"More Than A Feeling"
Looking back to history and ahead to eternity.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, October 1, 2006
Text: I Corinthians 10:14-17; 11:23-28
Everything was immaculately prepared in her room. Maggie's nephew and niece, her sons and daughter and grandchildren, her friends and siblings were gathered around her bed. It was nearing the end. One of the things that Maggie wanted more than anything else was to see her minister, and so she asked me to pay her a visit. When I walked into the room it was evident that she was surrounded by great warmth and love. I sat in the chair next to the bed and, still full of her usual zeal and faculties, she said to me, “I'm glad that you came. I wanted to see you, but I have no idea why.” She said, “What do ministers do at a moment like this? Do you anoint my head with oil? Do you sprinkle my head with water? Do you say a prayer?” And then, with a real twinkle in her eye, the old Maggie coming to the fore, she said, “Or do you just take my measurements so you know where to rest me eventually?”
I said, “No, someone else will do that at a later date, Maggie. That's not my job.”
She said, “Well, do whatever it is that ministers do.”
So I reached into my case and pulled out a little black box that all ministers know very well. I flipped open the lid, took out a piece of bread, a tiny chalice and a flask of wine. I poured the wine into the chalice and broke the bread and we shared in Communion. It was something we had done for years, but done in church. At that moment, it was as if all that was and all that will be came together. It's hard to describe, but it was as if everything Maggie had been and what I prayed she would be, somehow met in the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine near the end of her life.
The word “nexus” is in vogue these days. When I looked up its meaning, I realized just how applicable it is to the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Nexus means “to link or to tie,” but it also means “to connect groups and people.” Lastly, it means “a core or a centre.” As I thought about the role that the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion plays in the life of the believer, I realized that this is the nexus of God's Kingdom. It is the link between God and ourselves, it is the core and the centre of what we believe, it is the connection between all who serve it and all who receive it in the Kingdom. Nexus is a great word to describe what Communion really means.
While Communion can be a very emotional thing and can be shared at telling and poignant times in people's lives, just as it was with Maggie, it is more than a feeling. It is something profoundly powerful and theological and historical. No one understood that more than the Apostle Paul. You see, the Communion or the Lord's Supper, as it became known throughout the Christian church, was a little misunderstood, particularly in the early years. The Gospels give differing accounts of the original night when Jesus broke bread with his disciples. There are variations as to the timing of the event: the day of Passover, the night before Passover, or the day before Passover.
There are nuances and differences about location, wording and timing, yet all the accounts indicate that Jesus was in a bit of a hurry to break bread and share it with his disciples. He knew that his death was pending and he didn't know when these events would take place after his betrayal. So, he brought the disciples together and he broke bread and shared the cup. The most complete statement of what Jesus actually said and the clearest interpretation of what it meant is found in the Book of Corinthians, in the words of the Apostle Paul.
Paul was struggling with a church in Corinth that in its early years was abusing the gift of Communion. Everyone was just grabbing and eating when they wanted to. There was no order and no structure, and the meaning was getting lost, so much so that they didn't even know whether they should eat food given to idols at the same time, as part of this love feast. There was a mass of confusion, but Paul cuts right through it as he so often does, giving them the words of Jesus, and the institution of the Lord's Supper, which we use to this day in our liturgy, to bring the people back to the original meaning, to the nexus, the connection between Jesus and the sacrament.
Paul's words are powerful and instructive for us. They help us grasp the real power and meaning of Communion in our lives, for it is obvious that the Lord's Supper is, first of all, the nexus between the history of the people of Israel and Jesus. Just as when he made his triumphal entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey, Jesus was very deliberate about making sure that the last supper he had with his disciples coincided with the Passover time. It was deliberate because to the Jews, the Passover meal was the supreme representation of God's salvation and liberation of his people. The Passover was the representation of God bringing Israel out of bondage in Egypt, bringing them to safety in order that they may come to the Promised Land. It was the supreme symbol of God's intervention in human history for the salvation of the lost and the oppressed.
But it was more than that. Writing at around the time of Jesus, Pharisee Gamaliel said in the Mishnah, “The Passover meal also symbolized the forgiveness of sins.” It is not only the salvation of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, it is also the release of Israel from the bondage of sin that makes Passover a powerful meal. So Jesus, in wanting to eat with his disciples at the Passover meal, is identifying with that great historic moment in the life of Israel and with what he is doing with his disciples on the day before he dies.
Even the symbols are important. Jesus takes the bread and the cup. The unleavened bread is associated with the escape of Israelites from Egypt, because they couldn't wait for it to rise. But if you look in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 28, verse 18, you find instructions to the people to continue to break the unleavened bread always to remember the Passover. In the second chapter of the Book of Leviticus, there are instructions to remember the blood of the lamb and the breaking of the unleavened bread, in particular, always. A remembrance again, a symbol of God setting Israel free.
