Branded: Doing Our Part in Communion

Branded: Doing Our Part in Communion
January 29, 2012
Franktown United Methodist Church

Jesus was sitting down at a table at the home of a leader of the Pharisees. Now there's something you don't see every day. Does it surprise you to hear that about Jesus? Jesus was sitting at a table to eat a meal with some Pharisees. That's a little disturbing, isn't it? I mean Jesus had some pretty harsh things to say about Pharisees. You remember that he's the one who said, "Woe unto you Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut up the kingdom of heaven against people. Woe unto you, Pharisees, you devour the houses of widows! Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. (Matthew 23:27 KJV) You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell? (Matthew 23:33 KJV)" Other than that, I don't see any reason why this scene seems strange.

But there he is. Jesus and the Pharisees. Sitting around the table sharing a meal. And somebody gets a little too exuberant in the crowd. Somebody is overcome by the sight of these two parties together. This person thinks its a sign that bipartisanship is going to break out. Maybe he's had a little too much wine. At any rate, this guy yells out, "How happy are those who will sit down to feast at the kingdom of God!"

Jesus hears the man. Who couldn't? He yelled it out. But he doesn't say, "Yeah, it's going to be great." And he doesn't call him out by saying, "Hey, don't get your hopes up just because I'm breaking bread with these whited sepulchres." No, he responds with a parable, the point of which seems to be that the table is open, but you've got to want to come.

A man had a feast, a great feast. And he invited people to come. But everyone had an excuse for why they couldn't come. "Oh, you know I just bought some property and I've got to go look after it." Oh, you know, I just got married." "Oh, you know, I just bought some cows." They wouldn't come. So the man sends his servants out in the streets of the town to invite the poor, the lame, the outcasts. And they come, but there is still more room. So he sends them out into the countryside to gather whomever they can. But he is most disturbed with those who wouldn't come. Those who were invited initially will not taste the meal.

Today we're continuing our Branded series. We've been looking at things that mark us as Christians and we spent two weeks looking at baptism. Next week we'll begin to talk about ministry and the various forms of ministry God's people get involved in. But last week and this week we are talking about communion, the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist.

Last week I spent a lot of time interacting with John Wesley's sermon, "The Duty of Constant Communion." Wesley laid out the case for why we ought to come to the table. Why we ought not to neglect Jesus' command to 'do this to remember me." But today I want to talk about what our part in communion is. The meal is God's gift. But what we do with it is something else. And Jesus' story about the feast makes it clear that we can accept the invitation or not.

I mentioned last week that I had put out a question on Facebook asking for people to give me their reflections on communion and I shared one last week. Other people wrote about the great appreciation they have for the meal. Margaret Holland wrote to say that "It reminds me that God is the host of the party and all are invited to eat, reflect, and pray." It remind me of that guy at the feast. It's a party. Everyone is invited.

Skeeter Armstrong said, "For me it is a means of grace that allows us to put aside our differences and gather around the tables as the family of God knowing that, no matter how sinful we are or feel, that all is forgiven and we can begin again to become more Christ-like." It's a time to begin again. To confess our sins. To reconcile with one another. To become more Christ-like.

Debbie Bridges said something similar. She said, God's "grace and calming is transmitted to my body and soul telling me yet again - try to be, to do, to work harder and you will be a better Christian." Grace that leads to action.

There is an ethical side to communion. It is a party and it frees us and then it moves us be something for the world. Last week we talked about coming to the table, but today I want to talk about what it means to leave the table.

The other scripture that we have for today is from Paul's first letter to the Corinthian Christians. Some people will talk about this passage as the place where Paul lays out a 'theology' of communion. But really Paul is not doing that. Paul assumes that the Corinthians know what communion is. He's just trying to straighten out their practice of it. Because...as we mentioned last week...the Corinthians were taking communion unworthily.

Last week we talked about how some people will use this passage as an excuse not to receive communion because they are afraid they are not worthy to receive it. Wesley responded in his sermon that the problem for the Corinthians is not that they were unworthy. Wesley takes that as a given. We're all unworthy. The problem was the manner in which they received communion. The Corinthians, he said, were "taking the holy Sacrament in such a rude and disorderly way that one was 'hungry, and another drunken.'"*

But it was more than just a rowdy party. The community was neglecting its form, what it was supposed to look like. One New Testament scholar, Peter Lampe, says that the early Christian practice of communion was probably something akin to a potluck dinner. People would bring food and share what they had. But the problem was that the richer Corinthians, who had more food to bring, were not waiting for others before breaking into the food. So people were going hungry while others were getting out of hand.** What kind of community was this?

