In the name of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
“Behold
what you are; become what you receive.” That is a paraphrase of part of a
sermon given by St. Augustine in 408. Behold what you are; become what you
receive. There are a lot of things that could capture our imaginations on
Maundy Thursday. Jesus gives us a new commandment, that we love one another. We
see what Gospel leadership looks like in the washing of feet. The starkness of
betrayal will move us as the altar is stripped and we leave in darkness and
silence. We also celebrate the Last Supper tonight; often it is referred to as
the “Institution of the Holy Eucharist,” as our Lord tells us to “do this in
remembrance of me.” When we focus in on the Eucharist, indeed we see all of
these Maundy Thursday themes at play. So this sermon will focus on our reading
from 1 Corinthians and the Sacrament of our Lord’s Body and Blood.
In
his sermon, Augustine preached “So now, if you want to understand the body of
Christ, listen to the Apostle Paul speaking to the faithful: ‘You are the body
of Christ, member for member.’ If you, therefore, are Christ’s body and
members, it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table! It is your
own mystery that you are receiving! You are saying ‘Amen’ to what you are: your
response is a personal signature, affirming your faith. When you hear ‘The body
of Christ,’ you reply ‘Amen.’ Be a member of Christ’s body, then, so that your
‘Amen’ may ring true!”
So
when Augustine says “Behold what you are,” he reminds us that we are the Body
of Christ. Though we use this metaphor often, I don’t know that we often
consider how gracious and radical it is. God’s love for us is so deep and
welcoming that we are invited to be a part of his Body. Just as the act of
washing his disciples’ feet was an act of hospitality, so too is our Baptismal
and Eucharistic invitation to be a part of Christ’s Body. Behold what you are:
the invited of God. God wants us here, God opens himself to us, God gives us
belonging in the love of the Trinity. And, indeed, this is something to behold.
As
St. Paul records the tradition from the Last Supper, there is an emphasis on
remembrance. Remembrance is also central to the Passover narrative that we
heard in Exodus. In our culture, when we think about memories, we tend to think
in terms of a static reflection on a past event. So we remember by looking at
photos, or artifacts, or telling stories. But in ancient Jewish culture, to
remember meant much more than “thinking about.” To remember was to recall past
events back into the present. Memory involved the past becoming alive again
right now.
So
when Jesus tells us to do this meal in remembrance of him, it’s not simply
doing it with him in our thoughts, but rather that Jesus is really and actually
present with us. The remembrance embedded in the Eucharist proclaims that
Jesus’ Death and Passion matter as much tonight as they ever have. When the
bread is placed in your palm tonight, behold it and treasure it. As Augustine
began his sermon, he talked about how it is possible to see things without
grasping their meaning. Sure, we can see the wafer as just a piece of bread.
But it is so much more than that. We are given the Body of Christ: both Christ
himself and our truest identity. What we receive in the Eucharist is our hope
for salvation, what we receive is the love of God made manifest, what we
receive is God’s very presence with us. Behold what you are – the Body of
Christ.
Augustine
then exhorts us to “become what you receive.” That is, to live into the
fullness of the Body of Christ. In his sermon, he says “Remember, friends, how
wine is made. Individual grapes hang together in a bunch, but the juice from
them all is mingled to become a single brew. This is the image chosen by Christ
our Lord to show how, at his own table, the mystery of our unity and peace is
solemnly consecrated.” If we are to become what we receive, then we are work
together to make God’s love and mercy made known. Just as we have been welcomed
into God, we are to invite others in. Just as the bread and wine is
mysteriously transformed to become Christ’s own Body and Blood, so, too, are we
to be transformed into something larger than ourselves. This is what we see
when Jesus becomes a servant and washes the disciple’s feet. Just as the simple
and everyday bread and wine can become the Holy Sacrament, power can be
transformed from “power over” to “power with.” Strength can be redefined not as
authority but loving service. The Eucharist is rooted in the transformation of
growing into the fullness of what we receive: the Body of Christ.
Another
aspect of transformation found in the Eucharist is the redemption of brokenness
back to wholeness. St. Paul reminds us that this meal happens “on the night
when he was betrayed.” And Jesus certainly knows that this betrayal is coming.
And yet his offer his body for us and his blood to initiate the new covenant.
It is as if Jesus says “This suffering and death which I am about to endure,
the betrayal, the tearing of my flesh and shedding of my blood is to be the
final and decisive sign of God’s love and mercy.” And so though Maundy Thursday
certainly has elements of darkness, let us not forget that God redeems our
brokenness.
Jesus’
betrayal is not an irredeemable tragedy or disaster. The breaking of the bread,
the breaking of trust, and the breaking of Jesus’ body also point towards the
hope of Resurrection. The Eucharist holds this tension of salvation being
something already accomplished and not yet fully manifest. Over the next 24 hours,
Jesus connects with the deepest and darkest parts of the human experience,
bringing the hope of God’s presence into sin and death.
The
brokenness on which the Eucharist is founded is a signal to us for our
continual need for repentance and amendment of life. We come to this table not
because everything is good, but because all has not gone as planned. We come
not because we have arrived, but because we are travelers. We come not because
we are right, but because we are confused and wrong. We come not because we are
full, but because we are hungry. Because the Eucharist is the Body of Christ,
it restores us to Christ in our own brokenness, it has the power to bind us to
each other in our estrangement, it has the power to transcend space and time,
even life and death. In a Maundy Thursday sermon nearly 500 years ago, Martin Luther said “When you go to the Lord’s Supper, listen to the words spoken, and be assured that they contain the whole treasure on which you are to stand and rely, for they are really spoken to you.” Part of becoming what we receive in the Eucharist is
finding the healing, unifying, and saving grace of God.
I
don’t think that it is possible to take the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist too
seriously. Rowan Williams has written that “the Eucharist puts us at the end of
the world,” meaning that it shows us where this whole thing is heading – a
place where Christ is present, where divisions are ended, where the hungry are
fed, where life is celebrated with wine, where brokenness is healed. In his holy
meal, we see what we are: the welcomed, loved, and redeemed Body of Christ.
Eucharist then transforms us to become what we have received: the forgiven and
transformed Body of Christ. May God grant you the eyes to see the presence of
Christ in our sacred meal. May God grant you to taste your salvation in the
bread and wine. May God grant you to be transformed more fully into the Body of
Christ. May God grant you to behold what you are and to become what you
receive. Amen.
