I ... offer a constructive understanding of Holy Communion and suggest how we might loosen the liturgical hold sacrificial imagery and the words of institution presently have on our ability to enact thanksgiving within a liberating imagination& My greatest hope is that by engaging this work imaginatively, clergy and laity alike will discover, here and in their communities, a Holy Communion worthy of their lives.

I will argue that the fear instilled by a punitive god-image (a mis- representation of God), coupled with a misplaced sense of mystery, has led us to value ritual elements more than sacred community. I will also demonstrate how misguided fear, arising from the church's embrace of the "Judgment Day" of apocalyptic thinking and its imagery of heaven and hell, now burdens and distorts the simple acts of eating and drinking.

The freedom to choose for oneself what one will believe is not the only thing at stake in this inquiry. Equally at risk is the human capacity to imagine more than one way of being and believing... I will argue that if imagination is constrained, so too is hope; and if hope is constrained, so too is faith. Lastly, if faith is constrained, so too is our capacity to be fully human.

The theology of the eucharist now offers the mixed message of a loving and merciful God who somehow relies on suffering as a tool for right behavior. Such theology deceives the believer into accepting a rupture in the divine-human relationship because of the presence of human sin. However, any rupture that may exist has more to do with human suffering than sin and more to do with the wounds in our imagination than the wounds of Jesus.

I speak of the salvific power of imagination because I understand imagination to be the infinite locus of soul: the inner birthplace of divine revelation and a reservoir of hope. The soul is not a substance that can be located, tagged, and identified; rather it is an infinite point of contact that resists formal demarcation. One cannot say, behold, here is the soul, but one can say to what degree imagination broadens the soul and nourishes its relational capacities.

Numerous Christians lead faithful lives while participating in traditional celebrations and consider themselves blessed. At the same time, countless others experience the union of atonement and eucharist as a deterrent to faith and well-being.

CHAPTER FIVE: DELIVER US FROM FEAR

... once the focus shifted from the community as a symbol of the body of Christ to the body of Christ present in the eucharistic host, the experience of a shared meal (which was literally dropped from the rite in the second century)was buried under the weight of sacrificial imagery. In other words, the sacrifice of Christ turned the table on the inclusivity of Jesus' table-fellowship as the post-Constantinian church became entrenched in matters of doctrine and domination.

CHAPTER SIX: WHAT PRICE FORGIVENESS?

Despite numerous references to the healing benefits of penance and the Bishop's role as a physician of the soul, apocalyptic thinking signals a fear-constrained imagination. Apocalyptic imagery reinforced the church' s use of punishment to remedy sin, applied restrictions to the social boundaries of Holy Communion, and disassociated the experience of God's forgiveness from Jesus' ministry. In so doing, penance and its punishments secured the need for theories of satisfaction and substitution to guarantee forgiveness to a beleaguered penitent.

If we have lost a sense of safety and selfhood and have come to believe that God is either benignly absent or angry enough to punish, then more than the loss of meaning is at stake. Our ability to imagine a different future is also lost. More profoundly, then, suffering is the erosion of our meaning-making power-- our capacity to imagine and therefore hope.

Forgiveness is an imaginal act, for it allows us to love beyond fear for the sake of well-being and see the world anew. As God forgives us, we forgive others.

For too long we have let stand the lie that God is merciful yet arbitrary, gracious yet vengeful, a healer who punishes for our own good. It is time to put this god to rest. This emperor not only has no clothes but has no hope. In the hearts and minds of too many Christians, God's call to life goes unanswered for want of a gracious God If we fail to tell the truth of Jesus' life, and the forgiving God he embodied, the fear of God may well be the death of us.

The feast of our lives awaits us! The vastness of God' s compassionate love lies within us and before us. It is the message for which we must be the messengers in our time.