Losers.  Communion is for losers. And imperfect people, like the ones who microwave fish for lunch in the office kitchen, and those who slander and gossip and kill and destroy, and for people who hate dogs and love cats, or the other way around.  Communion is not for the good person, the religious elite, or the ethically pure.  No one is born ready for communion.  Everyone is born not ready for communion.  We are unworthy, which is both offensive and a relief, because it finally puts a label on what we know is true about ourselves anyway.

Communion is for drunkards, fornicators, boasters, liars, politicians and pastors.  Communion is meant to provide what’s not there.  Communion is not an addendum to some preexisting bread and wine that perfect people produce.  Go ahead, try and make yourself as good as Jesus on your own strength.  Good luck, chuck.  Or Dave, Hildegard, or Kevin.

Nah, you don’t come to this table with any credential but Christ. There is no other name, no other way but Jesus and He alone.  As far as ancient teachers are concerned, He’s more relevant today than anything being pumped out by the culture machine or the rabid hurting human heart.  He’s meaningful to us because He’s not us.  Yet He is us.  The right version of us.

Martin Luther got something right when he said “sin boldly.”  Sounds crazy, right?  Not when you back up and see the whole picture.  Says Luther:

Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong [or sin boldly], but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.

The dude gets it.  There’s no point in pretending our sins are so innocuous.  Whenever we sin, we offend a holy God and hold something against the Imago Dei in us.  Why pretend like we could sin in any other way but boldly?

There is One yet bolder who has given Himself completely, sacrificing all so that we might come and partake of His most precious body and blood, and proclaim His death until He comes again.  His victory is the only True victory, and its by faith in Him that we attain the same.

Attention, fellow losers: Christ has won.  Let’s remember, eat, celebrate, and live differently as losers loved by God who have won by what appears to be, from initial observation, some kind of spiritual loophole.  What but God’s generosity and immaculate grace would bring about such a re-ordering of the world?