No longer strangers or aliens: Exiled bodies, Bonhoeffer's theology of Holy Communion, and celebrating Eucharist among exile

"Exile" has been proposed as a metaphor for understanding the spiritual situation of the contemporary Western church. Yet exile is fundamentally experienced by bodies, with the United Nations calling population displacement the new 21st century challenge. This project proposes a sacramental response to exile, arguing that in the celebration of Holy Communion the God who has become human in Christ is made present to diversely exiled human bodies to meet and restore them to their proper dignity as members of the body of Christ.;Over the course of this project the Eucharist was celebrated amidst different exilic communities in New Haven, Connecticut, including among elderly persons in a nursing home, among seafarers on cargo ships, and among persons who are homeless. These Eucharists had participation from members of Trinity Lutheran Church, who were engaged in a parallel year-long deepening of congregational Eucharistic life. Using the different dimensions of Bonhoeffer's theology of Holy Communion as interpretive lenses, testimony was gathered from these exiles as to the pastoral role of the Eucharist in their lives. With differing emphases they testified with Bonhoeffer that in the Eucharist they are met in the realm of their own body by Christ their elder brother in the family of his body, where he, the hidden suffering God-Human, gives himself for forgiveness and as food for faith, revealing himself as fundamentally for us. A survey of congregation members found a correlation between experiencing the Eucharist as more important to one's faith and participation in a Eucharist outside the sanctuary with an exilic community.;Met bodily in the Eucharist, and renewed in Christian identity and belonging, exiles were reincorporated into the body of Christ so that, while still exiled, they could live "no longer [as] strangers and aliens, but [as] citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19 NRSV).