The Magical Eucharist, Part 3

Ending the cult of sacrifice

Part 1 and Part 2

Saaaacrifiiiiice

In Part 2, I wrote about the Eucharist as a symbol of sacrifice: Jesus’ sacrifice for humanity, and the sacrifices we each must make for one another in order to be in community. 

 I almost believed that shit. 

This Christian ideal of good vibes and giving up parts of yourself in service of another is very seductive. It makes us believe that if we just try a little harder, deny our needs and desires, beat ourselves up and force ourselves to fit into the space we’ve been allotted, we can be safe and free from conflict.

It makes a virtue of sacrifice, recasting it as heroism. “Look at Jesus suffering and bleeding on the cross,” it says. “Look at the blood running sinuously down his perfectly chiseled carpenter’s muscles. Isn’t he sexy? You too can surrender to self-mutilation and torture and save the world.” 

I was once in a gathering of progressive Christian activists talking about what was needed to build a movement that finally end poverty and racism and war and capitalism. “We need people who are willing to saaaacrifiiiiice,” one young man exclaimed, the last word sounding like a moan of pleasure. 

I suppose some people may genuinely enjoy that kind of thing, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus. He’s pretty clear that he came to end the cult of sacrifice, not perpetuate it. 

It’s Not Your Job to Save the World

I’ve seen far too many activists, spiritual leaders, and healers running themselves ragged trying to save everyone around them, without ever stopping to ask what they themselves need. When they do stop, it’s usually because they’ve developed depression, anxiety, or a chronic illness. They’ve sacrificed bits of themselves, day by day, slicing off chunks of their time and energy and soul bit by bit and scattering it to the birds. Their bodies and minds eventually decide to protest.

The funny thing is, that while Jesus tells his disciples to love one another, he doesn’t seem to have much use for social responsibility in the sense of obligation and duty. He says that he comes to bring not peace, but a sword, to divide parents from their children. When Judas complains that money is wasted on expensive perfume rather than feeding the poor, he says “The poor will always be there. I won’t. Let’s enjoy the moment.”

Even his miracles are done somewhat reluctantly. He only changes water into wine because his mother begs him. He magically multiplies the loaves and fishes because his disciples say “Jesus Christ, you can’t just talk at these people all day and not feed them!” When he heals, it’s almost always because a sick person has been shoved in his face, and he sometimes grumbles about it. 

Jesus doesn’t seem to be that concerned with running around and fixing everyone’s problems. He primarily wants to speak and teach. He has a message to spread, and that is to wake people up to the truth of who they are, children of God, which is another way of saying, this divine, holy source of all that is, the thing that you call God? It’s in you. It’s not separate from you, and it never was. If you can surrender to this Source and prioritize its flow in your life, the rest will fall into place. 

The gospels don’t tell us anything about Jesus’ life between the ages of 12 and 30. Nobody know what he was doing in those gap years, but the general consensus seems to be that he was off finding himself, on some kind of ancient Palestinian version of Eat, Pray, Love. Maybe he was with the Essenes or the Egyptians or the Buddhists. Nobody really knows. 

But we know he doesn’t follow the conventional plan. He doesn’t stay close to Nazareth, settle down, and hold a steady job. He encourages his disciples to let go of the expectations placed on them by society, leaving their elderly parents behind. “Let the dead bury their dead,” he says.

I don’t think he says this because he doesn’t care about other people. He is clearly full of compassion for those who struggle and suffer, but he knows from experience that he can’t serve others with an empty tank, and that to let himself constantly respond to everyone’s demands will distract him from his purpose in life. He trusts that if he allows the Source to flow through him, people will naturally be served simply by him showing up as himself. 

Do You Really Want Abundant Life?

Years ago, I found myself in a hotel ballroom at a women’s retreat for the evangelical church I attended. I had grown up in this church, left it because I didn’t feel it met my intellectual or spiritual needs, and returned in my mid-20’s because I missed being a part of a community. I loved the people I had grown up knowing, even if they sometimes chafed on my nerves. I decided that I had to put away my doubts and misgivings, because being part of the Body of Christ was what mattered. It wasn’t about me, after all, it was about the collective.

In that ballroom, I felt very alone. I had to hide so much of myself to be in that space. I had to put away so many of my doubts and questions, to suppress so many of my opinions. I was constantly anguishing over which direction my life should take, and I could get no clarity. If God wanted me to be part of this church, and if I genuinely loved them and got pleasure out of the relationships, then why did it still feel so bad?

