In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
St.
Paul tells us, “I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the
Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread and a cup of
wine, gave thanks, and shared them, telling us that these are his Body and his
Blood and that we are to do this in remembrance of him.” At the heart of the
Eucharist is memory. And, of course, it must be acknowledged that because of
the necessary isolation and online liturgy related to the Coronavirus that the memory of gathering in-person to break bread is all we have. This commandment
of our Lord, that we “do this in remembrance of me” though is actually one that
helps us in this difficult time.
Memory,
in the sense that Jesus means it does not mean anything like pulling out the
photo book and recalling the good times. Instead, memory in the Biblical sense
is more like going to a place you haven’t been in a while. Remembering is not
about our reflection on past events, rather remembrance is about having those
moments made present again.
There
are many examples of this in the Psalms, but one is in Psalm 78 where it says, “They
did not remember God’s power in the day when he ransomed them from the enemy.” In
the context of this Psalm, the point is not that they simply forgot about what
God had done for them, though they had. Instead, that power that God had shown
in saving the people out of Egypt was not present with the people because did
not remember it. This sort of memory is what William Faulkner was talking about
when he said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” When we do not
remember, we let the past die.
This
is why there is a command at the end of the Exodus passage – “This day shall be
a day remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord.” Do we really think God has a
self-esteem issue and needs a national holiday every year for people to say
nice things to God? Of course not. Instead, what’s the opposite of “remember”?
We might be tempted to say “forgetting.” But linguistically, the opposite of
remembering is dismembering, and with that opposite in mind, we can better
understand what remembrance is all about. Remembrance is about the connections
of things. Remembering the Exodus at Passover is about connecting families and religious
communities and it is about connecting the story of God’s salvation in the past
to God’s salvation in the present moment. When we fail to remember, it’s so
much worse than forgetting, it is dismembering ourselves from one another and
God’s continuous stream of salvation.
As
Jesus is about to be betrayed and crucified, he tells his followers to do this
meal in remembrance of him, that we might be connected to him in his saving
Passion. This is why the Eucharist is a re-presentation of the Passion of
Christ. It’s not that Christ is continually being sacrificed over and over, but
rather we inhabit the same sacramental time as the Last Supper itself. That
moment is made present, or re-presented, in our own time.
It’s
not only that in the Eucharist we enact certain things that teach us about
faith. Yes, in the Eucharist we are gathered together across racial, economic,
political, and gender lines, even if we’re only doing it in spirit and not
gathered together in person. And that is a powerful experience. The Eucharist
does teach us about the story of Jesus and reminds us of our salvation and what
is most essential in our faith. The Eucharist does ground us in the love of
God. And these are all wonderful things. But those are things that any ritual
can do. The Eucharist though is not a ritual that we perform or enact. Instead,
we might better think of the Eucharist as a portal that collapses all of the
past and future into the present now.
And
in this present moment, salvation, grace, and peace are fully available to us.
Now, for us, it may still be only a moment, but that that does not dilute the power
of the Eucharist. At this point, I do want to address the reality that we’re
living in – the physical Eucharist in the form of wafers and wine is not available
beyond the few of us here tonight. But we still celebrate the Eucharist. Why?
For
a few reasons. For one, the Eucharist has been called the source and the summit
of the Church. The Eucharist is the presentation of the Father’s loving
creation and providence, Christ’s magnificent Incarnation, saving death,
glorious Resurrection, the Spirit’s coming on Pentecost, and is celebrated
until Christ comes again. That is at the source of all we do. It’s been said
that the Eucharist makes the Church and the Church makes the Eucharist. That is
to say, without the Eucharist, we have very little to do. Yes, we’d keep
Baptizing people, but people need food to sustain them and that’s exactly what the
Eucharist does. And the Eucharist is also our summit because it is when the
values and priorities of the Kingdom are on full display. So to cease
celebrating the Eucharist, even in the face of a pandemic, is to cease to be
who we are to as the Church.
What makes the
Eucharist powerful is that Jesus is present in it. So whether this church is
full of people or empty, in a sense, all that matters is that Jesus is present
among us. And Jesus is not only present here. He’s present with you, wherever
you are. Centuries of theology and our own Prayer Book make this very clear. In
the rubric for giving Communion to those who are sick, it reads: “If a person
desires to receive the Sacrament, but, by reason of extreme sickness or physical
disability, is unable to eat and drink the Bread and Wine, the Celebrant is to
assure that person that all the benefits of Communion are received, even though
the Sacrament is not received with the mouth.” This situation in which we find
ourselves more than qualifies – the receiving of spiritual Communion is not
only completely understandable, it is completely valid. By participating in
this liturgy from home, you are participating in the Divine Liturgy of heaven.
Though you cannot physically receive the Body and Blood of Christ, your desire
to receive them is sufficient. That’s the amazing thing about God – Jesus comes
to meet us where we are. And if we’re home because of a stay-at-home order
during a global pandemic, then that’s where Jesus is going to meet us. Just as
the Eucharist is about collapsing all moments into the eternal now of God’s
love, so too are all places collapsed into the universal and abiding presence
of Christ.
Though all of the benefits of
the Eucharist are present in spiritual Communion, I know it’s not the same.
That’s why spiritual Communion isn’t the norm and is only to be used in
emergencies and dire circumstances. When I’ve been to places, typically Roman
or Orthodox churches, when the Eucharist is celebrated and I was not allowed to
partake of it because of denominational barriers, it was frustrating. So I know
it can be painful to not be able to receive the bread and the wine that you will
soon see. If it didn’t mean me risking spreading this virus, I’d gladly come to
each of your homes to bring you this bread and wine. And I can’t wait to
celebrate the Eucharist again with you all in person soon. I will never take
for granted how special and holy it is every time we gather to break bread in
Jesus’ name.
Though Jesus is absolutely
present here in this church and with you in your homes, God has given us one
other in a community and fellowship of love. It’s not that Jesus is missing, it’s
that we are missing to one another. After all, our faith is Incarnational,
focused on the fact that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So I look forward
to again returning to being with one another in the flesh.
In the meantime, the
Eucharist makes present to us the loving presence and nourishment of God in Christ.
And this has an impact on us. It shapes us and forms us. If it’s true that “you
are the company you keep,” then the Eucharist brings us into the company of
Jesus, so it’s a profoundly powerful meal. The former Archbishop of Canterbury,
Rowan Williams, writes about how a practice of partaking in the Eucharist and
being re-membered to one another and to God. The result is that
we become a new species of sorts – homo Eucharisticius
which is a new humanity that gives thanks to God in all things, that is the
recipient of God’s abundant grace, that goes with the grain of God’s steadfast
dying and glorious rising, that is empowered by the Spirit of Jesus to continue
his mission of love in this world, that finds its source, summit, and identity
at the Table where we meet our Crucified and Risen Lord.
This is why our Lord tells us
to do this in remembrance of him. Remembrance is so much more than calling to
mind a past event, Biblical remembrance is about having the past infiltrate the
future with its grace. Jesus wants each of us to experience the peace and mercy
of his Passion, and the Eucharist is the means by which we participate in this
great mystery of faith. Even though we cannot gather, we are homo Eucharisticus, Eucharistic people, people
who are shaped and fed by the saving story of the Passion which we celebrate
this week. I’ll close with a prayer that comes from our Prayer Book. It’s found
on page 834 if you want to be able to find it later: O God, who in this
wonderful Sacrament hast left us a perpetual Memorial of Thy Passion: Grant us,
we beseech thee, so to venerate the Sacred Mysteries of thy Body and Blood,
that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of thy redemption; who
livest and reignest, world without end. Amen.
