I have been reading a book titled “The Eucharistic Liturgies” published in 2012, it looks at the available data about how we have evolved the Lord’s Supper over the years. The first thing to remember is before Jesus’ day and following, it was typical for groups of people to gather together and share a meal in which they would include some reading of scripture (the Hebrew Scriptures) and sing some songs. It was like a house church where folks would find fellowship and learning together. The authors of this book point out that in all the writing from the time of Jesus there is no mention of sacrifice or body and blood that we have been using for the past thousand years. These people either celebrated the Passover when it was appropriate or they would be worshiping God together.
You probably recall that in the Old Testament those who were faithful to the Jewish tradition would never have even considered touching a dead body or blood let alone consume it. That idea doesn’t even get recorded in letters and books until the middle or late 3rd century. No matter which arm of the Christian church you look at, they both (Eastern & Western Churches) started to organize around the late 200’s and started establishing new rules that would be helpful for separating themselves from their Jewish siblings. Scholars wrestled with how to make sense of Jesus’ death. How could they take ‘The Way’ and improve it, make it fit better into their society? It’s no secret that the early church established a tradition of taking over rituals of the day and giving them a “Christian” spin.
When we gather at the table in a few minutes I will use the liturgy that I have been using since I started in ministry some 6 years ago. We will talk about how in this sacrament we will be honoring God. Remembering how each of our lives is of great worth and we have been invited to be a part of not only this congregation but the church universal. When we partake of the elements we will be free to do it any way we want. Your relationship with God is part of your faith journey that only you can decide what happens. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek the truth. God doesn’t want you to fear for your future, God wants to free you from fear, from shame and anxiety. All are welcome. I encourage you to open your heart and mind to Christ. Amen.
All are welcome to take part in this sacrament. We observe this event to remind us that the teachings of Jesus offer us an opportunity to open ourselves to a closer relationship with God. Jesus and his disciples were sharing the meal of thanksgiving. It was a tradition set aside for everyone to thank God for the deliverance of our ancestors in the past and filled with new hope for the mercy of God’s love in our future.
*When Jesus was with his disciples he took the bread and blessed it, gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it and shared it with them. He reminded them that the bread represents many ideas, the haste of leaving Egypt when his people were being oppressed there, the idea of the abundance of the creation, that we have bread to nourish our bodies. He asked his disciples to remember every time they eat, of the abundance of God.
*Jesus also took the cup and having blessed it, he shared it with his disciples. In the same way he explained that the cup represents ideas that go back through history. The most important is that of the covenant. The practice of sharing a common cup was a sign of trust and commitment between two parties. This sharing of a cup also represents the abundance of God who through the creation has supplied all our needs. As they joined together in sharing the cup Jesus asked his disciples to remember the unity of all people in their relationship with God.
Servers please distribute the elements. As you get the elements, hold them so that we may serve everyone, then we will partake of the abundance of God together.
Take your bread in your hand. This bread reminds us that there are commonalities among us. Through this bread we are renewed to live as God intended. Let us follow Christ, wherever we go. Let us not just say thanks to God but let us show our thanks in our lives just like Jesus did. God, we thank you for your provision. Amen.
Take your cup in your hand, this reminds us of the very essence of life: the living water. Jesus offers us that living water, right now in this sacrament. When we drink from the cup we do it together and yet it is an individual commitment between you and God. Let us drink together as members of the Body of Christ. Amen.
Friends, let’s take a couple of moments to center ourselves. Place your feet flat on the floor and sit up straight with your back supported. Close your eyes and start to concentrate on your breathing. You might have a mantra or some words or phrases you like to use when you center yourself. Perhaps when you inhale you can think the word Hope, when you exhale you can think the word Peace. Jesus used this technique when he would go away and pray. He found that he needed to focus on his breathing so that he could be present to the voice of the Holy Spirit within. Let us breathe in silence for a moment.
