"How about some bread to go with that water?"

The title of this morning's sermon at worship pointed us towards Holy Communion. We gathered to hear that Jesus is the bread of life, and to share the bread and wine.

I don't know how often you have Communion in your churches, whether you use wheat bread and grape wine or something else. I don't know if you share one cup or many small ones, whether you kneel or stand, who is responsible for distribution. I know that even among our Lutheran churches, Holy Communion can be a sensitive issue. Our various churches' understandings make it difficult for us even to share this holy meal together.

But I have been thinking a lot about communion. It sounds like communication, and I think the two are related by meaning as well as language. What we as communicators try to do with our words (and video, and music, and visual art and design) is to build up the community of faith, the body of Christ. And as we discovered in Lyon, and again here in Chicago, there is something powerful about embodiment--being able to shake hands and look in the eyes of someone else. Bread that we can feel and taste.

As our communication becomes more and more virtual, we can meet and come to know and even love people without meeting them in the body. Yet I think we as a church are still called to embody our community as often as we can. Church may live through and in the Internet, on websites and blogs and forums, but it cannot live only there. And I think we, the young communicators, will be increasingly called upon to try to determine the balance between "virtual" and embodied communication in our international Lutheran community. I am so glad to have you all as partners in this conversation...and I hope and pray that we may be safely brought together again next year, to be together in body as we are in spirit!

I add my thanks to Frank, Karin, Daranne and Lisa for a wonderful time of fellowship and support here. God be with you all!