The Enduring Primitive And The Potluck

May 18, 1986
Lakeland

Little did I know when I announced this weird title in the BEACON that a subsequent conversation in another country would provide a launching pad for what I want to say today.

In late April, I visited my son, Bill, in the Dominican Republic. While he was preparing Sunday dinner, I was engaged in conversation with two of the guests who were Dominican. The couple was about my age. He spoke only Spanish; she had a limited facility in English; I speak no Spanish. So, Señora Castro was the one in the middle, translating his Spanish for me; my English for him. I have know way of knowing what may have been lost, added, or unintentionally distorted in that rather awkward translation process. They were both lifelong [Roman Catholics], and knew little about Protestantism generally, having spent most of their lives in Spain and the Dominican Republic.

He noticed pictures on the wall of two of the churches I have served as minister. So it came about that I was answering questions about our Unitarian Universalist religious principles, theology, and practice. If you have ever had difficulty explaining [these] in English to someone who was uninformed about Unitarian Universalism, you may appreciate the increased problem of doing it through a translator.

Then he asked if Unitarian Universalists practice the ritual of Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper. I could not answer “no,” because although most of our Unitarian Universalist congregations do not have this ritual, some do. Some of our more traditional churches observe occasional Communion services, particularly on Maundy Thursday, as a remembrance of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. This observance among Unitarian Universalists is not a sacrament in the Christian sense, but a sense of remembrance for Jesus and others who gave their lives so that others might live more fully. Some of this might have crossed the translation gap because he then asked, “Do YOU have Holy Communion?”

I answered, “No.” But it was on the tip of my tongue to add, “but we have a potluck meal once a month.” This is our fellowship meal, as Jesus’ last supper with his disciples was a fellowship meal.” I didn’t say that, because I’m sure it would have only added confusion to confusion. For these devout Roman Catholics, the Eucharist or Mass for them is central and would not have been comparable. [CJW notes: recognize importance to others – awe & wonder – St. Stephens - ]

Thus evolved my thoughts about the Enduring Primitive and the potluck meal.

Basic religious forms exhibit a remarkable continuity, even though changing style and altered expression create an elusive pattern. We presume to think of ourselves as an advanced civilization, but there are enduring primitives at the core of much modern ritual and custom. If we did not think of ourselves as sophisticated, we would more readily admit the origins of today’s rituals.

Marcea Eliade, distinguished scholar of ancient and modern religions, died a couple weeks ago, greatly mourned in the University of Chicago community, to which he had contributed so much learning. In his book, PATTERNS OF COMPARATIVE RELIGION, Eliade considers the striking consistency at the heart of religious institutions. For example, there are religious ideas which are ancient beyond recorded history and remarkably wide-spread over the face of the earth. Among these ideas which were primitive and still endure, usually in more abstract and less direct form, would be the creating Father in heaven, the earth Mother, the regenerative power of the water, the reverence due sacred places, sacred spaces, and sacred times (especially the recurring year and changing seasons). But today, I would have you think of another enduring primitive – the sacred meal. The purpose of reviewing its historic universality and particular Christian emphasis is to provoke your thought about whether we are missing something vital because we celebrate neither Holy Communion nor the Lord’s Supper.

The sacrificial meal is of such great antiquity that not only the entire human history, but also the prehistoric myths and legends, record its wide celebration.

There was a time when the sacrifice was human and the sacred meal cannibalistic. A human being was chosen to play the role of the god, or the totem animal, was slaughtered and devoured in the crude belief that if one ate of the god, the god’s power and strength would be assimilated. Human sacrifice is a grisly notion; cannibalism is repugnant. Yet these are the roots of modern, dignified rituals of sacrifice. The purpose was not necessarily just gory brutality. The rituals regulated social and religious behavior. If one believed that sacrificing that which is precious was a noble religious act, primitive people were moved to sacrifice the most precious possession, life itself.

In the process of social development, the human sacrifice was gradually abandoned as a religious ceremony for others kinds of ritual meals. On a rock in the wilderness, the legend of Abram’s higher vision and experience of God caused him to refrain from cutting the throat of his son, Isaac. A ram was substituted. For a long period in human social evolution, the helpless animal was the victim of ritual death. There are still lingering cultural reminders of animal sacrifice. Perhaps you read recently of the controversy in Tarpon Springs about the practice of the descendants of Greek culture cutting the throats of lambs for the Easter feast. The bull-fighting arenas in Spain are a spectacular example, although moderns may call it “sport.” The use of a roasted lamb bone in the Passover ritual or the description of Jesus as the “Paschal lamb” or the “lamb of God” are culturally refined remnants of animal sacrifice.

The sacred meal of corn and wine was a further refinement. Four thousand years ago, the Hittites lived in the Fertile Crescent we now know as Turkey or Anatolia, a land which has been called the “Loom of History” by scholar Herbert Muller. The Hittites were not only pastoral and agricultural people, but they were also able to mine, smelt, and fashion the iron ore of the Taurus foothills. On the cliffs they chiseled out some remarkable carvings. One frieze depicts a man holding grapes and grain, symbols of the fertility of the land from which comes sustenance for human survival.

Wine and corn or grain have been widespread elements of ritual meals. Frazier, in his classic THE GOLDEN BOUGH, devoted pages to describing the variety of ways both ancient folk and primitive peoples today celebrated their deep religious impulses and ceremonial initiations with bread and wine.