What do we know about the concept known as grace? You are correct, it comes from theology and is considered either something God gives us or something that God does to us. Strangely, we don’t consider grace as a permanent state of being. It really depends on your thoughts about who God is. If God isn’t really all powerful then the grace we might experience would not be constant or lasting, would it? If God doesn’t really like, let alone love us, then grace would be something that we would have to deserve. But if you deserve it, it isn’t grace. It’s interesting to me that grace is often thought of as the act of forgiveness, when we are forgiven it is by the grace of God. I looked up the word forgiven in the Bible and there were only 59 in the translation I typically use. I was looking for a particular verse and had to switch over to the word ‘transgression’ which I found about the same number of times. The verse I was looking for was Psalm 103:12 where the psalmist is talking about the grace of God and how God takes away our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west. That verse has always given me comfort. But in my theology God doesn’t care about our sins or transgressions. God is more concerned with our growth and wellbeing.
Of course, the scriptures can be read in any way that we want. We can read a vengeful God who is always out to get us or we can read a loving God who is forgiving us no matter what. Plus anything in between. In our lessons this morning we see Jesus offering a more spiteful God who is going to punish those who don’t have more respect for missionaries. That stands in contrast to what the author of Romans suggests about how Abraham, possibly the most righteous guy in Judaism is forgiven. Now if Abraham who did good things and bad things, gets credit for just trusting that God’s promise would be delivered, then we can’t and won’t measure up. No amount of good works will show God that we deserve to have the ledger tossed out. Does God keep track of our behavior? We like to think of Saint Peter being at the Pearly Gates, he looks you up and either allows you to enter heaven or sends you packing. Depending on your theology that list that Peter looks at is either a long list or a short one. Does it have a row of numbers that get totaled at the end of the row and if that number is greater than the mean, you get in? Or does the list consist of one piece of paper that has the word ‘GOD’S GRACE’ printed on it, in which case everyone is welcome to come in?
Turns out that everything is connected to everything else. Not just the physical world but also in the mental and spiritual parts of our lives. If we are keeping a count of how we are doing, are we giving ourselves enough credit? If we leave it up to God can we trust that God won’t make a mistake? I can tell you that it has been quite a journey for me to learn to let go of keeping a count. I find that if I can’t trust God, then there is no sense paying attention to my spiritual side. When I do let go of keeping track with my siblings and neighbors, life seems to work much smoother. We are all offered the grace of God each and every day. If God offers it to us, then God also offers it to everyone else too. If we accept the grace of God we can offer it to others in our lives, like my Dad used to do. Allow God’s grace to make your life better. It does require the hard work of letting go, on your part, because God’s not counting. Amen.
First Sunday of the month! Communion Sunday! I’ve been here five years and during that time I have had two people ask me ‘what is different about Communion?’ I’ve spoken about the change happening in the church before, about how we are at the beginning of a new Reformation. It has been in process for probably 6-8 years now. Churches everywhere are probably unaware that this change is happening. This early in the process most of the discussions are happening at seminaries and universities. It’s not like there was a grand plan or announcement from on high, but it turns out that historians have noticed a trend of about every 500 years. The last reformation, our Reformation happened just over 500 years ago and there was a reformation within the church of the time about 500 years before that. This latest reformation has to do with the time that has passed and the research into more of the available old texts. More and more people are being trained in reading the Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek. There are more scholars writing papers and books about their findings and those are being reviewed and encouraged to speak up about the differences that they are discovering in how the church used to do things and how we do it now.
I grew up with the Body and Blood of Christ, I was washed in the blood of the lamb as white as snow. I knew what I had been taught and it all worked for me, then I started studying the Bible in depth. You don’t need to be proficient in the ancient languages to see that things don’t add up when it comes to our practice of Communion. As you are aware, in the Hebrew Scriptures in Genesis and Leviticus there are rules that forbid the eating/drinking of blood. This is one of the challenges that the Jewish people faced back in the olden days, their neighbors were practicing human sacrifice. Our ancestors in faith saw that and wondered if they should follow the ways of their neighbors. With training and open minds they realized that, indeed, the life of a creature was in the blood but they also saw that no matter what sort of rituals were performed it didn’t seem to change how God behaved. They had been taught that life is precious and should be nurtured so we find the story of Abraham being tested by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. In the story God stops Abraham and offers a ram, telling Abraham to stand against human sacrifice.
