Communion, Zacchaeus & Quantum Entanglement

​Quantum Communion  (Luke 19:1–10)

Over the past two weeks we have been exploring how science and faith might speak to one another, and whether science might even offer clues that point us toward a Greater Mind or Deeper Intelligence at the heart of the universe — what we call God.

Today as we come to the table of Holy Communion, I’d like to explore how quantum physics, can perhaps  help us glimpse something of what communion means. Might it be that this ancient Christian meal symbolises not only our faith in Jesus, but also a deep truth about the very fabric of reality?

But first, at the heart of today’s Gospel reading is a meal, one could even call it a moment of communion. Zacchaeus begins the story alone. He is perched in a tree, cut off from his community. But by the end of the story, he is sitting at a table with Jesus, sharing bread and wine, friendship and laughter and discovering a new sense of connection and belonging.

In a sense, the story of Zacchaeus is a picture of what Holy Communion is all about, the movement from separation into relationship, from fragmentation into wholeness from isolation into communion. 

And perhaps, if we listen closely, science itself may have something to say about this deep pattern of connection that Communion points us toward.

As we explored in last weeks sermon, for many centuries, we have lived under the spell of a materialist world-view, one that goes back to the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus. He imagined that the universe was made of tiny, solid atoms moving in empty space. In this worldview, everything real must be physical, measurable, tangible, quantifiable.

From that materialist perspective, consciousness, thought, and love are seen as mere by-products of the brain, beautiful illusions perhaps, but illusions nonetheless. A bit like exhaust fumes from a car. That’s how many scientists view human thought and consciousness. In this view, we are seen as separate individuals bumping into each other in a vast, impersonal universe.

But over the past hundred years, quantum physics has opened a window onto a world that looks very different, a world not of separation, but of mysterious interconnection.  And this is perhaps  illustrated most clearly in what Einstein called “Spooky Action at a Distance”.

In one famous experiment, physicists took two particles that had once interacted and then separated them by vast distances, one to London and the other to Cape Town. What they discovered is that when they changed the spin of the particle in London, the other particle in Cape Town instantly changed as well. Instantly. As though no space or time stood between them.

Einstein himself found this phenomenon so unsettling that he called it “spooky action at a distance.” Today scientists call it by the more respectable name, quantum entanglement. In this experiment, (which has been repeated over many times), it is as if these two particles remain mysteriously connected in a kind of quantum communion with one another, joined by an invisible thread that distance cannot break.

Now, we may never fully understand how quantum entanglement works at the subatomic level, but this so-called ‘spooky action at a distance’ seems to echo something that many people have felt in their own lives.

Think of a mother who suddenly senses that something is wrong with her child, and rushes out of the house at the exact moment that child is in danger. Wendy has been reading a book where true stories like this are shared. Or think of the experience that many people have had of  thinking of a friend we haven’t spoken to in years, and just then, suddenly, the phone rings, and it’s them. I have previously told the story of my aunt who was living in South Africa and my cousin who was pregnant living in the UK.  At the moment my cousin went into labour, my aunt knew it,  because she could feel it her own body.  When she got the message by phone or text, she already knew. 

Science may hesitate to explain such things, but many would recognise them as real, some from their own experience. They remind us that we are connected in ways that go beyond what we can measure, connected even at the level of consciousness.

Perhaps these experiences point to the same deep truth that quantum entanglement points toward — that the universe is, at its core, deeply interconnected, and relational at hidden levels that we know very little about.

In addition to the phenomenon of Quantum Entanglement, quantum physicists have also discovered that beneath all the particles, beneath every atom and molecule, lies a vast ocean or field of energy which they call the quantum field. And they suggest that all of reality, everything seen and unseen arises from this quantum field, stars and planets, trees and oceans, your body and mine.

Imagine for a moment that you are standing by a still pond. You toss a pebble into the pond, and the ripples move across the surface. The quantum field is something like that, an invisible sea of being, vibrating with energy and potential. Each of us is like a ripple on that great ocean of being or sea of energy that quantum physicists call the quantum field. Touch one part of the pond, and the whole surface feels it. Some people speak of the Butterfly Effect, the idea that even the smallest action, like a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world, can set in motion a chain of events that eventually affects something on the other side of the world.

And so at the deepest level of reality, quantum physics suggests that there is only one field, one living fabric of energy, one radiant web of life, one interconnected reality – a great Quantum Communion of being at the very heart of Reality, which is the foundation of existence itself. 

This is echoed in our own scriptures, as the Apostle Paul said long ago,

“In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

And again, in using the language of communion, Paul once wrote, “Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in the one loaf.” 1 Corinthians 10:17 

Today we might express that mystery in a different language: Though we are many, we are one body, because at the deepest level we all arise from and share in the one great field of energy and being — what physicists call the quantum field.

And so, quantum physics and faith seem in fact to sing a similar song, that all things are interconnected; all of life participates in one communion. So what, then, is Holy Communion?

Is it perhaps, that when Jesus broke bread and poured wine at the Last Supper, he was not creating a new reality, he was revealing what has always been true. Is it possible that Communion is a window into the deeper pattern of reality: that nothing exists in isolation, that everything is held together in love?

When we share bread and wine, we practice seeing the world as it really is — a shimmering web of divine relationship. We train our souls to move from the illusion of separateness to the awareness of our deep connectedness in God and the quantum field of life.

What all of this suggests is that to live out of communion is to live out of harmony with the truth of things. By contrast, to live in communion is to live in tune with the divine field — the great sea of being in which all life is one.

And that perhaps brings us back to the story of Zacchaeus.

He begins the story alienated, not only from his neighbours, but from his own soul. As a tax collector collaborating with the occupying power, he is wealthy but despised. And deep down, he knows he is disconnected.  And so he climbs a tree, a symbol, perhaps, of his isolation, to see if he can catch a glimpse of something more. Maybe, without realising it, he is longing for communion.

Then Jesus stops beneath the tree, looks up, and says, “Zacchaeus, come down. I must stay at your house today.”  There is no demand for repentance, no moral lecture, only the offer of friendship, of communion. And it is that experience of connection that transforms him.

Over a meal, at a shared table, Zacchaeus’s heart  opens up. He begins to see that life is not about hoarding or isolating, but about sharing and belonging. And in response he gives away what he has taken; Through restitution he restores that which he has broken.  The web of connection that had been torn begins to mend.

And Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house.”  Salvation in this passage is nothing other than restored communion: communion with God, with neighbour, and with his own truest self.

And so when we gather around the communion table, we are invited into that same movement — from isolation to connection, from fragmentation to wholeness.

At communion, we remember that we are not separate particles drifting through empty space, but waves in one vast ocean of divine love. Here, bread and wine become signs of a deeper reality — that in Christ, all things hold together.

To share this meal is to say yes to the truth that runs through all creation:
that we we are deeply connected at the level of the quantum field.  Or as St Paul says, we live, move, and have our being in God; that though we are many, we are one body because we all share in one deeper reality; that ultimately, love is the energy that binds the universe together.

So come — not because you must, but because you are invited.
Come down from the tree of isolation.
Come to the table of communion.

And may we, like Zacchaeus, discover that in sharing bread and love,
we find ourselves caught up again in the great web of divine relationship --
the mystery of quantum communion --
and the oneness of all things in Christ,
in whom all things live, move, and have their being.