So Paul reminds them what the dinner is all about. He reminds them that the origin of the meal was in Christ's last meal with the disciples. Jesus was thinking about his death on the cross when he told them, "This is my body." He was thinking about his death when he said, "This is my blood." So now, Paul says, "This means that every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." (1 Corinthians 11:26 GNT)

You proclaim the Lord's death. Now there is an undeniable joy when we come to this table. We are tasting heaven. We are experiencing communion with the saints. We are entering the kingdom of heaven. We should be shouting, with that guy in the Pharisee's house, "Happy are those who feast in the kingdom of God!" But we are proclaiming Jesus' death. Our connection is not only with the risen Christ who will bring all things to final victory, but also with the Christ who knew the suffering of this world and who stood by the weak. As Paul says at the beginning of 1 Corinthians, "I proclaim Christ, and him crucified."

So the way that we eat this meal says something about what Christ is doing in the world. And how we live as people who share this meal says something about what Christ is doing in the world. As Lampe says:
"In the Eucharist, the death of Jesus Christ is not made present and 'proclaimed' (11:26) only by the sacramental acts of breaking bread and of drinking wine from one cup.  In the Eucharist, Christ's death is not proclaimed only by the liturgical words that accompany the sacramental acts.  No, in the Eucharist, Christ's death is also proclaimed and made present by means of our giving ourselves up to others.  Our love for others represents Christ's death to other human beings. Only by actively loving and caring for others does the participant in the Eucharist 'proclaim' Christ's death as something that happened for others."***

That's why I say that perhaps the most important part of communion is what happens when you leave this table. If we only come to this table to be reminded of what God has done for us...if I only come to be reminded of what God has done for me...then I have not gone far enough. This is where the Branded series takes a very important turn. While we receive God's claim on our lives...while we respond and accept God's claim on our lives...our journey does not end there. Unless we then turn out to the world and express with our own lives the other-directed love of God, then we have turned the gospel into a pat on the back, a massage at the spa, and a cozy spot by the fire. The gospel took Jesus to fishing boats and sick people. The gospel led him to sit at the table and to eat meals with Pharisees.

It's not wrong that its our neediness that leads us to church or to God. We all have deep needs. We may come to find that they're not needs worth having, as Will Willimon said, but we do have them and they open us up to God. But if the only reason we keep coming to church is to have our own needs cradled and cuddled, then we have not truly been broken open by God. We are not proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. We are simply proclaiming our continuing need to be at the center.

The first step in gospel healing is to know that we are loved. That is absolutely true. For many of us, this is the greatest breakthrough we have to make. But that healing is only effective if we learn how to love ourselves. To have the opportunity to love another person and to love God is to become truly human. Communion opens us up so that we can go on to love.

Yesterday we celebrated the life of a remarkable woman in this sanctuary. Laura Dennis was a huge part of the life of this congregation. She was a giant, even though she only stood so high. She was a leader because she knew how to love. She loved her family. She loved her church. And she loved the world. As I mentioned in the service yesterday, she was pushing UNICEF boxes just a few years ago. She was making a list of needs for residents at Heritage Hall even when she was one of those residents.

Laura Dennis is at this table. She is able to shout today, "How happy are those who feast at the table in the kingdom of God!" But she can do that because she ate at this table in the not-quite kingdom of God and was nourished on the food that Jesus provides.

So come to the table. Let it remind you who you are. Let it form you into a servant of Christ. So that you can proclaim Christ's death and Christ's power and Christ's love. Thanks be to God.

*John Wesley, "The Duty of Constant Communion," in This Holy Mystery: A United Methodist Understanding of Holy Communion by Gayle Carlton Felton, [Discipleship Resources: Nashville, 2006], pp. 67-68.
**Peter Lampe, "The Eucharist: Identifying with Christ on the Cross," Interpretation magazine, Vol. XLVIII, No. 1, Jan. 1994, p. 41. I am grateful to Brooke Willson for putting me onto this investigation with his observations on 1 Corinthians 11.
***ibid., p. 45

Branded: The Duty of Constant Communion

So here we are in week 3 of our new worship series - entitled "Branded." In this series we are talking about the things that brand Christians as a distinctive people. Things that Christians do that nobody else does and that Christians all do - whether we are United Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, or Catholics.

