The Meaning of Holy Communion

Sermon, Maundy Thursday 2009—The Rev. Scott Homer
In the Name of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is, of course, Holy Week. And this is, of course, Maundy Thursday. It came to be known as Maundy Thursday during the late Middle Ages. “Maundy” is a Middle English word derived from the Latin word “mandate” which means “command.” It is where we get our word “mandate.” The thing that makes tonight Maundy Thursday is that the night before he died for us our Lord Jesus Christ held a dinner with his disciples and at that dinner he said to them, “I give you a new commandment (a new maundy), that you love one another.” So Maundy Thursday is the day when Jesus gave the commandment to love one another. Remember he said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” But Maundy Thursday has become rather complex over the years. There are many traditions that have grown up around it. Last year on Maundy Thursday we held a footwashing ceremony that reminded us that Jesus taught, by his own example, that we are to humbly serve one another. Sometimes churches hold Seder meals. I know that you have done that here in years past. And the Seder meal reminds us of God’s great act of salvation in the Old Testament—the Passover—when God set his people free from slavery in Egypt and started them on their journey to the Promised Land. We Christians hold Seder meals because they help inform us about the what Jesus was doing at the Last Supper with his disciples.

But, in my experience at least, we don’t talk about this meal that has come down to us, this meal that we call Holy Communion or Eucharist. What about this act of worship that has become such a central part of our community life? What does Scripture teach us about this meal that Jesus inaugurated so many centuries ago and that we will soon celebrate again, here in our day and age?

It is a big part of Christian life—and it doesn’t matter what denomination you look at. This Holy Communion is celebrated by most, if not all, churches in the world. There are a whole variety of theologies that attempt to explain what we are doing and why we are doing it. Some churches have Holy Communion infrequently. Others everyday. Some places celebrate Communion with real bread, in some a pressed wafer, Some places use wine and drink from a common cup. Others use grape juice or drink from individual cups. But in most churches Holy Communion is a consistent feature of worship. Why? And what do we Anglicans teach about its meaning and practice?

As we look at this simple meal called Holy Communion it might be helpful to provide a context—a foundational text that informs our discussion. And I think St. John has provided just the right text in his first letter. In 1 John chapter 4, verse 9, he says, “This is how the love of God was manifested in us—God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” The first thing we need to notice about what John says is the verb tense he uses, and in order to get it you will have to look at the Greek or at a literal translation. More popular translations miss it. (It’s too bad that we don’t teach grammar anymore because grammar is really important to the writers of Scripture and they are giving us very important messages through the way that they say things.) Did you notice that St. John said, “God “has sent” his Son into the world. It isn’t just something that happened long ago. The Son was not only sent. He is still present—that’s what John claims. Secondly, John makes another surprising statement through his use of the conjunction “in.” He makes the audacious claim that the love of God is not manifested “towards us” but that God’s love is actually “in us.” God’s love is not something we experience in the universe around us. God’s love dwells inside us, somehow.

St John wrote this letter many years after Jesus lived, after he died, rose and ascended to heaven. All of those events were long past and so the people to whom John writes are people who have never met Jesus in the flesh, and who never witnessed his resurrection but he writes to them to tell them that the Son of God has come into their world, and is giving them the opportunity to live a redeemed life through his Presence. John is not talking about an abstract God, a conceptual God. John is pointing to a God who is real and present in the life of his people, present in tangible ways.

So, John tells people far removed from the events described in the Scriptures that even for us, God’s love is in us—not directed towards us. And he says, Jesus is in our midst, not someone who visited and vanished in ancient times. But how? How are you and I, living in twenty-first century America, able to experience God’s love within us or come to rest in Christ’s presence in our midst? In what way is Christ really present to us, in the here and now?

