RESURRECTION: RECEIVING THE BREAD
Rev. Gary Paterson
John 6:1-11, 27-35
Luke 24:13-16, 28-31
When I was in the Holy Land I heard a story (Hey… you’re going to be hearing that line many times in the coming months… just give me a small kick if it comes up too often….) I heard a story about an abbot who was in charge of a ancient desert monastery. He was asked what it took to become a monk -- were there special requirements to become a member of the community – only the elderly, or the orthodox, or the Biblically knowledgeable, or… well…? And the abbot replied, “NO, no, no…. first, you simply have to show up and hang out with the community for a while, spend some time, several months, a year, and discover what life here feels like, and whether it’s a fit for you, and you for it.” (Sounds a little bit like becoming a member of a church, doesn’t it, where the first thing to do is to check it out, stay a while, discover what happens, and whether you feel at home.) “But then,” the abbot added, “then I need to sit with them and ask them if they have heard the call of the bridegroom.” The call of the bridegroom… the invitation from Christ, from God… a call into relationship, into a love affair, something passionate, deep, all-encompassing. As if God were crying out, to use the biblical language of the Song of Songs… “Arise my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come…. Arise, my love, my fair one and come away… Oh my beloved is mine and I am my beloved’s….” It’s not a question of the head, and having figured out all the answers; it’s not even a question of feeling at home in the community; not that that’s a bad thing… but it isn’t enough. The call of the bridegroom … maybe you’d use different imagery, but my hope is that in all the busy-ness of church life… in the morning worship, the study, the committees, the work of caring for the refugee, the homeless, the mentally ill… in the midst of all of that important and good “stuff” each one of us will hear the whispered heart-cry of God, saying something like… “You are precious, beloved! I love you, and call out to you, hoping that you will fall in love with me.” My hope is that every time we gather on a Sunday morning for worship, somewhere, somehow you will hear that invitation… echoing from the walls, shining through the windows, maybe in the music, the hymns; in the Scripture, the sermon, the prayers; maybe in the silence; maybe in the greeting with a fellow pilgrim… somewhere you will hear the call of the bridegroom, and you will say quietly to yourself, “Yes… that’s why I’m here.”
Now… today is communion Sunday… such a fine way to rejoin you, my church family, after being away for these past four months. And, unless I am mistaken, I think this is the first time we are celebrating communion together after Easter… which makes it kind of special, important. Four and a half weeks ago, we gathered for Maundy Thursday, Jesus’ final meal, his last supper – and we usually capitalize those words… The Last Supper. “Do this is remembrance of me,” that’s what Jesus said. And we do… and we will.
Maundy Thursday… the night before Jesus was arrested, tried and crucified. It was an intense evening, no? I’m not sure that the disciples knew that it was the last time they would break bread together, but I suspect that Jesus did. He knew what was about to happen. “I have longed to eat this supper with you,” he said… although that phrasing doesn’t really catch the power of the Greek original, which is more like, I have ardently desired, eagerly yearned to share this meal with you … that’s what he said to his friends. Jesus’ last supper; his last opportunity to have conversation with his disciples, to laugh, to make a toast, to hug, to tell his friends that he loved them, and that despite everything that was going to happen, God loved them too, and would always be as close as their next breath.
There’s something powerful about a last meal, a final encounter. Surely you know what it’s like, eh? Like that moment when you say a final good bye to a friend who is moving away, to a job in Singapore, a return to family in Australia; or putting your son on the plane, sending him off to school in Berlin; or saying good bye to your aunt in the hospital, suspecting that you probably won’t see her again… and you don’t; or taking communion after a Sunday service to a beloved member of the congregation who is near the end of her struggle with cancer….. You remember moments like those; they stay with you; they carry an intensity, a heightened emotion; they are important moments.
According to the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus didn’t say much that night. What he did do, though, was break bread and pour wine, and pass it around, saying very simply, “Eat and drink; this is my body, this is my blood; this is me…. my life, my person, my being, my spirit… and I’m giving it to you. And every time you do this, remember me.” He knew it was the last time he was going to be with them. And I suspect that even the disciples knew that something special was happening; that the meal they were sharing carried a deep significance; they knew that there was more happening here than met the eye.