We spent the last two weeks talking about baptism - what it means that God claims us from before we are born. What it means that we claim the God who claims us. What it means that "You will die" to sin when you go through the waters of baptism. And what it means to walk with Christ as a baptized sinner.

Today, though, I want to turn for two weeks to something we spent a lot of time on last year as we came out of Lent. I want to talk about communion. Now I realize that we are walking on some sensitive ground here because last year we moved from a practice of having communion on first Sundays and special Sundays to having communion just about every Sunday. And it may have been one of the biggest changes to worship that has happened here in a long, long time.

Last May, after we had been having communion for about 6 months, I asked for some responses. Many of those responses were very appreciative. “It has changed my experience of worship,” one person said. I guess that could go either way!

“I realized that it didn’t become less special but more special when we had communion every week,” said another.

Somebody else said, “For all the doctrines, dogmas, liturgies and allegories associated with Christianity, only communion is a true connection to the presence of Jesus.”

And then there's this one - “Surprisingly it has made communion more precious and helps me to remember every day we should be thankful for God’s grace – noticing the ordinary and not taking anything or anyone for granted.  I love it!”

But it wasn't all this way. Some folks said that they didn't like having it every Sunday. For some it just didn't feel right. It felt less special. They worried that other parts of the service, like the sermon, might get less attention because of time concerns. They liked the rhythm of communion once a month and felt like the words of the ritual might become too familiar, too rote, too mechanical. For some it dredged up old questions about what the clergy are here for. What exactly is Alex doing up there at the table? Why are he and Peter the only ones who break the bread? And what kind of innovation was this? Were we becoming Episcopalian? Or Catholic? How many other United Methodist churches are doing this?

I'll be honest - not a whole lot, even though our denomination as a whole has encouraged the practice of weekly communion. In 2004 we adopted an official study as United Methodists entitled This Holy Mystery which, for the first time, set down our understanding of communion. It encourages churches to move in this direction.

But we are not doing this because the United Methodist Church says to. We are not doing this because I say we have to. I want to revisit this because our feelings and questions about communion are very important. And I don't want to discount any negative feelings about the way we are doing communion because they say that something significant is going on. Something we value is being touched on. And I don't want to use fancy theology to convince you that you shouldn't feel the way that you do - or that you should. I do want you, however, to pay attention to those feelings and questions and give them serious examination.

And who better to do serious examination of our souls than John Wesley?

Now John Wesley is an important figure for Methodists because he was really the first one of us. He was a preacher, a writer, a campus minister, and a world-class organizer. When people threw the slur at him that he had a method for everything, he took it as a compliment, and when they went on to call him a Methodist, he took that as the name for his new movement.

It was a movement, not a church. Wesley was an Anglican priest in 18th century England. His father was an Anglican priest. He saw what he was doing as a renewal movement for his church, which was spiritually dead and morally bankrupt. But he gave his blessing to the American Methodists forming their own church after the American Revolution. And after he died, the British Methodists formed their own denomination, too.

O.K., O.K. - but what did John Wesley believe about communion? Well, he believed that we have a duty of constant communion. Not frequent communion. Not once a month communion. Not high holy days communion. He was a stickler for constant communion. And why did he believe that? Because Jesus said, in the gospel reading which we had from Luke for today, as he celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples, that his followers should "do this in remembrance of me." Do we have some hand motions for this?

Now remember this, because what I'm going to do now is to give you some pieces from John Wesley's sermon entitled, "The Duty of Constant Communion," and let you see how he thought about this question, because you will see that the issues have not really changed. But the theme that runs through the whole sermon is "Do this in remembrance of me."

The sermon starts with this paragraph and it's a bad opening paragraph because it's the best paragraph in the whole sermon. You really shouldn't show off your best stuff in the first paragraph. But that's what he does and what he says is:
"'Do this in remembrance of me.' It is no wonder that men who have no fear of God should never think of doing this.  But it is strange that it should be neglected by any that do fear God and desire to save their souls; yet nothing is more common.  One reason why many neglect it is, they are so much afraid of 'eating and drinking unworthily,' that they never think how much greater the danger is when they do not eat or drink it at all.'*

There are two scripture references here. One is Jesus' command from the gospel. The other is a quote from 1 Corinthians in which Paul warned the Corinthians about their conduct at the communion table. That command about "eating and drinking unworthily" gets used sometimes as a reason for not taking communion. But we'll get to that.

