The Body of Christ is Gluten Free

Last Sunday we attended church in Houston with David (Sarah stayed home with Micah) at a church with a very original name, Ecclesia.  It is a great church that has five services each weekend to accomodate lots of different schedules, and it looks like they're moving to a new location soon.  The visual arts are appreciated there and they even have an artist on staff who paints during the services.

When it came time for communion, one of the stations offered gluten- and dairy-free bread.  That kind of struck me as funny or odd, but of course it is neither.   Lots of folks today have celiac disease or are allergic to dairy and this is a way to be culturally sensitive to them.  That made me think back to communions past, like the one in the Solomon Islands where the bread was coconut meat and the wine was green coconut juice poured out of a spout made from a spiraled piece of a palm leaf poured into disposable cups made from folded leaves.

The communion I went to today used recyclable plastic cups--at least I hope they were recycled, but probably they were just tossed.  I guess that fits our culture too.