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26th September 2010, The Anvil
This evening we are asking the question of why do we have a monthly Communion service. I wanted to ask this question especially today as many churches up and down the country do this thing called “Back to Church Sunday”. This is a once a year special service, which we basically do once a month when we do ‘Food Church’. So as we think about ways of making church relevant to people who may not normally come to church and what church might look like, we come to the issue of Communion. Communion is when we gather around a big table together, say some words, and then each of us who want to, or in some churches only those who are allowed to, eat a little bit of bread and drink a little bit of wine. Usually it is just enough to make you hungry or thirsty, but not enough for much else. Why do we do this?
The brief answer to that question is we do it because Jesus told us to.
We are surrounded by endless choice and innumerable ways for us to express ourselves, how we feel and who we are. From the music that we carefully chose to put on our iPod, to our purposefully chosen public self that we put on Facebook – making sure that the photo we use is the one in which we look the best/most alternative/most sexy to our status updates which show just unique and in the know we are.
So when something happens in church you can be sure that we have an opinion on it. Why do we do five songs and not three? Why do we only do three songs when we should have five? 'That’s not the way we would do things if we were making the decisions,' we say.
If I were in charge it wouldn’t look the way it does either. We would all have big glasses, converse shoes, and be listening to the Animal Collective. And we would all have beards…including the women. Although if we all had big glasses and listened to my music it is unlikely that there would be many women around. Thank God I am not in charge and that this is Jesus’ church. So however much we are used to making choices, creating playlists, expressing our individuality on Facebook, the church is a place where we don’t always get things the way that we want them. And so we do Communion because Jesus tells us to do it. But what happens if we obey God in that particular way?
I’d like to talk about three things which make up a Communion service and say why I think it is important that we do them.
1. Confession
Usually, as part of a Communion service, at some point and in some way we will confess our sins. The reason we do this is because sin should offend us. We should see it for what it is – something which potentially stops us from knowing and being known by the holy and eternal God. Missing out on being known by God forever has a special abbreviated and theological word to describe it, a word that is sometimes misunderstood: hell. Parts of Bible refer to hell as unending lakes of fire – this is allegorical and poetic talk. There aren’t any words that could describe how painful it will be to miss out on being known by God forever – existence will cease because God is the source of life and if we are removed from that source we have no life.
And so sin is serious.
But we forget, we get used to it. At first sin is a stranger in our house, it feels strange, unwelcome. Before long sin has moved into the spare bedroom and begins to dictate the things we do and the places we see. Stuff that used to offend us we have learnt to live with.
And so confession reminds us of our need for God, it rings a bell for us and points out that sin should not have its feet under our table. It is hard for us to confess a need, a need for forgiveness, a need for closeness and intimacy, a need for a hug from God. A need for us to have the shame or guilt taken from us.
So confession is not something to rush through, to not think about. It is not just a bit of time thinking and talking to God that we have to do before we can get back to singing the bouncy songs. But nor is it a time to dwell on hang-ups and failures. It is not a time to look around at everyone else who needs to confess and feel good about ourselves. Nor is it just the end of our sin and sense of shame, it is the beginning of new life in Christ. Each time we confess is a reminder of our baptism: our old self being washed away, everything else becoming new.
Let God investigate your life and bring to light the parts that need to change. In forgiveness we find life and freedom.
2. Eucharistic prayer
Another key aspect of the Communion service is the prayer which happens before we eat the bread and drink the wine. The reason for the prayer is a little like the reason for doing Communion at all – Jesus did it that way, so it seems like a good idea for us to do it that way to. When Jesus had the first Communion with his disciples he said a prayer. The prayer showed that this was not just eating normal food, but that they were about to eat spiritual food together.
The prayers and the words that Jesus said were a little like the words used at the Jewish festival of Passover when the Jewish people celebrated their escape from Egypt. The meal was more than a celebration of what happened in the past, it was a way that they participated in the past, the y remembered, but also shared in that moment. Jesus saw the importance of food and he saw the importance of worship. But combining the two was not a new idea; it was something that God had commanded long ago.
And that is why we say the prayer. It is a serious moment.
Now I know that liturgy can be boring, it can be routine, it can become so familiar that we stop noticing the words that we say. But in the words we come to know God. They become a part of who we are, they shape us.
So for 2,000 years the church has prayed more or less the same prayer. We might think that it is about time that we changed it then, or we might think that it is good that we base the words as much as possible on the words that Jesus prayed.
The prayer before we take the bread and the wine is important, because regardless about how we feel, God acts, and the bread and wine becomes something more than bread and wine.
3. Bread and wine
And that brings us to the third aspect of a Communion service that I would like to discuss this evening: the bread and the wine.
Jesus took these ordinary things, and God, in his grace, gives them extraordinary meaning. Some people believe that when we pray the Eucharistic prayer the bread and the wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus. These people are very careful about what happens to the crumbs of the bread, in case they drop a little of Jesus’ body on the floor. I don’t believe that, but I do believe that we meet the real presence of Jesus through sharing the bread and the wine – it is still bread and wine, but in faith we can meet with Jesus.
So eating a little bread, and drinking a little wine is something that the world doesn’t do. If you come to church for the first time, or for the first time in a long time, then it can seem strange and not of this world. Which is good, because it isn’t like anything in this world. It is good that our worship reminds us that the world is not the way that God intends us to be, that the church is called to shape and challenge the world. And that is why we take bread and wine on a regular occasion.
As we do that, as we eat the bread and drink the wine we might not feel anything. Despite the fact that it is spiritual food, we might not always feel like we have met with Jesus. Perhaps you have never felt you met with Jesus when you have taken Communion.
But we should still obey Jesus even if we don’t feel anything. Should we trust our feelings over the word of Jesus Christ? God is truer than how we feel, and we can meet with God at Communion even if we don’t feel anything. (Our feelings are still important though.)
And as we eat the bread we remind ourselves that the same Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in us; we remember that Christ has called us to go and be Jesus to the world. As we eat the body of Christ we remind ourselves we are the Body of Christ, we remind ourselves we need to become like Jesus, to be in the image of God.
And as we drink the wine, in the words of one of my favourite worship songs, ‘we want the blood of Christ to be flowing through our bodies’ because we want to be like Jesus, to share in his death and resurrection, to do the things that Jesus did ("Dry Bones' by John Mark McMillan)
Communion has a lot of different churchy names. Communion, Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, even Mass. One of the names that Communion used to be called is the Viaticum. That is the Latin word used for provisions – the claok, the food, the money – a Roman magistrate needed when he went on an official journey. And the bread and wine is what we need for the journey in life: it is spiritual food. (Thanks to Lauren Winner, Girl Meets God for this thought).
When we eat and drink we reach the end of the spiritual meal, and we begin new life in Christ.
