Do This in Remembrance of Me

This year, I have been meeting with our Montessori classes on Thursdays. We have been singing songs, telling stories, preparing the sanctuary for worship - all kinds of things. This week we got out the palm branches that we used last year for Palm Sunday. They've been drying out in a closet in my office for the last year.

We talked about why we use them on Palm Sunday. You remember this? We wave them as we remember Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem on the way to his crucifixion. The people, including the children, placed branches before his donkey and shouted, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." It was as if they were welcoming a king. But then, by the week's end, Jesus was standing before a crowd that yelled, "Crucify him!"

We'll get to Palm Sunday. It's not that far off. But the practice of many churches is to take the palm branches from the year before and to burn them to make ashes to be used for the Ash Wednesday service that begins Lent. Partly that's because palms make a good ash for the service, ash that doesn't tend to irritate most people's skin. But more so, it's because it is a reminder that the same people who can shout 'Hosanna' can yell 'Crucify him!' We are a sinful people. A forgetful people. And we need reminders of who we are.

That's one of the things I have enjoyed the most about my times with the Montessori children. In the older class we burned the branches and made the ash that we will use this Wednesday night. We touch the stuff. We talk about why we use the stuff. And as we do we create memories that will linger. We will remember the feel of the brittle leaves, dried after a year. We will remember the smell of the smoke as the leaves burned in a coffee can outside. We will remember the smudge of grey on our hands. And through this stuff, God can speak to our senses and to our souls.

Friday, Suzanne and I went to see her great aunt Augusta who is in hospice care in Franklin. Augusta is 98 years old and has been single her whole life. She is the last of her generation and one of the last remaining ties our family has to Southampton County.

After visiting her at the hospital, Suzanne and I went to get some barbecue at the Golden Skillet, which is a place that both of my grandparents loved to go. It's an ugly place inside - seriously in need of a makeover. The outdated furnishings. The grease of many years clings to the ceiling tiles. But the food! In the barbecue and slaw and string beans I was remembering many such meals like that one sat around the tables of family members. In the stuff, God was speaking through my senses and to my soul.

You can see where I'm going with this, can't you? Today we're on the last sermon in our series on communion. Through the last few weeks Peter and I have been talking about the themes that are part of this meal. We talked about sacrifice - the notion that this is not only a representation of Christ's sacrifice but that it also calls us to offer ourselves as a holy and living sacrifice. We talked about thanksgiving, mystery, a foretaste of heaven. And today we end with talking about communion as a memorial meal. What does it mean that we do this in remembrance of Jesus?

There are some traditions within the Christian Church for whom this is the only thing that communion is. These traditions downplay any notion of mystery or Christ's presence in the meal. It is a time to recall the events of the Last Supper that Christ shared with his disciples and to reflect on how the bread and cup represent the life Jesus offers us through his broken body and shed blood.

United Methodists don't go that far. We do believe that Christ is somehow present in the sacraments. We talk about Christ's real presence in the meal and we should expect to meet Christ when we come to the table. If we believed that communion was a memorial meal, then we would probably just do it once a year on the Thursday before Easter. John Wesley, the first Methodist, urged us to do it frequently, weekly.

Having said that, though, communion is a memorial meal. It does connect us to what Jesus did. When we hold the bread in our hands we should hear him saying, "This is my body broken for you." When we drink from the cup we should hear the echo, "Do this in remembrance of me."

How many times had Jesus sat down to eat with his disciples in the time that he was with them? Sometimes they were miraculous meals, as when the four thousand and the five thousand were fed when all that was around were a few loaves and fish. Sometimes they were in the homes of the curious - the house of a Pharisee, the home of friends like Lazarus and his sisters, Mary & Martha, in Zaccheus the tax collector's house. Most of the time, however, they were mundane meals shared on the road. But how many times had they done this and how close had they become?

Will Willimon, now the United Methodist bishop in North Alabama, wrote a book a few years back called Sunday Dinner. In it he talked about how "to be a Christian is not to think long thoughts about noble ideas. To be a Christian is to encounter a person." Specifically, it is to encounter the person of Jesus.

Therefore we must understand Christ the way we understand a person: by spending time with the person; by being respectful and attentive; and by receiving what the person wishes to share, knowing that no matter how well we get to know the person, we cannot possess or control the person. To be with a friend, Jesus or any other, is to be patient and let that friend disclose himself or herself to us in his or her own good time...You already know, in your encounters with persons, that friendship takes time. You must keep at it. You must be ready for long morning coffee breaks, leisurely lunches, times to put down your work and listen, late night telephone calls, and afternoons spent walking along the beach. Friends take time.*

Friendship is not all high, holy moments. It is mundane moments as well. It is a journey through time. But in the stuff of time and meals spent together, memories that endure are made.

That's why the memorial that the Lord's Supper is vibrates with so much meaning. We hold that bread and we remember nails through flesh, crowds shouting love and hate, scared disciples in an upper room, a savior's face weeping for the people for whom he came to die, the grace that comes so undeserved for a forgetful people. We are a forgetful people and we need this bread and this cup to remember.

The gospel lesson for today takes us to the mountaintop with Jesus and three of his disciples. Jesus is praying there with Peter, John, and James when suddenly he is changed before them. His clothes become dazzling white and his face is transfigured. And there beside him are Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets. It's all there on the mountaintop. The past, the present and the future. In case there was any doubt about who Jesus was or what he was going to do, there is this vision given to the disciples. And a voice comes from a cloud that descends on them saying, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

We weren't on that mountain. And we may wish for a vision so clear to help us see the way in a world filled with doubts and confusion. We want to know what God is about. But we do have this meal. We take this bread in our hands and it's all there - past, present and future. Who you are, who God is, and what you will be through God's love.

There is a point of debate among preachers that I've gotten into from time to time. In the Great Thanksgiving, the prayer that we say before communion, when we get to the part that tells about Jesus and the disciples sharing this meal, why don't we break the bread at that point? Some clergy do. It seems to make sense. We're talking about the breaking of the bread at that point.

The reason we don't is because remembering is not only about calling to mind what happened two thousand years ago. It's about remembering that it's still going on - that Christ is still here. So we break the bread just before we share it to say that the Christ we meet is not a figure from history - he's present in the here and now. It's all there in your hands. The savior who loved you before you were born is with you to the end. Spend some time with him this week. Get to know him as you would a friend. It is time well spent. Thanks be to God.

*William H. Willimon, Sunday Dinner: The Lord's Supper and the Christian Life, [The Upper Room: Nashville, 1981], pp. 97-99.