Union with God and Holy Communion. The end goal of our salvation, of our life of faith, is to be union with God. It’s all over the Scriptures. Ezekiel says God puts his spirit in us, Paul tells us in Colossians the secret of life is to be in Christ, and Jesus says we must be in them (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) just like they, the Father and the Son are in each other. And we unholy people can be in this holy God, not because we are good but because God is good. Imperfections and all, God invites us to be in him. This act, this invitation, we call grace! When we are in union with God we transform. This is the great miracle of grace, we are invited in before we are changed, and then we change, from within. This is the only possible outcome of our union! Union transforms! Enter into this mystery and be forever changed. Now Holy Communion is the place where we act this out symbolically! The imagery is stunning. o Our ordinary imperfect lives are mirrored in the ordinary bread and wine (think also of baptism and water). God uses the ordinary to become extra ordinary. It is God who changes the one into the other, not us. All we do is to bring our ordinary lives into God’s amazing presence. The simple living out of our ordinary imperfect lives, offered to God, is all God needs. As Leonard Cohen writes in his song, The Anthem “Forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.” o “Eat me and drink me,” Jesus says. How much easier can it get? The most basic instinct we have to survive, to eat and to drink, are the very symbols Jesus uses to daily remind us of our union with Him. In one voice he says take this bread and eat it, take this cup and drink from it; and in another voice he says, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you are not a part of me. It is as clear as daylight – the ordinary act of eating bread, and drinking wine are symbols and reminders of our union with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It’s so simple. The great unfathomable mystery of union with God is experienced by us in the simple act of eating and drinking. The divine touches the human and the two become one.