Who We Are My goodness, if there s one thing we re getting a whole lot from the Gospel texts these days, it s BREAD. Apparently, our lectionary committee shares with Oprah s sentiments about bread. You ve seen her commercial I m sure, where she declares I love bread. For us gathered in the church, it all started a couple of weeks ago with the feeding of the 5,000. In that mighty deed we saw that, just like the prophets of old, Jesus acting with the authority of God in giving people exactly what they needed. Last week the people who were fed wanted more so they hunted Jesus down demanding they be given the ability to create a lifetime supply of bread. And now this week s Gospel reading gets a little testy when Jesus says that He Himself is the Bread of heaven. Jesus claims to be the kind of bread that, were one to eat it, they wouldn t die like those that ate the manna in the wilderness. Instead they would live forever. The shocking thing of all this is that Jesus says that his own flesh IS this bread that is being given for the life of the world. Huh? It shouldn t really surprise you to learn that one of the earliest misperceptions the world had of the church in the first 3 centuries was that they practiced cannibalism. I mean, think about it, we gather every week and partake of a meal we call the body and blood of God s anointed one. And, furthermore, the church has never been apologetic about this; we have unflinchingly maintained that the real presence of Christ is here when we do this thing. So, to the uninitiated it could look like cannibalism, of course, all of this happened before the 19th Century promoter P.T. Barnum proclaimed, there s no such thing as bad publicity. Has the church overcome this PR nightmare of the first 3 centuries? Indeed it has. So even today in the 21st Century we still practice the ritual of eating and drinking Christ s body and
blood the meaning of which was the source of much debate in Christian theology, especially during and immediately after the Protestant reformation. I certainly hope you are reading Father Gary s Thursday e-mail articles about the history of the theology surrounding Holy Communion. This month of August the gospel lectionary texts temporarily switch from Mark s Gospel to John chapter 6. Yes, 5 weeks of nothing but John 6 so 2 more are ahead of us. As many of you know I grew up Southern Baptist and we had a very low view of communion. Typically, we d celebrate it once every 4 months and even then, it was just an add-on that extended the service. Ironically enough this practice of ritualistic eating only served to annoy parishioners who were trying to beat the noon rush at their favorite restaurant for Sunday afternoon dinner. The way the Baptists practiced it is everybody would remain seated as the deacons would pass the plate of bread which looked like tiny Chicklit-sized crackers. Then, we d hold on to it until the tray of grape juice was passed around. I didn t know this at the time, but the grape juice was parsed out into what were essentially shot glasses. Each person would take one and then you d sit there holding the little Chicklit cracker and your shot of grape juice until the preacher said the words, Do this in remembrance of me. Then everybody would eat their cracker and down their shot of juice. I must confess it didn t feel all that special because the preacher would spend a lot of time reminding us that all we were doing was remembering which wasn t all that difficult I found out. Years later after I had moved on from the Baptist to the Episcopal Church it really wasn t difficult to get into doing Communion every week. The distinctive thing I learned about Holy Communion in the Episcopal Church is that we recognize the real presence of Christ in these mundane elements. The genius of Episcopal theology is that we don t try to explain how the real presence is there, we simply affirm that it is. And that seems to be good
enough for us. And I think it is important for us to ask this question, What difference does this make? What difference does it make for you to partake of the real presence of Christ week in and week out, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday? Remember Jesus words: The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. When we partake of this bread through participation in Holy Communion we are claiming and reclaiming our part in being Christ s body in the world. One thing that I did appreciate about the old Baptist communion was that we were always asked to reflect and examine ourselves, to reconnect with our personal experience of connection to God through Jesus Christ and to even recall our baptism or conversion experience. When Jesus said to do this in remembrance of me, remembering is much more than simply recollection. Re-membering is our conscious effort to reincorporate for ourselves the reality of Christ living in the world through me. Re-membering is our action of committing ourselves to who we truly are, not who we pretend to be. Re-membering is integrating our entire being into the reality of Christ for the world. Yes, you may be the only Christ that anybody who sees you ever experiences! Now, the fact that Jesus body is the bread which feeds the world is why we can be the way the apostle Paul tells us to be in our reading from Ephesians. I know that it was a while ago when we heard the 2nd lesson from Ephesians 4 and 5, but Paul s words remind us that at the very core of who we are is a transformed presence in the world. Remember what he said, Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Did you get that? We are members of one another, this is the nature and meaning of communion to have a common union. There is a good we are to maintain in the world. Watch what you say so as to be building up, not tearing down. Paul said Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but
only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. Oh my goodness, that your words give grace to those who hear? What a powerful way to be in the world. This is who we re called to be. Remember that your words matter. I, personally, struggle with this. But I do strive to do it. What I do to forward myself in this aspect of discipleship is to recognize when I m in a situation or a conversation when things could go badly. I will then push the imaginary pause button and ask myself, What am I creating with my words. What am I creating with what I m about to say? If I can just pause and get this straight first, then things tend to go a whole lot more smoothly. Few things in life are as tragic as ill-informed words put out on loud speaker. Paul s message to us is clear; we have a responsibility to each other, folks. We are in the business of building God s world and everything we say feeds into this. How am I creating good with my words? How am I contributing to what God is doing by expressing these things? These are questions that align us with Paul s teaching. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. One of the biggest barriers we can put between others and ourselves is our self-righteousness. Paul implores us to keep the perspective I m just as in need of forgiveness as anyone else, maybe more. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Paul s words aren t supposed to just make us feel bad because we get the degree to which we aren t doing them. Paul is painting a picture of what s possible when we practice true Communion outside this building after practicing Holy Communion inside here.
The fact is what Paul is asking us to do IS impossible. All of the stuff Paul tells us to do is impossible, especially if we think that by bearing down and working hard and willing ourselves to do it will get us there. If you re trying to earn God s love by being good, good luck. No. Paul is saying that BECAUSE we are the body of Christ these things are possible. These things now characterize us our essential self. This is who we really are, all evidence aside. The pretense is when we don t practice this communion behavior. Paul says that since we are the body of Christ, we are all members of one another. Like it or not, we are responsible to each other. We all bear a degree of participation. There are no un-important interactions. So, this transaction on the table week in and week out is our reintegration into the overall plan to be bread for the world. Be the sustaining presence you are called to be. Bread for the world this is who you are. We are bread for the world just as Christ is. This transforms us from living for ourselves with a closed heart to living for the world. It is our gift, as the body of Christ, to the world. We are the sustaining presence of the savior. Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.