April 9, 2009
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
Fargo
1 Corinthians 11.23-26; John 13.1-17, 31b-35
Tonight we commemorate an event in our lives as Christians that has changed us and affected us and transformed us and made our spiritual lives better. Tonight, we commemorate that incredible and amazing miracle—the institution of the Eucharist. Tonight, we remember the fact that Jesus took bread, broke it, gave it and said, “This is my body,” and that he did the same with the wine and said, “This is my blood,”
Every Sunday, in our two congregations, we participate in this event. We come together. We celebrate together this mystery. We come forward and take this bread and drink from this cup and, in doing so, we take the Body and Blood of Christ. Most of us probably do so without too much of a second thought. If we poll our congregations, we might get some interesting (and maybe even disturbing) explanations of what exactly it is we partake in when we take this bread and drink from this cup.
As most of you who were raised Lutheran or Episcopalian, may remember that Holy Communion used to be celebrated only once a month. In the Lutheran Church I grew up in, it was celebrated the first Sunday of every month. For some people, it was a big deal. I remember how there was a bit of excitement for me over the fact that we got to do something a little different at church on Communion Sundays. We didn’t just have to sit there and listen to sermons and sing hymns We actually got to get up and do something. We got to participate And as a young boy, it was especially exciting to have my little shot glass of Mogen David wine. Probably that was a sign that the beginning seeds of my Episcopalianism.
But I also remember some people who, if they forgot it was Communion Sunday, would quietly groan to themselves when they saw the Communion plates on the altar. Some people—people like my mother and my grandmother—for whatever reasons, were simply uncomfortable going up and receiving Communion.
Most Lutheran Churches around here still don’t have Communion every week. St. Mark’s is still unique in its approach to celebrating the Eucharist every Sunday.
For Episcopalians, this issue was solved about thirty years. Although some Anglo-Catholic parishes celebrated the Eucharist every Sunday going back to the 1840s, most churches (except for a hold-outs) began celebrating the Eucharist every Sunday with the introduction of the 1979 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. This belief that the Eucharist is the highpoint of our liturgical and spiritual lives is in line with what the Church as a whole tends to believe and hold up as an ideal. The service of Holy Communion is the heart of our worship as Christians, because it is that service in which we are uniquely reminded that Jesus is truly present in these elements of bread and wine.
After all, that’s what we believe we receive when we come before the altar, don’t we?
Well, not all Christians believe the same thing about what Communion is. The Roman Catholic Church believes in something called transubstantiation. It’s a big word, I know and one that I promise you’ll never have to ever remember. It is the belief that when the priest at the altar calls Jesus down with prayers into the bread and the wine, they stop being bread and wine and are, in fact, the actual physical body and blood of Jesus. The Council Trent—one of those defining councils in the Roman Church—in the 1500s defined it this way: “[Transubstantiation is] the changing of the entire substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. After the consecration”—after the moment the priest blesses the bread and wine—“only the appearance (color, taste, smell, quantity, etc) of bread and wine remain.”
In other words, it might look like bread and wine, but it isn’t anymore. This is part of the reason why Protestants and other non-Roman Christians are not allowed to receive Communion in the Roman Church.
Now Episcopalians are uncomfortable with either of these words—transubstantiation or consubstantiation . I’ll admit Episcopalians are often guilty of copping out in our theology. We say things like, “it’s a mystery.” “We don’t really know what goes on. But something important happens.” Some of us, especially those of us of a more Anglo-Catholic bent, lean more toward the direction of transubstantiation. Others, those of more evangelical belief, tend to believe in something more like consubstantiation. In our typical way of being sort of the “middle way” between the Roman Church and the Protestants, we seem, at times, to have one foot in each world. Or we simply may be seen as sitting on fence, unable to decide what it is we believe.
Probably one of the best summations of what some Anglicans and Episcopalians believe regarding the Eucharist is the great Queen Elizabeth I:
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church
Fargo
1 Corinthians 11.23-26; John 13.1-17, 31b-35
Tonight we commemorate an event in our lives as Christians that has changed us and affected us and transformed us and made our spiritual lives better. Tonight, we commemorate that incredible and amazing miracle—the institution of the Eucharist. Tonight, we remember the fact that Jesus took bread, broke it, gave it and said, “This is my body,” and that he did the same with the wine and said, “This is my blood,”
Every Sunday, in our two congregations, we participate in this event. We come together. We celebrate together this mystery. We come forward and take this bread and drink from this cup and, in doing so, we take the Body and Blood of Christ. Most of us probably do so without too much of a second thought. If we poll our congregations, we might get some interesting (and maybe even disturbing) explanations of what exactly it is we partake in when we take this bread and drink from this cup.
As most of you who were raised Lutheran or Episcopalian, may remember that Holy Communion used to be celebrated only once a month. In the Lutheran Church I grew up in, it was celebrated the first Sunday of every month. For some people, it was a big deal. I remember how there was a bit of excitement for me over the fact that we got to do something a little different at church on Communion Sundays. We didn’t just have to sit there and listen to sermons and sing hymns We actually got to get up and do something. We got to participate And as a young boy, it was especially exciting to have my little shot glass of Mogen David wine. Probably that was a sign that the beginning seeds of my Episcopalianism.
But I also remember some people who, if they forgot it was Communion Sunday, would quietly groan to themselves when they saw the Communion plates on the altar. Some people—people like my mother and my grandmother—for whatever reasons, were simply uncomfortable going up and receiving Communion.