Harry Kennon, who is a retired pastor in our conference, quoted this on Facebook this week when I asked for some responses about communion and he said, "Ironically, some seem afraid of grace and forgiveness more than sin." Wow.

So John Wesley goes on to look at what this command to "Do this in remembrance of me" looks like. First he looks at why we should do this. And his first reason is a good one - because Jesus commands it. And secondly, he says, the mercy we experience in communion is good for us. That mercy is forgiveness of our sins and nourishment and strengthening of our souls. Why would we not want that?

Thirdly, it lets us leave our sins behind so that we are free to move on to perfection. Fourthly, the ancient Christians did it and the whole Church did it for many centuries - four times a week at least plus holy days. In fact the early church had a rule against coming to prayers and not taking communion. Fifthly, the Gospels and Paul's letters show that the practice was not just a show, but an outward sign of an invisible grace. Something really happens in communion. Something inside us.

So there are all sorts of good reasons to receive communion, not least of which is the command to "do this in remembrance of me."


Then Wesley gets into the objections to constant communion. In the first objection he imagines a person saying, "Yeah, but where does it say that I should do this constantly?" Wesley thinks this is a slippery slope. If we get into the business of determining when to selectively apply the commands of God we will have all sorts of excuses. We can say, for instance, "Well, yes, God commands me to take care of my parents but I did that once." If we have the opportunity to obey God's commands we should do that whenever we have the opportunity.

So there is the duty aspect of this thing. But there is also the mercy aspect of this thing. If God is handing out grace and mercy, why would you take advantage of it? God wants us to be happy, God knows that we can't be truly happy using our own means, so God gives us these means. Why would you refuse that offer of grace? And then Wesley goes back to his main theme - But even if you didn't get anything from it, it's still a command from God.

"O.K., O.K., but let's go back to that passage in 1 Corinthians where it says, 'whoever eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation upon themselves.' I'm not worthy so I won't go forward."

Wesley, in effect, says to this objection, "You are always going to be unworthy, so if you are never going to reach out and receive God's mercy because you are unworthy, how will you ever be saved? Unworthiness goes with the territory when you are human beings. And on top of that - the command is to "Do this in remembrance of me" and so what you are saying is that you are going to disobey God's command because of your unworthiness which only makes you more unworthy. And on top of all this, Paul is not saying that unworthy people shouldn't go to communion. He is saying that when people go to communion they should not eat and drink unworthily. The problem was that the early Christians were getting rowdy and drunk at the communion meal. That is not an issue in most churches today.

"O.K., O.K., well, what if I have fallen into some sin lately or committed some crime?"" Well, you should repent, but don't add to your sin by failing to come to receive grace.

"O.K., O.K., well, what if I'm too busy to properly prepare to come to communion. What if my business prevents me from doing the self-examination and soul-searching I ought to do?" Wesley says, if you're too busy to do the work of your soul you are "unpreparing" yourself for heaven. Don't act like it takes an act of congress to get ready for communion. This is the way he puts it: "No business can hinder you from this, unless it be such as hinders you from being in a state of salvation.  If you resolve and design to follow Christ, you are fit to approach the Lord's table.  If you do not design this, you are only fit for the table and company of devils."

Now we get to the big objection - "Well, I don't want to take communication too often because it may 'abate my reverence' for it." 'Abate my reverence' for it is 18th century language for 'it will get to be rote and I may not get that feeling I like to get.

Wesley goes back to his theme - The command says, "Do this is in remembrance of me," not "Do this in remembrance of me unless it abates your reverence."

"But I've been going to communion constantly and I'm not experiencing the benefits I expected." I bet you can guess Wesley's response. Even if you don't experience any benefits, God commands it. And even if you don't feel it, on some unfelt level you are receiving the benefits of grace even if your don't yet see the effects. God may yet give you eyes to see what all this constant communion will bring.

Now, I admit that Wesley can be a little rigid. You can come out of a sermon like this and think that the one line summary of it is something like, "What part of 'Do this in remembrance of me' don't you understand?"