Jesus, then, is deliberate. The unleavened bread and the Passover meal and the wine to represent the sign of the blood that saved the people from the Angel of Death, these three go together. That is why Paul goes to great lengths to quote Jesus again. He says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” As God had a covenant with Israel to set it free from the bondage of Egypt, and wherever they were they were to remember what God had done in setting them free through this Passover meal. So, too, Jesus, in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup, is reminding those around that that very covenant is now renewed in him - in his body, in his blood - for all time. You cannot take this cup and this bread and not realize the nexus between the history of Israel and the life and death of Jesus.
The Lord's Supper is also the nexus between Jesus' death and us. On two different occasions Paul quotes Jesus: “I want you to do this in remembrance of me.” The breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine are a remembrance of what Jesus did and of the new covenant.
Remembrance is a powerful thing. When I visit the very elderly, so much of the conversation revolves around stories of the past, reminiscences of days gone by and experiences shared. When I used to visit my grandfather in his dotage, he would always ask me, “How are you,” and after I'd said, “Fine,” he would start recounting stories of things that had happened to him 50 or 60 years before. Reminiscences, recollections are powerful things, particularly at the end of a person's life. Now, sometimes people accuse the elderly of living in the past. I profoundly disagree with that. I have never met an elderly person who lives in the past. I have met some, though, who want to reclaim the past. Reclaiming the past is a good thing. Reclaiming one's memories is a powerful thing. Remembering is an instructive thing.
This past week I had one of the most enjoyable lunches I have had in 25 years. I invited somebody whom I have watched on television for many years to have lunch with me.
My lunch companion is one of the best-known soccer commentators in the country. When the World Cup comes on he gives the commentary at half-time and full-time. He's known as “Mr. Soccer” in Canada. I had lunch with Mr. Soccer for three-and-a-half hours. We reminisced and he told stories about how he hugged Pele and how he had played in various games, and I realized that as a boy I'd watched him play on television. We recounted stories of famous moments and of glorious occasions. It was fantastic! It was wonderful reminiscing with him. There were times when we had tears in our eyes as we sat on opposite sides of the table from one another. The power of memory, the power of remembrance, a shared experience. It was like we'd been friends for years. So it is with the Lord's Supper. This is our lunch with Jesus, this is when we gather with him, this is our moment to reminisce, to remember this that he did for us. It is the most powerful symbol imaginable.
One of the things that struck me this past summer when I went back to Britain was a cemetery with headstones going back hundreds of years. To my astonishment, people had put out blankets and were having picnics in the middle of the cemetery. I thought, “What a strange thing to do.” By the water, under the lovely trees, warmed by the shining sun -among these headstones with the crosses on them. It seemed bizarre and surreal, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized: What better place to remember?
There's no fear of the grave for those who believe, and the meal of the Lord is just like that. It's our picnic in the presence of death. It's a reminder that death has been overcome. It's a place to break bread and have a meal. It's a powerful symbol between Christ and us. It is also the nexus between now and the future.
There is something about this meal that we are going to have in a moment that is beyond. It is beyond us. That is why on this day throughout the world, in cathedrals and barrios, in halls, in great arenas, in beautiful churches, in chapels, in tiny, sacred places, beside hospital beds, or even in living rooms, the bread is broken and the wine is shared. It is always a meal that is beyond us. It is a meal that is beyond you and me.
The Apostle Paul wanted to make sure that the believers understood that they could not eat this meal alone, “For we, who are many eat this meal,” he says. For many Christ died. It's not just about you and me, it's about the community of believers. And today, it is beyond you and me. It is Worldwide Communion Sunday and it is something to celebrate.
It is also most profoundly beyond time. Paul wrote these incredible words that are the cornerstone of everything that the church has said and done about the Sacrament for 2,000 years. He said, “When you eat of this bread and you drink of this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”
There is an inextricable link between now and the future, through the table of the Lord. It is not just something that we do now, something that feeds our bodies now, something we celebrate in the now; it is something that lasts in our souls for time immemorial.
As I was leaving Maggie in her room I said to her, “We must do this again.”
Her face said, “No.” She didn't think it was going to happen.
But my faith said, “Yes.” For we do not eat of this bread and drink of this wine only now; we will do so in the Kingdom that is still to come. At the great feast today the food of heaven is the broken body of Christ and the shared blood of Christ, and the food that we will eat at the great feast in the Kingdom will be unleavened bread and a poured-out wine. It will be the symbol in heaven of Christ dying for us.
And so it is far, far more than a feeling, far beyond a sentiment, well beyond the constraints of time and place. It is the nexus between all that was and all that will be, but we eat of it now. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.