The Christian Communion rituals have been identified with both the good earth and the sacrifice of a god. The names by which it has been known indicate the blending of two ancient ritual practices – “the Lord’s Supper,” “the breaking of the bread,” “Holy Communion,” “the sacrifice of the Mass,” and so on.

When Jesus and his disciples shared the meal, later called the Last Supper, they may have been celebrating Seder, the Jewish Passover, although John’s gospel might indicate that the event occurred a day prior to Passover. The earliest account we have is Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (11 23/25) where Paul writes, “The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took some bread and gave thanks for it, and then broke it in pieces saying, ‘this is my body which takes your place, do so in memory of me.’ He then took the cup too, after supper in the same way, saying, ‘This is the cup of the new agreement ratified by my blood. Whenever you drink it, do so in memory of me.’” Paul does not mention the Passover; he refers only to the night Jesus was betrayed.

Since the discovery and study of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are some scholars who believe that the Last Supper may have been a fraternal feast of the Essene Brotherhood. The Essenes, living at Qumran, celebrated the Sabbath eve with a meal which was a ritual anticipation of the coming of the Messiah. If Jesus was a member, or had been, of the Essene community, such a solemn feast would have represented their united hope for the arrival of the Messiah.

It is just as probable that those disciples and their rabbi/teacher were observing their usual custom, eating together. The German church historian, Lietzmann, commented that the Hebrew word, “Habura,” which might have meant “comrade” in ancient times, also signified the small group associated with a rabbi. What they ate was limited to what they had been able to gather. Bread and wine were difficult for poor wanderers to acquire. When they came by it, they shared. Lietzmann suggests further that, as the disciples dipped into the common bowl, Jesus might have said, “In this kind of sharing, I belong always.”

Are we missing something vital because we do not celebrate this enduring, primitive ceremony? The reality that we are in this fellowship is an indication that for us, the “miracle” of the Roman Catholic Mass stirs no response of truth or wonder in us. For most of us, the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ to satisfy a just and angry god for the sins of the living and the dead provides little emotional satisfaction and less ethical validity. The mainstream of orthodox Protestant practice has refined to the Latin magic, but still places reliance on a supernatural savior for salvation.

It is not only the revolt from orthodoxy which leads Unitarian Universalists and some other groups, such as the Friends, to disavow the Communion service. The symbols of bread and wine had deep meaning in agricultural civilizations where the growth of grain and vine were necessary to human survival. But now, when most of us live in metropolitan areas, we get our bread not only baked, but sliced and packaged by machinery, not to speak of being fortified by vitamins. We move greater distances from the basic soil. If a symbolic service is to have meaning for men and women who can’t conscientiously participate in the Mass or Holy Communion, then, perhaps, different symbols must evolve to remind us of essentials in living.

There are deeply-rooted vibrations in the symbols of life and death. We make no ritual of it in any usual sense, but our potluck meal, such as the one which follows this service, is a visible celebration. But to me, there are times when I feel it is also a symbolic act. If I may indulge in fantasy, if after I die, I could be permitted to return to Earth on a limited number of occasions, one choice would be the third Sunday. Remember Lietzmann’s point about Jesus’ meal with his disciples, “In this kind of sharing I belong always.”

The potluck is sharing food, fun, and nourishment. And, if you think about it, we also share memories. How often we remember Tommy, Edna, Roy, Archie, and others. Newcomers will join the table of the fellowship, others will drop out, but symbolically will be with us in shared memories. But too, unsaid, there is celebration of sacrifice.

The grain is milled for our bread; the lamb is slaughtered for our food; the coffee and orange are crushed for our thirst. We call bread “the staff of life.” Should we not ponder life’s strangest mystery and most curious enigma – that we live because of the involuntary sacrifice of the grain of wheat, the fruit of the vine, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air? At the end, our bodies are to mingle again among the elements which have sustained us.

When Albert Schweitzer affirmed “reverence for life,” he was speaking of life in this inclusive sense. Every form of life, whether the inanimate rock, the organic tree, the sensate animal, or the knowing human, exists at the expense of other life. Reverence for life bows before all the myriad forms of existence which exists because, and for, other forms. We are linked to all that lives and to all the inorganic creations in our universe. Without this vast, living network, there would be no place for us in the astonishing and mysterious scheme of things.

In still more intimate linkage, we live because other persons have given themselves voluntarily that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. The parent who abdicates luxury and security for the sake of his/her child, the volunteer who gives her/his life for a cause in which she/he believes, the physician, the nurse, the prophet – all the servants of the human venture who sustain us because they make life possible.

Because symbols evolve, and cannot be contrived, we may need to seek and recognize non-verbal ways of touching the deep wells of our inner existence. We cannot contrive to believe the Mass or Holy Communion if we do not share in the profound meanings others seem to find.

Meanwhile, if you will consider the sharing of good food in the potluck as “tokens of participation” in which we experience through sight, feeling, taste, and nourishment ... not only ... joy and fellowship, but also memory, perhaps some of the grandeur and mystery of living will be felt, even if not expressed. If in our community of memory and hope we feel something of the triumph and tragedy that is an inescapable part of being human, we may become more aware that “in this kind of sharing, we belong always.”