But here's why I think Wesley and Jesus ought to be heard: Because like every good mystery they have to be lived to be understood. You can't explain what parenthood is all about until you've gone through childbirth or colic or nightmares or potty training or adolescence or graduation. You can't explain what love is after the first kiss or the wedding vows or the many years of companionship and trials. You can't explain what a calling is like or a profession. You can throw words at it, but you just have to give yourself to it.

I get the nervousness about communion. I really do. I feel it myself. When I stand here I want to feel the immense mystery of it all. I don't want to let it just pass by. And does my mind sometimes wander as come back to the old familiar words that I can say in my sleep? It does. Do I sometimes feel unworthy to stand here in this place and say these words? Often. But one of the most powerful things I have even done as a pastor is to take a loaf of bread and to break it and to see your faces through the broken halves of bread. To share that bread with you. To receive that bread from you. To know that the life of Christ which was poured out for you and for me is present in some way that goes far beyond me and what's going on with me that day.

In my sermons on communion last year I said this, but I'll close with these words again today. I preside at this table so that you can preside at every other table in this whole, blessed, God-hungry world. I preside here to remind you that you dare not neglect God's presence out there. You come here because Jesus' commands you, but you go there because Jesus' commands you, too.

Your behavior out there is a testimony to what this bread here means. Don't forget that people are hungry for bread, hungry for grace, hungry for love, hungry for justice, hungry for a new day and they don't know where to find it, but you have been to the table. You know where the bread is. And you know how to give it. Don't you forget that this bread is a promise of what God is doing in this world.

You don't need an advanced degree or the bishop's hands on your head to break a loaf of bread. But unless you're feeding regularly at a table where you are reminded that the bread you hold is heaven on earth, then you will start to lose the ability to see that every other morsel of food you take in your hands is a sign of grace. My calling tells me to feed people in the name of Jesus, so that you can feed people in the name of Jesus until the kingdom comes. And the duty we respond in eating here is constant. Just like the love that brought us here. Constant. Thanks be to God.

*All quotations from Wesley's sermon are from the reprint in This Holy Mystery: A United Methodist Understanding of Holy Communion, Gayle Carlton Felton, [Discipleship Resources: Nashville, 2005], pp. 65-70.

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.

We Join Their Unending Hymn

It's springtime. I know the calendar says that it's only February. And I know the temperature is still a little chilly. We may even have another snowstorm before it's all said and done. But it's springtime. Do you know how I know?

Somewhere in Arizona this afternoon, a group of men will go out on a green field. They'll cross some chalked lines that mark the edges of the playing area. They'll put a leather glove on one hand and pound their fists in it. They'll toss a ball from one pillowed base to another and then give it to a man on a raised pile of dirt. They'll put their hands on their knees and crouch down to give their full attention to what's going to happen at the point where the chalked lines intersect. The pitcher will throw the ball. A man with a bat will try to hit it. And the spring training season will officially begin for the Texas Rangers.

It's going to be an interesting year for the Rangers. They made it to the World Series last year. The best year they've ever had. But one of the pitchers that helped them get there, Cliff Lee, has gone to play for Philadelphia. They picked up Brandon Webb to replace him in the rotation but he hasn't pitched for two years basically because of injuries and nobody knows if he still has his stuff. He's going to pitch off the mound for the first time this afternoon. Mike Young, who has played for the Rangers longer than anybody else - the all-time hits leader for the club - is unhappy because he is being relegated to the role of designated hitter and backup infielder. He's showing some age but he's still the leader in the clubhouse.

Lots of question marks for the Rangers. But for every club there are questions. On the first day of spring training it's all about possibilities. The story of this season is all yet to be written. All the frustrations and disappointments of last year are gone. There is something eternally new about walking out onto that field.

Just like it was for Tyler Webb last weekend when he began the season for South Carolina and won his first game. Just like it will be for all those little league teams over at Randy Custis Park.

I know you've got a former pastor here, Brooke Willson, who used to think that all of life's questions could be answered by reference to the movie Field of Dreams, but it is a good movie and it captures something essential about baseball's appeal. It shows how baseball can connect us to the past and how giving attention to it can touch something deep in our souls. In the movie, an Iowa farmer hears a voice that leads him to convert a section of his cornfield into a baseball diamond. The field he creates becomes a place where people with unresolved issues, both living and dead, can come together and work them out through baseball.

In one scene the farmer's dad, who had died, comes back as one of those ballplayers who had never really had a chance to play out his dreams. He comes and meets Ray, his son, the farmer. Doesn't recognize him because he comes back as a young man. He looks at Ray and the field and says, "Is this heaven?"