So why would our communion liturgy embrace such nonsense? I’ve been doing more research on what scholars are discovering lately about how we got to the Body and Blood liturgy. I’m reading a book by Bradshaw and Johnson that was published in 2012 titled, The Eucharistic Liturgies: Their Evolution and Interpretation. In it they have looked back at available books and scraps of papyrus and have put together a timeline of sorts about how the early church behaved, when what we know as Communion started.
Did you know that the “Lord’s Supper” was really a carry-in back in the day? You recall in the book of Acts that after the resurrection the followers of Jesus were gathered together because they didn’t know what was going to happen to them. In chapter 4 we find that several had been arrested and that many were preaching boldly about Jesus and his message. People were helping each other by gathering together to share meals so that no one would go hungry. People who had plenty of food would bring extra to share and some would sell property to give the proceeds to the church so that all would be cared for, like widows and orphans. Bradshaw and Johnson found letters that described what was happening at these meals, there was prayer and reading scriptures then everyone would sit down and eat a meal together, sometimes there would be singing of hymns. This was known as the Lord’s Supper. It happened once a week and that was it.
Not until the late 3rd C. do we find records of what has become known as the Lord’s Supper as we have known it in our recent past. Bradshaw and Johnson discuss the evidence that we have that proves that there have been changes over the years to what the church has done and what we have believed about Communion. Now you need to know that Bradshaw and Johnson are members of the Order of St. Benedict. These are not some rogue scholars trying to tear down Christianity. These Benedictine Brothers have been asking some of the hard questions about why we do what we do and how we got to where we are. In the earliest days we had congregations gathering for a meal at the synagogue, this was a common practice even before Jesus’ time. Then we have Jesus feeding the 5000 which follows the Jewish custom of sharing a meal. Then Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples and that is what prompted the artists of the 1400’s to come up with the idea of painting “The Last Supper.”
Do you recall that the church, throughout its long history, has found it easier to adopt and modify the holidays and celebrations of the local folks. That is how we came to celebrate Jesus’ birth in December and his resurrection in the spring. The church has always been focused on the people and their behaviors, and it has been easier to adopt the practice that had existed since the beginning of time, which is the winter solstice, and change it into a holy season to celebrate the birth of Christ. Well it was easy to take the spring equinox and adapt it into a holy season to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The same thing happened around the Lord’s Supper, the church adapted the local customs and created a ritual that would allow important and powerful people to keep doing what they liked to do, while they could be a part of this new religion Christianity. So the Body and Blood Communion liturgy was developed. Being so far removed from their Jewish heritage hardly anyone noticed the very un-Jewish concepts that were being embraced. Then suddenly in the 4th C. the Holy Roman Empire springs to life and suddenly those who had been persecuted for their faith were now in charge of a state run official religion. It was a big change and nobody in charge was around when Jesus was setting his example.
I know this is more information than you were hoping for this morning. But when it comes to our communion, I think that I have taken us back to a more faithful understanding of, at the very least, what Jesus and the disciples were celebrating on that Passover evening. This talk will raise more questions than it answers, and I think that is great! We need to re-capture our sense of awe, we do that by asking ‘why’ and ‘how.’ We love God and we find that God’s Holy Spirit dwells within us so our collective goal is to be faithful to God in all that we do. If we follow blindly and accept what people (me) are telling us without asking those questions then we have missed Jesus’ message. God is with us and cares for and provides, through the creation, for our needs. Keep an open mind and keep learning. Amen.
