June 14, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK
Exodus 24: 3-8 + Psalm 116 + Hebrews 9: 11-15 + Mark 14: 12-16, 22-26
On Holy Thursday I was in Shawnee spending a few precious Holy Week hours in prayer at the Monastery. On my return I passed through the center of town to stop and say hello to Father Wolf at St Benedict parish, when one of those electric signs at a local church caught my attention as it flashed the words:
“Holy Thursday!
Holy Communion!
4:30 to 6:00
Come and Go!”
I nearly hit the curb in surprise and wonder at the implication of this message. In fact, I circled back to make sure I had seen correctly. Now I have no intention of becoming the sign police or of suggesting that the practice of that church is any of my business. But the fact that I have not forgotten that sign and that it stands out in my mind on this Feast of The Body and Blood of Christ does tell me that there was something important about that sighting worth recalling. I wondered at the time: “If you come and go, like fast-food or a grabbing a snack, with whom or with what are you in Communion, since it is possible that no one else might be there at the time. Then there was also the implication that Holy Thursday was the only time you could drop in for Holy Communion: very puzzling yet very much to the point of what we are doing here.
Sometimes I don’t think we get it right either. We have to stop thinking that Communion is something you get, take, or receive. It is something you enter into something you become. Because this sacrament is about Covenant, it is not a personal, private matter. God makes Covenants with a people, a nation. The very nature of Covenant is collective, not private. God does not make private deals with each of us. God calls us into the communion of saints, into the saved people of God. There is a trap you can slip into when you start talking about accepting Jesus as your “personal Savior”. While each of us must come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, that relationship must take us somewhere and give us a new identity. In other words, it can’t stop there: that relationship must awaken us to the reality of the risen Christ, who lives in Communion with us as church, as Christ’s Body. It is always about covenant. In the words Jesus spoke at the Supper, he was establishing a new and eternal covenant with us renewed again and again when we gather together to re-member what has been dismembered; and celebrate the promise that he would remain with us forever.
Covenant is the major theological idea of the Old Testament with roots in agreements made in the ancient near east by peoples creating peace through an exchange of promises of shared obligations and respect. The Old Testament is woven together by stories of Covenant always ratified with a sacrifice that was so profound that it symbolized the radical commitment of the partners concluding with a meal during which the offering was consumed. In the action of Christ, he made himself both a partner in the new covenant and the offering to be consumed. Eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ is a commitment to be nurtured by the kind and quality of life led by Jesus of Nazareth. Eating and drinking this offering, this sacrifice makes us one in Christ. It is what establishes us as Church which is why it is not a snack, it is not fast – food, nor can it be private. It is about what we are becoming here and about becoming one with all in every age and every place who stand in this tradition.
This feast leads us to reflect upon all the Sacraments of the Church which in some ways are all covenants shaping our lives and relationships. In every case, the initiative comes from God and our celebration of the sacraments is our commitment and becomes our response. Marriage is a perfect example. As I said to a couple who stood before this altar yesterday, “It’s not about you. You did not choose one another. The first choice was made by God. Celebrate that choice today.” People who live in mutual love give each other their whole lives, their whole selves as Jesus gave us his body and blood out of love. It is the sacrament and covenant I have found in Holy Orders. You can’t do this halfway. It is the covenant we embrace at Baptism, and the covenant that binds the sick to us with the promise of eternal life. It is the covenant promise and gift of forgiveness we celebrate in Reconciliation.
If, as I said last week, the Feast of the Trinity brings us into the mystery of who we are made in the image and likeness of God. Then so does this feast bring us into Communion. This Communion is the source of our holiness and the reason for which we were created: to be in union with God and all creation. Instead of a reluctant minimal, occasional and convenient presence, we ought to be awestruck at what God has begun here and called us to become. If we really understand and believed, what happens here would not be casual or occasional. If we got it, we would never be late, never think of leaving early, and never think of anything more important. It is God who reaches out to us here sometimes while we’re headed to the restroom. It is God who looks for us at this table when we stay in bed or find every puny excuse for our absence.
Love without sacrifice is a shallow emotion of sentimentality. Faith without lived commitment is an idea, not a way of life. Communion without the reality of belonging and living in unity is a snack from which we can come and go when we’re in the neighborhood. We have to get beyond the matter of bread and wine and immerse ourselves in the real life of flesh and blood. God’s commitment to us was not convenient, occasional, nor simply symbolic. It was total, lasting, and forever. This covenant is about mutual sacrifice and mutual love among those who accept and affirm the agreement and the promise. It cannot be one sided and be true. The reality of this is breath taking, the power of this is beyond imagination, the consequence of this covenant destroys death itself and gives what this world and all its science cannot give: Life everlasting, Joy eternal. Peace forever.