"It's Iowa," Ray responds.

"Iowa? I could have sworn it was heaven," he says as he begins to walk away and collect his equipment.

Ray follows him and says, "Is there a heaven?"

"Oh, yeah. It's the place where dreams come true."

Ray turns and sees his wife and daughter playing together on the porch and says, "Maybe this is heaven."

There's a lot of sentimentalism that has crept into how we think about baseball. The mythology gets laid on pretty thick. When we watch players with multimillion-dollar salaries, it's hard to get at what's pure about the game. And to think of a ball field as heaven is a little much. But there is something about the idea of being able to sense, to touch, to feel, to smell a connection to something larger than ourselves when we go to the ball field that is very attractive. It is like touching heaven on earth.

In the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity, that's part of the belief about what happens when you enter the sanctuary. When you do that you are not just entering a space like any other space - you are entering the kingdom. You are experiencing God's presence on earth. You're touching heaven.

I've been thinking a lot about heaven lately. I suppose you do as you get older and as you have loved ones die. No one has been there and come back. Although, maybe we have glimpses in stories like 90 Minutes in Heaven. But what it is, what it looks like, is only given to us in images. The Bible talks about gates of pearl and streets of gold. It is a place where all that has been lost is restored, where those who have died in faith will continue to live. It is so much more than "a place where dreams come true." That makes it sound like Disney World. It is a place, above all else, filled with the presence of God.

One of the most enduring images of heaven is that it is a place where we will gather with loved ones at a table. Did you hear in the gospel lesson from Luke today how Jesus talks about the Last Supper that he shared with his disciples? He is gathered together with them for the last time to eat a meal together. And he tells them that he has "earnestly desired" to eat this Passover dinner with them. It was not just an instructional meal for them. It wasn't merely that he was doing things that he had to do before going to the cross. We rarely get a glimpse into Jesus' thoughts, but here he tells us that he desires to eat with them.

Then he goes on to tell them that he will not eat the meal again until he shares it in the kingdom. Think about what that means. It means that the Last Supper does not have to be the last supper. It means that though everything else about life after death may change, gathering around a table to share a meal seems to go on. There is something eternal about the table, something that makes the meals we share in the here and now a taste of what is to come.

So Jesus takes the cup (in Luke's version he takes the cup before and after the bread) and he says, "Divide this among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Then he takes the bread and shares it and they can remember what he has said, "For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

We talk about communion as a memorial meal - a time to remember what Christ has done for us. It is that. But it is also a foretaste and a promise of what is to come for those who believe. When we eat it we begin to participate in the kingdom which is already emerging into this tired, old world. We can begin to see that God is present even when it feels like we're all alone. We can begin to look at even Iowa and believe that it can be a glimpse of heaven.

This week I had a long discussion with someone about why it is that clergy are the ones in our tradition who preside at the table. (That's what you call it when Peter or I stand at the table - presiding. You might also called us celebrants, which makes it sound like we're at a party.) But it's a good question. A long-standing question, especially for Protestants like us Methodists. If we really believe in the priesthood of all believers, that God has given us all equal access to God's grace, why is it that the role of who stands at the table is reserved for the clergy? Have you ever thought about that?

The reason for it is because it gives me something to do. There are many places to serve in Christ's Church. We all have gifts. It's one of the reasons we did the mission fair a few weeks ago, to help us see where our gifts meet the needs of the world. But the particular role of clergy is a calling to Word, Sacrament, Order and Service. Proclaiming the Word, ordering the life for the congregation, serving the people in this place, and administering the sacraments - baptism & communion. And the reason why we have clergy to do it is so that every time we come to the table, someone who has given herself or himself to the study of the scriptures, who is grounded in the story of Christ's life, death and resurrection, who has been examined by the Church and authorized to be a representative of the larger body of Christ, will ensure that the story is faithfully told and that the sacrament is faithfully enacted.

That's the long version. The short version is that I preside at this table so that you can preside at every other table in this whole, blessed, God-hungry world. I preside here to remind you that you dare not neglect God's presence out there. Don't you forget, as soon as you walk out the door of this building, that Jesus died not just for the people in here but for everyone you meet. Don't you forget that your behavior out there is a testimony to what this bread here means. Don't you forget that people are hungry for bread, hungry for grace, hungry for love, hungry for justice, hungry for a new day and they don't know where to find it, but you have been to the table. You know where that bread is. And you know how to give it. Don't you forget that this bread is a promise of what God is going to do.