While I was sitting there, feeling lonely, one of the older women approached, and said she had a word from the Lord especially for me. I was skeptical, but I let her continue. 

‘You know that verse that says, “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly?”’ she asked. I nodded. She continued, “I don’t know what it means for you, but I think you should pray about it and meditate on it.”

I did. I meditated for quite a while, and I finally asked myself, “Is living like this, being part of this congregation, this religion, abundant life?” I knew it was not. “Well fuck it, then,” said the inner voice of Truth. So I did, and I never looked back.

The Evolutionary Eucharist

I still believe in the mystical Body of Christ. I’ve just come to understand that bodies are not something that can be manufactured through rituals and dogma and squeezing yourself to fit into other people’s lives. They’re living things that have to come into being on an evolutionary timescale.

The Jesuit priest, paleontologist, and mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin observed that in evolution, forms of life must separate and differentiate before they can come back together to form new, more complex organisms. The earliest single celled organisms diverged to into multiple species of bacteria and protozoa before joining together to form multi-cellular life. Each cell in your body is a descendant of microbes. In the same way, he believed that the diversity of human people and cultures, animals and plants and other kinds of life were evolving to form the super-conscious organism called earth, the living Body of Christ.

The Eucharist is, for me, a reminder that I am two things at once. Just as the Host is both bread and the body of Christ, I am fully divine— not because I am an omnipotent golden god— but because I am part of this eternal life energy that can never be separate from God; I am also matter that will decay and fall apart and change into something new. Neither can exist  without the other. I see Jesus as the product of what is possible when the fully divine life energy (The Father) is received by a solid being made of matter (the Mother, which is literally what matter, Mater, means) and together, they make a baby. Jesus is the one that shows us the way, and the Eucharist, his body and blood, help to attune us to that possibility.

The thing about surrendering to this divine flow I call Source is: first you have to die. You have to be willing to let go of the old ways of being and doing. You have to be willing to have a child out of wedlock in a conservative, purity-oriented society, like Mary. You have to be willing to let go of provincial ideas about duty, like Peter. You have to stop pleasing other people, and learn to please the Truth inside of you.

To a lot of people, this looks like selfishness. I’m sure a lot of people thought Jesus was self-centered because he didn’t get a good carpentry job and provide for his mother. But he knew that the message he would spread was far more important, and he trusted that his mother would be taken care of, not least because she had considerable spiritual resources of her own. 

Serve the Source

When you are following the deep Truth within, serving the flow of Source above all, something miraculous happens. You find yourself naturally fitting in where you’re meant to. You can let go of parts of yourself to make room for others, not because you’re making a sacrifice, but because the things you release no longer matter. You learn to hold your ground on the things that do matter without getting angry and reactive. People respect you more, and want you in their lives. Relationships become easier, and life flows more smoothly. You don’t have to try so hard to be someone, you just are. Difficulties and hardships come, but you see them as a challenge to learn and grow, and you’re always given exactly what you need to do so. You have more compassion for yourself, and more compassion for others, not because you’re trying to imitate Jesus or St. Francis or Dorothy Day, but because you are content to be exactly who you were born to be. No more, no less. 

I believe each one of us is born with a gift to offer the world, a unique medicine that only you can deliver. It may be something that makes you famous, it may be something that only a few people will ever remember. You may create art or deliver messages or offer guidance or heal the sick, but the most important piece of your gift with be the essential, beloved, specially created essence of Source as reflected through you. The talents, interests, and desires within you are a roadmap to finding it. When you do, you will become the exact cell you were designed to be in this larger organism we call the body of Christ,. 

This is the deepest magic of the Eucharist. It’s simply receiving the truth of your own divine birthright and letting it do its work in you. You don’t need a priest, though I’m quite fond of a well-performed ritual full of smells and bells myself. But I’ve had magical Eucharists at bar tables with friends, praying together over a bowl of broken tortilla chips and washing them down with sangria. 

There’s an interesting phrase Jesus says to people when he heals them: “Your faith has made you well.” He always deflects the praise and gratitude from himself, telling people they have had the power inside themselves all along. That’s the message I keep hearing over and over as I receive the Host: “This magic you think that only I possess? It’s inside of you too.”