Mennonite Weekly Review

Anabaptists consider the Lord’s Supper in part a personal, one-on-one connection with God, by way of Christ’s sacrifice. Like the Lord’s Prayer, it is also a celebration in which the whole body comes together, united in its remembrance of salvation.

That’s why the prayer’s pronouns are all plural.

For those with celiac disease — a digestive condition that does not allow the consumption of foods containing gluten — the act of communion can be awkward and exclusive at best, and physically painful at worst. In the vein of asking why bad things happen to good people, it can be perplexing to wonder why God would create followers whose physiology prevents them from taking part in a rite meant to connect them with the very thing they worship.

The humble kernels of wheat that became the economic engines of Mennonite enclaves in Ukraine and Russia — and then germinated prosperity from Texas to Manitoba — have paradoxically become mighty seeds of discomfort for the roughly 1 percent of Americans with celiac disease. Research by the Mayo Clinic shows the genetic condition is four times more common today than 50 years ago.

How then does the body come together as one around the bread and the cup?

Churches that offer a gluten-free option should be commended for exerting the extra effort to satisfy a small minority of the flock. But side effects of a separate-but-equal status throw heightened visibility on the separateness.

Congregations like College Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind., and Hesston (Kan.) Mennonite Church, which have gone completely gluten-free at communion, not only create a smoother worship experience by eliminating complex verbal instructions, they also maintain a healthier group dynamic.

It is an approach in tune with the 1527 Schleitheim Confession, which speaks of the Lord’s Supper as the breaking of “one bread in the remembrance of the broken body of Christ.”

Communion is not a time for drawing lines dividing the body based on preferred bread. It should be a time for coming together united. It is a practice that connects vertically with the Trinity, and horizontally with each other.

Such an approach casts a compelling light on actions involving inclusiveness, be they selecting a convention site or making church facilities accessible to those with disabilities.

Interestingly, the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law dictates only wafers made from wheat may be used for communion. The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, Mo., produce alternatives low in — but not void of — gluten. Rice wafers are not a valid sacrament, but parishioners can receive full credit for participating in the rite if they only consume the wine half of the transubstantiation equation.

American and Canadian Mennonites dropped centuries of literal scriptural interpretation by the early 20th century when the abstinence movement prompted them to forgo wine in favor of grape juice. It might be difficult — especially for those with a close connection to the fruited plain — but what’s stopping us from dropping wheat too?