You don't need an advanced degree or the bishop's hands on your head to break a loaf of bread. But unless you are feeding regularly at a table where you are reminded that the bread you hold is heaven on earth, then you will start to lose the ability to see that every other morsel of food you take in your hands, even if it's a Twinkie, is a sign of grace. My calling tells me to feed people in the name of Jesus, so that you can feed people in the name of Jesus, until the kingdom comes.

In her book Take This Bread, Sara Miles talks about her frustration at why only the clergy in her Episcopal church can preside at the table, but then she tells this story. She talks about how she was delivering groceries for people in need in her neighborhood as part of her calling as a Christian. She is passing a bag of groceries in to a woman named Ruth through Ruth's open bedroom window. Behind her she hears a noise and turns to see a "skinny middle-aged guy in an old overcoat" darting behind a nearby building. It's Ruth's son who is a thief and constantly in trouble. Ruth cries as she tells Sara his story and Sara cries with her.

"All of a sudden, the words I sang every day at morning prayer echoed in my head. "Send out your light and your truth, that they may guide us and lead us to your holy hill and to your dwelling." I felt dizzy. This was God's holy hill: the Hill. And that apartment, with the broken tricycle out front, next to Ruth's? That was God's dwelling. God lived right there, in that actual apartment. God lived in Ruth's hands.

"What had I been thinking by praying those words without really paying attention? They were real. Above me, above the projects and Ruth's tears, above the wrecked roofs and broken doors and every mistake I'd ever made in my life, was the dark sky, luminous in the east. And in my hands were some Cheerios, some lettuce, and a loaf of bread."*

At this table we've got bread and juice. Out there you've got some Cheerios, some lettuce, maybe a pepperoni pizza. You've got your hands, your feet, your amazing body with all of its strength and all of its frailty. And maybe when you're out there among the wrecked roofs and broken doors of the world you will hear the echo of words that have been spoken at this table. These Cheerios, this lettuce, these hands - make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, so that we can be for the world Christ's body redeemed by his blood. By your Spirit, make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry, until Christ's comes again and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

Something profound happens at this table. You get to touch heaven. And then you get to touch earth. And somehow the distance between them is as thin as tissue. Thanks be to God.

*Sara Miles, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, [New York: Ballantine Books, 2010], p. 196.

As We Proclaim the Mystery

I'm not a scientist and I have a difficult time describing ordinary things that have perfectly logical scientific explanations. Scientists can explain all the processes that produce rockets and rocket fuel. To me - it's a mystery. Somebody, maybe even at Verizon, can explain how telephones work. To me - it's a mystery. My kids can figure out the TV remote. To me - it's a mystery. Post-it notes? It's a mystery. Justin Beiber? It's a mystery.

So this week I went looking for some answers to one of those mysteries. Peter and I have started this sermon series about communion and the themes of Holy Communion. Two weeks ago I started by talking about the ways that the theme of sacrifice is incorporated into the meal. Last week Peter talked about thanksgiving, both the holiday and the ways that we give thanks through the meal.

Today I want to talk about mystery and there's one big mystery right up front. How does bread happen? Humans have been making it for centuries, but how do they do it? And what's the deal with yeast? Where does it come from? So I went on a little journey....

[video of the Yellow Duck]

So what I learned from spending time with Beth was several things:
1) Making bread is an art that requires all of your senses. There may be a recipe and the things that you put in it may be defined, but did you catch what Beth said about when to do things? She knows the sponge, the starter, is ready when it starts to smell. And sure enough, when I went back after those seven hours that the sponge sat, it had this wonderfully strong yeasty smell. She also said that she knows when to stop kneading when the dough feels right - somewhere on that fine line between too sticky and too dry, when it feels like "the skin of an old person." It's a matter of smell, sight, touch, and eventually taste. She is a great baker because she has learned to pay attention over the course of many, many loaves of bread.

2) Secondly, making bread is itself a spiritual practice. Beth talked about the joy she gets from taking simple ingredients - just four things - and turning them into something that she can share with others. She talked about kneading the dough with her hands gave her enjoyment. She ends up by saying, "It makes me feel good so it must be spiritual." The experience of it - the physicality of it - the embodiment of doing something that can't be done in an instant over a computer but has to be done over time, with actual physical stuff, and which produces an effect in your body and in the world - this makes making bread a powerful thing.

