Trinity Sunday Communion Meditation - Rev. Ashley Dargai
"My daughter Annie is a dual citizen of the United States and Hungary. Even though she has never been to Hungary, she has a Hungarian passport and birth certificate. She speaks Hungarian. She sings songs that I don’t understand.
My husband, JD, and I will sometimes make Hungarian dishes, but we’re always substituting spices or vegetables. While he grew up in Hungary, he didn’t grow up making dinner, and while I’m a more seasoned cook, some of the meals I make, I have never had before because I grew up here in Texas.
All of the dishes that he and I make are at best, approximations, built on shadow flavors, memories, guesses. That doesn’t stop us from lapping it all up.
But when Annie’s Hungarian Nagyi, her grandmother, came over, and she spent hours in the kitchen making dough and stirring pots of magic, Annie learned what some of these dishes were supposed to taste like. Each bite was like coming into a birthright, everything her Hungarian blood wanted and deserved and craved but didn’t know how to ask for.
When she ate the food of her Hungarian heritage, she was learning who she is. She was literally ingesting her identity, making it a part of her.
There is something about food, entering our body, becoming our blood and our energy, our very breath. It’s a truth we practice when we come to this table. We eat this bread and drink this cup in the name of Jesus, saying “this is his body, this is his blood, this is his promise, this is his love,” and we come into our birthright as children of God. Everything we’ve been craving, but don’t know how to ask for.
When we come to this table, when we gather around tables in the name of Jesus, we are literally ingesting who we are, making it a part of us, slowly and methodically and carefully becoming like the One we love and follow. It gets into our bloodstream, it animates our bodies, it becomes our very breath.
In just a moment, I will recite the Words of Institution and we will begin our communion with the bread and cup, but it is only a beginning. Once we finish, Nicole will lead us in the doxology, a very Trinitarian song, and we will continue our communion in the Fellowship Hall as we dine together in community, living our identity of a loving, covenantal body, that is the image of the One we love.
Join me in prayer now.
Gracious Host of this Table, Generous God who gave us life, Living Spirit who fills us now, we ask that you bless this bread and this cup and all that it represents between us. Bless the food we will eat together today, and the love we share. Amen.
And so the story goes that on the night he was betrayed, Jesus broke the bread and said, “This is my body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
And then he took the cup also and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Drink it in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” All are welcome at the Table of Christ."
Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).