Most Lutheran Churches around here still don’t have Communion every week. St. Mark’s is still unique in its approach to celebrating the Eucharist every Sunday.
For Episcopalians, this issue was solved about thirty years. Although some Anglo-Catholic parishes celebrated the Eucharist every Sunday going back to the 1840s, most churches (except for a hold-outs) began celebrating the Eucharist every Sunday with the introduction of the 1979 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. This belief that the Eucharist is the highpoint of our liturgical and spiritual lives is in line with what the Church as a whole tends to believe and hold up as an ideal. The service of Holy Communion is the heart of our worship as Christians, because it is that service in which we are uniquely reminded that Jesus is truly present in these elements of bread and wine.
After all, that’s what we believe we receive when we come before the altar, don’t we?
Well, not all Christians believe the same thing about what Communion is. The Roman Catholic Church believes in something called transubstantiation. It’s a big word, I know and one that I promise you’ll never have to ever remember. It is the belief that when the priest at the altar calls Jesus down with prayers into the bread and the wine, they stop being bread and wine and are, in fact, the actual physical body and blood of Jesus. The Council Trent—one of those defining councils in the Roman Church—in the 1500s defined it this way: “[Transubstantiation is] the changing of the entire substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. After the consecration”—after the moment the priest blesses the bread and wine—“only the appearance (color, taste, smell, quantity, etc) of bread and wine remain.”
In other words, it might look like bread and wine, but it isn’t anymore. This is part of the reason why Protestants and other non-Roman Christians are not allowed to receive Communion in the Roman Church.
Now Episcopalians are uncomfortable with either of these words—transubstantiation or consubstantiation . I’ll admit Episcopalians are often guilty of copping out in our theology. We say things like, “it’s a mystery.” “We don’t really know what goes on. But something important happens.” Some of us, especially those of us of a more Anglo-Catholic bent, lean more toward the direction of transubstantiation. Others, those of more evangelical belief, tend to believe in something more like consubstantiation. In our typical way of being sort of the “middle way” between the Roman Church and the Protestants, we seem, at times, to have one foot in each world. Or we simply may be seen as sitting on fence, unable to decide what it is we believe.
Probably one of the best summations of what some Anglicans and Episcopalians believe regarding the Eucharist is the great Queen Elizabeth I:
"He was the Word that spake it;
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it."
So, no matter what we might believe, the fact is that something incredible and wonderful happens when we gather together here to celebrate the Eucharist and that we shouldn’t take what we do lightly. Christ comes to us and is present with us in a unique and wonderful way. And recognizing this presence, we should be in awe. We should be blown away by it. And we should remind ourselves that, no matter what we believe, Jesus is our spiritual food.
This is why Holy Communion is so important. There is nothing else like this kind of worship in the Church. It is one of the most intimate forms of worship we can know. Jesus truly comes among us and feeds us with his very self. We form a bond with Jesus in Communion that is so strong and so vital to our spiritual lives.
But Jesus tells us tonight, on the eve of his death, on the eve of his leaving us, that will not leave us without something. Rather, he will leave us with a sign of his love for us. As John tells us tonight, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” He loved us even at the end so that he could leave us something to nourish us and sustain us until he comes to us again. He does so in this bread is his Body and this cup that is his Blood.
But Holy Communion is more than just being fed in our bodies. What we learn at this altar, when celebrate the Eucharist together and we share Holy Communion together is that, Jesus is our Bread of Life, our cup of Salvation, whenever we are starving or thirsting spiritually. When we feel empty and lost, Jesus comes to us and refreshes us. Jesus feeds our spirit with that presence of absolute love in our lives. When the scriptures speak to us in a deep and meaningful way, we find our hunger and thirst being quenched in Bread and Cup that is Jesus. In other words, what Jesus is saying to us is: I am what will fulfill you.
Jesus then becomes the very staple of our lives. Jesus is the one who feeds that hunger we have deep within us, who quenched that seemingly unquenchable thirst that drives us and provokes us. Jesus fills the voids of our lives with his life-giving Presence.
But it’s more than just a “Jesus and me” moment. This love that we experience in this Communion, is love that we can’t just hug to ourselves and bask in privately. This love we experience in this Eucharist is a love that is meant, like the Bread and the Cup, to be shared with others.
“Love one another,” is Jesus’ commandment to us in those moments before he is betrayed, in those hours before he is tortured, on the eve of his brutal murder. “Just as I have loved you, you should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Communion—and the love we experience in it—is not just something we do here in church on Sunday mornings or on Maundy Thursday. It is something we take with us when we go from here. It is something we take out into the world from here. As Christians, we are to share the Body and the Blood of Christ wherever we go because we carry those elements within us. And because we carry those elements within us, we are to feed those who are not just hungry of body, but are hungry of mind and spirit as well. We are to share the Body and Blood of Jesus with all of those we encounter in the world.
So, as you go from here this evening, during the rest of this Holy Week and especially during the holy season of Easter, go out into the world remembering what you carry within you. Remember what nourishes you, what sustains you, what quenches your own spiritual hunger and thirst. Go out, refreshed and filled with life-giving bread and life-refreshing cup—with Jesus, who feeds you with his very self. But go out also into the world ready to share that bread and cup that gives such life to you. Show it in your actions and show it in your words. Show it by living out that commandment of love to all. Let that Presence of Jesus within you nourish those around you just as it nourishes you.
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