’ role in the church was.

When I was 12 or 13, I stopped taking Communion. Even at the time, I couldn’t put my finger on what changed for me, but I felt unworthy to be at that table. The men who preached on Communion Sundays often spoke about being “worthy to partake” and usually invoked the verse from Matthew 5:23-24: “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

Many interpreted these verses to mean members should settle all their accounts before taking Communion. No one should approach the altar with unrepented sin in their lives. Maybe it was the onset of heightened self-awareness that develops at that age, but I became intensely aware I could never be prepared enough or worthy enough or repentant enough to truly have a place at the Communion table. I doubted my own sincerity. I doubted my own repentance, and I knew that by Tuesday of the next week I would probably be back to fighting with my older sister. I had soaked up the messages of the church that Communion was reserved for baptized members and only intended for members in good standing. Communion brought with it a test of holiness and an exclusivity. Though I eventually returned to Communion, that sense that the Communion table was a place of monthly reckoning and guilt continued.

When I left home for college in Minnesota, my faith and my sense of Communion were shaped by new people and new theologies. Many Lutheran students at St. Olaf embraced Luther’s suggestion to “sin boldly” and trust God’s grace even more boldly. This was a minor shock to me. In the student congregation, Communion was a sign of welcome, a table set for all. It represented many things to many people, but it was not the monolithic ritual of sober repentance I had thought it was. To my friend Kristen, Communion was any meal shared between friends. She would insist, “This is Communion” with a tone of awe while we split a pan of cornbread and drank hot chocolate. She introduced me to Sarah Miles, an Episcopal writer who writes, “Communion is the only meal in the world that can’t be bought with money and can’t be eaten alone.” I began to see the Communion table as more than a symbol of an individual relationship with the divine. It was a joyful act of community and a way of approaching mystery together.

My childhood church not only limited Communion to baptized members but insisted that members not take Communion in other churches. In college, this was particularly difficult for me, and there were many Sundays when I remained behind in the choir seating as my classmates and friends took Communion. I felt conflicted and sad about missing out.

Once I made the choice to join a wider Communion and started taking it outside my childhood church, I never looked back. I was hungry. I ate bread and drank wine with Presbyterians and Lutherans and Episcopalians. I saw the mystery of Communion borne out in the oatmeal and coffee we served to guests at the soup kitchen where I worked. I forced my housemates in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps to eat bread and honey butter and drink wine during our spirituality nights. And when I moved to Kansas City, I got to share Communion with LGBTQ sisters, brothers and siblings at the service hosted by Pink Menno and the Brethren Mennonite Council on LGBT Interests at the Mennonite convention in 2015.

It was there that someone added another dimension to my thoughts on Communion. Holding up the emblems, she described the process of their creation. The wine had been made from grapes that had been crushed, ground and joined with many others to form a new creation. The bread had been made from grain that had been ground, its original form destroyed to make way for a new one. The body and blood reminded us of Jesus’ sacrifice, but it also reminded us that we were made to be in friendship with the Divine. And our pain and our joy were part of what made Christ’s body whole.

When I returned to Kansas City after a year in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, I knew my childhood church was a place where I would not be welcome. I became convinced that an all-male leadership was less a sign of commitment to biblical literalism than a sign of abuse of power. Beyond that, I was working through discerning my sexuality, and I knew that when or if I came out, I wouldn’t have a place in that community. There were theological divides that made it clear I couldn’t stay in that place and remain whole.

Even more than personal alienation, what most repulses me within Christianity is our ability to use what ought to be good news to hurt or marginalize others. We use God’s table as a religious test. We use faith as a veil for colonization, theft, racism and greed. (In particular, I’m troubled by missionary work that inserts itself into outside communities and damages them through an unexamined sense of superiority). We assume the role of gatekeepers to God’s goodness and make judgments about whose theology and whose worship counts. We wound each other in the name of God.

Communion is a shared tradition, one that takes on many meanings, functions and forms for Christian denominations. It is a microcosm of Christianity, able to do violence and promote fear or to offer reconciliation and connection. At its best, it shows me what Christianity can be. It’s a simple meal, first celebrated by doubters, hypocrites and social outcasts. It’s a meal that can’t be contained or controlled by empire. A meal founded around the wounded body of the incarnate God. A meal overshadowed by death and state-sanctioned violence, which somehow also holds a hope for new life and an invitation to mystery.

There is a story in the Gospel of Luke about some disciples walking down a road to the town of Emmaus after Jesus’ crucifixion. They are stopped by a stranger, and he joins them on the road. It isn’t until they sit down to eat together that the disciples realize they are talking to Jesus, risen from the dead. And the verse in Luke 24:35 echoes what I have found to be true, that “they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread.”

This “Opinions” section of our website provides a forum for the voices within Mennonite Church USA and related Anabaptist-Mennonite voices. The views expressed do not necessarily represent the official positions of The Mennonite, the board for The Mennonite, Inc., or Mennonite Church USA.