The Bell of Mindfulness (viii)

This is the eighth posting in a series of postings reflecting on Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Living Buddha, Living Christ (Riverhead Books, 2007; originally published in 1995). The introductory posting, setting the stage for the series, is (here).


Mindfulness, according to Thich Nhat Hanh, allows us to see deeply in the reality of things.  It awakens us so that even the most apparently mundane activities, such as eating, take on worlds of new meaning.  If we eat mindfully, thus, food becomes real in a new way.  Eating mindfully recalls communion, or the Holy Eucharist, for him; when Christians take the sacrament mindfully, they become alive in the moment.  He writes, "Holy Communion is a strong bell of mindfulness." (page 30)  The image of the bell calls to mind Thich Nhat Hanh's practice at his retreat center in southern France, Plum Village, where bells are rung frequently to call the residents to mindfulness.  in Plum Village, they don't say that they "ring" a bell but rather that the bell is "invited" to ring.


These observations are themselves a "strong bell of mindfulness" to those of us who take sacrament regularly.  It can help us begin communion with an intention to be more present, quieter, and more intentional in the presence of the Table.  It encourages us to look beyond the mechanics of how well the pastor "does" the sacrament, or whether or not the organist hits the right notes.  It encourages us to put aside the weekday stuff that can get in the way of our worship.  It calls us to a renewed experience of communion.  Most especially, Thich Nhat Hanh's take on the Lord' Supper reminds us that we don't come to communion to get something from the sacrament but, rather, put aside having, getting, and wanting.  We are at the Table to remember Christ deeply and rededicate ourselves to following his Way as best we can.  It's not what we get from the sacrament that matters but, rather, what we bring to it in Christian mindfulness.  Amen.

As Close to Christ as We Can Get (xii)

FPC, Lowville, NY

This is the twelth posting in a series working on what it means to be a church, based on eight criteria the Mars Hill Church uses to define its branch congregations as churches. The series began (here).

We turn now to the fourth criterion used by the Mars Hill Church to define its branch congregations as "churches," which is, "The church is where the biblical sacraments of baptism and Communion are performed regularly."  This seems quite straightforward as long as we don't specify the number of "biblical sacraments" or go into such things as the centuries' long debate on how Christ is present or not present in the Lord's Supper.  In nearly all cases, the sacraments have been key elements in the life of local churches in spite of all of our differences in our different understandings and practices of them.

Something I have shared regularly with the churches I've served is that the sacraments of baptism and communion, esp. communion, are as physically close to Christ as we can get.  They are more than "merely" an act of remembering.  They embody key moments in the ministry of Christ that led to the birth of the early church.  When we look at the Table, we see Jesus with his disciples on that chaotic last night.  In the cup and bread, we see and experience the crisis and the agony of Jesus' last hours.  In a sense, however incompletely, we become time travelers who are transported back to the first century to participate in the events of Jesus' last evening.

In our modern world, we've pretty much lost a true sense of the holy, but as best we can we should remember every time we come to the sacraments that for a moment we stand on sacred ground and in sacred time and space.  If we go into these things with our eyes open and hearts focused (mindfully in Buddhist parlance), we encounter Christ and look for a moment into the core of our faith.  Amen.