Sometimes things are not what they appear to be. For example, on the negative side, an “attractive nuisance” is something which compels people to come towards it and then, instead of being a good thing it turns out to be a bad thing. An unattended swimming pool may appeal to a child as a fun place to play but it may very well become a drowning pool for that child. A dog with a wagging tail may draw us towards it with the promise of friendship but then snarl and snap and injure us instead. On the positive side, I am sure that you have known people who look like a snarling dog from a distance and yet when you get to know them they are amongst the kindest and gentlest souls you have ever met. Perhaps you have tentatively opened the door to a dark and empty house only to have the lights thrown on and a crowd of people yell, “surprise.” You have not come home to be alone, you have come home to a party. Things are not always what they appear to be. And when that happens with God, when God presents us with something that is much more than it outwardly appears to be, we call that a sacrament. A sacrament is something that appears one way, but its effect on us, the impact that it has on our lives is quite a different thing.

This meal that we will be sharing in a few minutes is a sacrament. It is more than it appears to be. It appears to be little pressed wafers and a goblet full of Port wine but Jesus tells us that it is his body and his blood given for us.

Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
Some may argue that this meal is just a remembrance of his precious death and glorious resurrection—just a memorial to the events that happen long, long ago and far, far away. Indeed Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22.19 and 1 Cor. 11.24) No Eucharist would be complete with remembering His death, proclaiming his resurrection and awaiting his coming again in glory but this, in itself, is an insufficient explanation. Holy Communion is a memorial but it is much more than that.

Jesus told his disciples, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
In the Gospel of John, chapter 6 the people are demanding an outward sign from Jesus. They want Jesus to prove he is the Son of God. They say, “in the old days God sent bread from heaven.” And Jesus responds by saying "…the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world. Jesus says to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” And he does not want to leave them the option of thinking that he speaks metaphorically, (“O he is just saying he is like the bread that comes down from heaven.”) Just to make sure they understand that he literally means what he is saying, he says to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” Now, please don’t get wrapped around this old worn argument, “O that’s transubstantiation! Those nasty Catholics believe in that!” That is not the point. None of us have anyway of knowing how this works—and we don’t need to understand. (That’s the problem with Transubstantiation. It creates a doctrine to explain what cannot be explained and then requires it as a point of faith.) What is important is that Jesus makes it crystal clear that he is really present to us, somehow or another he really does come down from heaven, just like the manna fell in the wilderness, and God really does come to dwell in us and work through us when we receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. Jesus is alive! He comes into our midst—God’s love dwells within us—every time we receive Holy Communion in faith. We are not alone. We don’t have to despair. We are not living in a world far removed from the source of grace. Christ is with us, literally, in the breaking of the bread.

Jesus said, “A new command I give you, love one another.”
There is a final important piece to this great mystery we call Holy Communion. We need to touch on it as well. Holy Communion is a memorial meal in which we rehearse the saving acts of God in the lives of his people. It really is a memorial. Holy Communion is the means by which Jesus conveys himself, in the here and now, into the lives of his people. We truly eat his flesh and blood. And Jesus really did give a new commandment as he was inaugurating this meal. He really did say, “A new command I give you, love one another.” And then he passed out the bread and the wine and he said, “Share this amongst you.” Share my body and blood as a perpetual way of bringing love into the center of your community. Holy Communion is not just a remembering in the sense of memory. It is remembering in the sense of bringing back together a disjointed and divided body. When we come to the Altar of God scattered Christians are reunited and we become one body—the Body of Christ. Did you know that if a priest doesn’t hear at least two people say amen at the end of the Eucharistic prayer that the priest is not supposed to administer the sacrament to you—this is not about “I believe.” This is about “We believe.” This is not about “I receive Jesus Christ.” This is about “We receive Jesus Christ,” and together we come before the throne of grace, together we demonstrate our love for God as we demonstrate our love for one another. And together we have the capacity to truly love one another because Christ first loved us and gave himself as a sacrifice for us. We receive him in order that we may receive one another.

Friends, we have come this Maundy Thursday evening to remember the events of Christ’s final days. As Martha prays the Eucharist tonight you will hear the story told once more. Once more we will look upon Jesus’ extreme humility by which the unblemished Lamb of God gave himself sacrificed himself to death in order to restore us to life. Tonight we will, again, receive the enormous gift of God’s gracious love dwelling within us as He makes himself present to us in the body and blood of his Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Tonight, through Christ’s loving presence we will be knit back together into one body, the body of Christ, and together we will give witness to the world that, truly, this Jesus is the Son of God.

Come let us adore him. Amen.