The Eucharistic Sacrament is, in many churches,
central to their worship,
but why?

We are told that
The Eucharist is the meal in which regular bread and wine become the figurative body of Christ.
He was said to have taken pieces of bread and offer them up as his body. The wine is representative of his blood.
However the remembrance element, which we major on, is only initiated in Paul's letter
and faithfully copied into Luke's Gospel. It does not appear in earlier Gospel accounts,
where the focus is on the future coming of God's Kingdom.

There is a whole doctrine of magical transformation associated with the priestly words.
Through eating the transformed bread and drinking the wine we are saved;
eternal salvation is assured; or sins are forgiven, for another week.
Here is assurance of eternal life! Here is peace!

Yet, and crucially to the church, here also is control, domininion,
the assured foundation of priestly power.

Yet here also lies the fundamental misunderstanding of Christ's purpose,
transposed by Pauline conceptions from a radical preacher to the poor
to a global superstar, thus appealing to the higher classes
and providing a platform for the power-oriented church
with its dominant, bedecked, hierarchies;
the foundation for religious warfare.

Even the meaning of the very words used is corrupted.
Jesus was calling for community and sharing; coming together.
He was not calling us to remember him as we ate, but
to share meals together because of him;
just as they did in the early days.

Perhaps we follow him more closely at the coffee table
than at the sanctified altar.