3) Finally, she said that for all of her experience, (and Beth has been doing this since she had a Barbie oven as a child), making bread is still a mystery for her. The reason I asked Beth to do this with me is that I have heard her talking about bread and wondering about it for a long time. You would think that someone who cooks like this every day would get bored with the process, but she still experiments. She wonders why the same recipe used in the same way by someone else doesn't work. She is still fascinated by how all of those ingredients, even yeast!, somehow come together to produce bread. And she loves what she does.

Jesus appeared to his disciples as they were gathered in a room together. It was after the crucifixion. After Jesus had appeared to two of them on the road to Emmaus and was made known to them, how? - in the breaking of the bread. Now they were gathered again - some believing, some doubting, some not knowing what to believe.

Jesus just showed up in the midst of them. Just out of nowhere. Even a scientist would have a hard time explaining this one. It was a mystery. And the disciples were mostly just terrified. They thought he was a ghost.

Listen to what Jesus does, though. He shows them that he still has a body. We don't have any idea what that resurrected body was like or how it could be...it's a mystery...but Jesus says to the disciples, "Look at my hands and my feet" (the places where the wounds from the crucifixion would still be visible). "Touch me and see. A ghost doesn't have flesh like you see that I have."

Then to seal the deal, he does that thing that every body needs to do - he asks for something to eat. They scare up a broiled fish and he eats it in front of them. It's almost as if Jesus is saying, "When you are scared. When you are doubting. When you find it hard to believe that life overcomes death. When you think I have gone away or that I can't be trusted to do the things I have said I will do. When the holiness and wonder of the world has drained away so that all you have left are your fears - touch me and see. Eat a meal in the presence of others who believe and doubt just as you do." Behold, I tell you a mystery - Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.

This is the mystery of faith. That's what we say in the communion liturgy. And this is a mystery much deeper than yeast. The Greek word that the early church to describe the sacrament of Holy Communion is mystery - or mysterion. It doesn't mean exactly what our word does today. A mystery novel poses a puzzle that you hope will unravel in a satisfying way at the end. All the loose ends will be tied up and you can know the answer. But this mystery is different. In this sacrament God reveals things that are beyond the capacity of human minds to know through reason alone. You can explain to me how post-it notes work and I might eventually get some grasp on it, but the meaning of this communion bread is always going to slip away. And to say that Christ has died, Christ has risen and that Christ will come again is to say something that reorganizes the world in a way I cannot ever fully comprehend.

But we are more than our reason alone. We put a lot of stock in our reason, in our ability to think through things. But we have fallen into the trap of thinking that reason alone is what makes being a human being unique among God's creatures. We are more than that. We have the capacity to know things through our bodies. Our senses tell us that a full moon shining on the fields like last night is a spiritual thing. The flood of memories that came in when we opened our window for the first time after a long, cold winter - that's not reason that told you that was special. The kiss of a lover, the gaze of an infant, the long goodbye when a loved one is leaving on a journey - all of these things don't have weight because of our minds. We know they are mysteries to be attended to.

So we come to the table and we prepare ourselves the best we can. We recite the story of God's saving work. We remember Jesus and his death and sacrifice. And we call the Holy Spirit to make this bread be for us the body of Christ. But then we have to come and look and touch and smell and taste, because there are some things words can't say. Words alone can't tell you how to make good bread. And words alone can't say how fully God loves this world.

What did we learn from Beth? That bread making is an art requiring all your senses. That the physical act of making bread is a spiritual practice. And the more you do it, the more you see, the more you experience. This is why John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, took communion four to five times a week and why he encouraged all of his Methodists to "the duty of constant communion." We worry that it will become less special to do communion more often, but Wesley believed that the reverse was true. The more you do it, the more you experience the mystery, the more you have opportunity to see God in these elements, to experience the presence of Christ.

Finally, we learn that Beth feels that even though she has been making bread for years, it remains a mystery - one that she loves and that she ponders and that she wants to experience even more fully. A mystery novel without a satisfying conclusion leaves us disappointed. This mystery leads us into something so rich and so deep and so filled with the presence of God that to be satisfied is not even the point. When we eat this bread we hunger for more and it is a hunger that taps into the deepest desires of our hearts for peace, for joy, for truth, for wisdom, for love, for God. Thanks be to God.