Religion & Dietary Restrictions

On Christmas Eve, Eric and I attended services at his church, First United Methodist.  The sermon was a touching story that brought tears to my eyes (all I can say is that the story involved an orphan child and his homemade nativity, which happened to have two babies in the manger instead of one…because he didn’t have a gift to give the Baby Jesus, so he thought that maybe it was okay for him and Baby Jesus to be together in that manger so he could keep Baby Jesus warm).  It was perfect.  Until we went up for communion.

Now, I’m a religious free-agent.  I was raised Southern Baptist as a child, adopted the Episcopal church as an adult because of personal and spiritual beliefs, but currently attend the local Methodist church with my partner because of their community-giving tenets aligning with mine.  So, by virtue of my Episcopal and Methodist leanings, I’ve taken communion many times.  And communion has come to mean a lot to me as it is one of the most intimate and beautiful and holy things that a congregation, that any group of people, can do together, whether it is at a church alter or at the dinner table.  I love communion.  And still do, despite what happened on Christmas Eve…

Everything started off as it normally would during communion, the walk down the isle, the taking of our places along the prayer bench.  Palms up to receive the Host, which is smallish square pillow of a cracker.  As the body of Christ was blessed and placed in my palm, I realized that I had not received communion since my gluten allergy diagnosis, therefore I had not thought about the digestive consequences of ingesting a non-gluten-free Host. 

Instead of all the prayers I had planned on praying, other thoughts began racing through my mind as I placed the Host on my tongue.  I had not consumed any gluten in the past two years other than that from cross contamination.  What was going to happen?  It could be bad, and I could be sick for the next three days.  Surely God would protect my digestive tract from the inevitable GI distress and the full-body rash…it was the body of Christ, after all!  I thought of faking a cough and palming/pocketing the Host, but not remembering what level of sin that might be, I decided it would be best to take my chances…And while I ticked through these panicky thoughts, I accidentally swallowed the Host whole.  And on Its way down my esophagus, It turned sideways.  And lodged there.

I won’t go into the uninteresting details of me trying to work the Host down my throat as silently as possible so as to not disrupt the service (picture large heartworm pill and dog).  Nor will I go into detail about the itchy thick feeling that quickly developed in my throat, an allergic reaction to the gluten.  And I won’t bore you with details of the painful squeezing of my esophageal muscles as they automatically worked the Host down on its righteous pathway to nourish my body and soul and how Eric thought he might have to cart me out of the service before we shared the flame of the Christ candle…

My alternate title for this post was Choking on Jesus, but I thought that too irreverent and/or blasphemous.  I have faith that with God knowing what is in my heart, he knew that I meant no offense when I thought and wrote those words just now.