Leaning at the Eucharist

Glandion Carney was an associate pastor at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Birmingham, Alabama, until his recent retirement. His retirement was brought on earlier than he would have liked due to his ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease, which was first diagnosed in 2008. His reflections on ministry have been published in his book The Way of Grace (IVP, 2014), from which this article is excerpted.

As I walked down the hallway to my office, I thought about the Eucharist I would serve in a few hours. It bothered a place in my spirit like the throbbing a splinter causes in your finger.

God impressed upon me that the sacramental duty required examination, mental and physical preparation, and meditation on the act itself. Instead of preparing, I was concentrating on what it would take for me to perform the duties. It required great stamina just to go through the entire process of reading, praying, and offering the elements of communion. With these concerns in the forefront, I worried. Would I lean to the right or to the left? Would I drop the communion wafers? Would I have an attack and lose the ability to keep air in my diaphragm? Would I have enough strength to finish the Eucharist?

I was extremely stiff that Sunday morning. The Parkinson's was making my body sore and causing me to shuffle and stumble. I felt as if I would fall at any moment. And being tired didn't help. I had missed the pattern of a normal week due to travel and had come home spent. I was like a boxer in the ninth round, ready to say to my opponent, "You win."

These thoughts were chasing themselves around and around in my mind as I stepped up to the altar. I stumbled, and my heart pounded. I obsessed, wondering, Who's watching? Did anyone catch my stumble? What will they think? My church family knows about my disability, but what about visitors? Will I embarrass my community of faith? The more I concentrated on my inadequacies, my shortcomings, and my illness, the more I felt removed from the spirit of the sacrament itself.

I spoke to the congregation: "I have Parkinson's. Therefore if I lean too much to the right or the left, it's not because I've had too much communion wine." They laughed. I felt at home.

A newly ordained deacon named Andrew stood by my side and prayed over me. He placed a stool up front for me to sit on, and he held the communion plate for me. Sometimes my fingers cramped, preventing me from being able to separate the wafers, so he also did this for me. He stood by my side the entire time as I handed the elements to each person who came to the altar, and while I pronounced words of blessing and affirmation over them.

At the altar, the Lord showed me a truth. The more I concentrated on my disease, the more removed I was from joining in the mystical experience of breaking the bread and serving the wine. But the more I submitted to Jesus in this broken body—in the stumbling and stiffness, in reading the liturgy with stammering lips—the more his presence became magnified. My identification with Christ became crucial; his broken body was ministering through my broken body.

No matter how old you are or how many degrees you have or don't have—when grace takes you to school, you start in kindergarten.

Glandion Carney and his wife Marion live in Birmingham, Alabama, where he enjoys volunteering with the Parkinson's Foundation.

Taken from The Way of Grace by Glandion Carney with Marjean Brooks. Copyright (c) 2014 by Glandion Carney and Marjean Brooks. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426. www.ivpress.com