Reflections On A Disaster Relief Trip - Part II

Representation, Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation: Does It Matter?

Two weeks ago, I led a team of thirteen volunteers from Trinity Lutheran Church, Vemilion, OH on a disaster relief trip to Roan Mountain, Tennessee (northeast corner of the state, on the border with North Carolina). You may recall that Tennessee and North Carolina were devastated by Hurricane Helene last September. This area is unaccustomed to hurricanes as they normally weaken significantly before coming this far inland. Of course, all weather “norms” go out the window in this era of climate change.I have an alternate name for disaster relief trips. I call them “spiritual retreats with nails.” From a strictly secular point of view, many organizations participate in disaster relief work. The effort is about restoration. The focus is on the physical effort of deconstruction and reconstruction. It is an admirable work, to help a family recover from the devastation of a disaster.

My first blog reflection on the trip was posted on June 30. This is my second reflection on that trip.

Rebecca Solnit writes in A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disaster, that individuals and volunteers are far more effective at responding to disasters than governments and bureaucracies. This is counter-intuitive. One would think that governments, with significant resources and expertise would be better at disaster response. However, based on long-term (since the 19th century) sociological study from experts, the conclusion is that individuals are more effective at bringing about recovery.

The problem with bureaucrats during crises may be the only thing disaster movies get right. (Enrico) Quarantelli (a disaster sociologist expert) remarks that the organizations rather than individuals are most prone to create problems during a natural disaster. “Bureaucracy depends on routine and schedules and paperwork and etc. If done right - in fact, the modern world could not exist with out bureaucracy. The only trouble with that is that the bureaucratic framework is one of the worst things to have at the time of disasters when you need innovations and doing this differently. In fact the better they operate during nondisaster times, the less likely they are to operate well. They can’t maneuver, they can’t integrate, etc. On the other hand, human beings, and this cuts across all societies…rise to the occasion. Again, not everyone does, just like not all organizations react badly. But in terms of human beings they rise to the occasion whereas organizations, in a sense, fall down.”

From the inception of performing disaster relief work at Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina, I had the notion that the church’s effort should be different than the secular response to disasters. Yes, like secular organizations, we were helping families victimized by disaster to progress toward recovery, but not only physical recovery. Yes, like secular organizations, we were a team of volunteer workers, but there was also a deeply spiritual aspect of our work. Our work was to be attentive to the broken spirits of the victims, and attentive to our own spirits as well. Ergo, I describe disaster relief trips as a spiritual retreat with nails.

Each day during disaster relief trips, we share meals together. Breakfast eaten at the host site, lunch packed for the work site, and dinner, usually provided by volunteers in the disaster-stricken area. On this particular disaster relief trip, we had the same rolls for sandwiches each day.

The components of our disaster relief trips include an emphasis on prayer, attentiveness to the present, checking in with each other, and sharing something of our faith journey with team members. The intent is to move us closer to God and closer to each other. Each evening, we share our “highs, lows, and God moments” of the day. It amazes me how often we see God present and at work when we get outside the familiarity of home and pay attention. It gratifies me that we always receive more than we give.

I ask volunteers to bring a tangible object that helps to explain their faith journey. Each evening, we share our stories and place our objects on a makeshift “altar.” Through sharing our faith stories, church members who have known each other for years, even decades, discover that they really didn’t know each other in the most intimate and important ways!

On the last evening of the trip, we have an informal worship service that includes Holy Communion. This serves as the intimate culmination of a week of working side by side that we share as a disaster relief team.

On our trip two weeks ago, one of the participants asked a question that I have heard raised many times during my ministry. “Pastor, aren’t there different ways of understanding Communion? Lutherans and Catholics don’t believe the same things, do they?” Some times the inquirer can even name the theological words that each denomination uses to understand how they believe that Christ is present in the bread and wine; Transubstantiation and Consubstantiation.

I believe that weighty matters of theology are beyond our ability to understand intellectually. We can attempt to go deep and there are certainly gifted intellectuals and theologians in the history of Christianity, but at the end of the day, some aspects of God are beyond our comprehension. For example, the Trinity; God is three persons in one and one person in three. Or Christology, that Christ is fully human and fully Divine.

Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is also beyond our comprehension. Most Protestant denominations believe in “representation”; that Jesus remains in heaven since His ascension and in Holy Communion, we only remember Him at the Last Supper. As He said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” The bread remains bread. The wine remains wine.

Roman Catholics believe in Transubstantiation; that the bread and wine, when consecrated by the priest, turn into the body and blood of Christ by faith. The substance, what we see, is still bread and wine, but the essence (a Medieval concept) turns into Jesus’ body and blood.

Lutherans believe in Consubstantiation; that Jesus is “in, with, and under” the bread and wine as it is consecrated. After the worship service is over, the consecrated bread and wine once again become merely bread and wine.

I have come to believe that these deep subjects of theology - Trinity, Christology, the Eucharist - are not to be comprehended in the head, but apprehended in the heart. In other words, while I cannot explain the details, nor can I answer all of the questions in human words, I still believe in my heart that Jesus is with us in Holy Communion. Whether I serve the Sacrament or receive it, there is a sense of peace and a feeling of Jesus’ closeness that comes over me. The feeling is indescribable in all of its fullness.

As I thought about the Transubstantiation/Consubstantiation question during our disaster relief trip, Thursday night arrived. I prepared the Table for our brief worship and Holy Communion. Then I uncovered the elements. I said to our team members, look at this bread. It is the same bread that we have eaten for lunch every day this week. Does it look the same to you? Does it have the same meaning?…

Everybody shook their heads. They understood exactly what I meant. This is how Jesus is present to us! Representation, Consubstantiation, or Transubstantiation really don’t matter. You are free to believe any of them. You are free to believe none of them. Your belief may change throughout your life. What matters is that the bread, while it looks the same, is significantly different. We know this in our hearts…and maybe in our heads too.

The Bread is the life of the world that came down from heaven. The Bread is for the forgiveness of our sins and for reconciling us to God. The Bread is for our spiritual nourishment. The Bread makes us into community; the Body of Christ. (We truly felt that within our disaster relief team.) The Bread sends us out into the world with compassion to be “bread” and offer bread to our neighbors who are hungry.

That Thursday evening, with common bread that had become Holy bread, I felt like I had offered the best response in my entire life to how Jesus is present in the Eucharist. It wasn’t through my words. It was simply in holding up the same loaf of Bread and comparing it to every other loaf of bread we had consumed that week.

But it wasn’t the same loaf of bread! We all understood that…in our hearts…and, perhaps, in our heads! Each Sunday when the Church gathers for worship, it is no different from that Thursday night. It is bread…until it becomes Bread! And we who are many, become one in the One who calls us together.