Let me tell you a story… Well, I went to see the Upper Room. In the southwestern corner of the old city, on Mount Zion
I was ready to be moved, touched. However… it’s not a very prepossessing room; underwhelming might be the word for it. An ordinary room, some benches, not much else; no altar; no table set, ready for feasting; no murals; didn’t even feel that tacky -- just plain, uninteresting. Allow ten minutes to take a look, said the guide books. Well, I thought, I can do this – so I sat down on a bench with a couple of my fellow pilgrims and tried to feel spiritual, but not much was happening. And then my friend Jeff leaned over and said, “Umm… do you smell something?” He looked around and then suddenly blurted out, “Ah no… cat… droppings.: Well, that was the end of prayer. I suppose I could have risen above it… but, well, you know… And then, just at that moment, three busloads of tourists arrived, and poured through the door… excuse my prejudice… but American… loud, chattering, brandishing their cameras… flash-a-flash-a. I felt cranky; and my two Catholic friends were already in flight, up to a terrace where we were told there was a great view of the city. So that was that… so much for The Last Supper. But then, a few minutes later, something happened -- I heard singing; that intolerable crowd of tourists who had crowded me out of my holy moment, were singing. And I recognized the music, a gospel tune that Curt Allison has taught us … “We are standing on holy ground…” I listened; and then quickly ran back downstairs, and into the room. And there they were -- a hundred strong; no chattering, no cameras; just singing, and some swaying, with an occasional hand waving in the air; had to be evangelical, maybe Mennonite, or perhaps a travelling choir, because let me tell you, they could sing. The harmonies were gorgeous, bouncing off the walls, filling the whole room:
We are standing on holy ground,
And I know that there are angels all around,
Let us praise God forever now,
For we are standing on holy ground.
Like angels in full concert; this motley crew of tourists had become a host of heavenly angels, and as they continued to sing, the space was transformed; it became holy. It was as if the centuries of time were disappearing, and Jesus was standing in our midst; and all of us, the tacky tourists, and the oh-so-superior Canadian, we had all of us become disciples, people as ordinary and faithful and distracted and fussed as the men and women who had gathered in that room so long ago. We were pilgrims, who were doing exactly what Jesus had commanded… remembering, praying, opening ourselves to the Holy. We were hungry for bread; we were ardently yearning to be touched by the Spirit of the resurrected Christ. We were hearing the call of the bridegroom… and we were answering as best we could.
Will you sing with me?
We are standing on holy ground,
And I know that there are angels all around,
Let us praise God forever now,
For we are standing on holy ground.
For some two thousand years now, the Christian community has told the story of the Upper Room; we have broken the bread and poured the wine. “This do in remembrance of me.” Mind you, we have tended to make it complicated, with special prayers, gestures and responses. We have wrapped this moment so thoroughly in ritual, reverence and tradition, that we are sometimes in danger of losing the Spirit. The theology that we have developed in an attempt to explain what’s happening, from transubstantiation to consubstantiation, to a memorial meal… well it can make your brain tired. And let me tell you, Jerusalem is the place to go if you want to experience a complete range of possibilities… bells, incense, chanting; Latin, Greek, Arabic, Church Slavonic, Armenian, English… sometimes beautiful, sometimes esoteric, sometimes off-putting. Nevertheless, the desire to be connected with the Holy was almost always palpable -- take, and eat, anyone who is hungry; this is my body. Underneath all the words, all the ceremony… at the heart of the ritual was the faith, the trust, that in the breaking of the bread there truly is the possibility of experiencing the presence of the risen Christ, a resurrection moment.
Let me back up a little… I have always been intrigued by the fact that John, in his gospel, when he described the last meal shared by Jesus and his disciples, didn’t actually say anything about eating, about the bread and wine; his story was all about foot-washing. Which has always seemed passing strange. But then, John was a theological poet, and he took a lot of license in how he presented the life of Jesus; it was almost as if he knew that the more straightforward story had already been told three different times, and so he could be free to play with ideas and symbols. So, rather than describe the Last Supper, he backdated the meal -- in many ways it seems that John’s communion story occurs in the midst of the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, when five loaves and two fish fed a vast multitude of folk. John uses communion-like kind of language… Jesus took the bread… gave thanks for the bread… broke the bread… distributed the bread. And later in the chapter, John presents Jesus talking about the bread from heaven, the bread of God, and proclaiming that that’s what was really happening in the feeding of the 5000. He invited people to look below the surface of things, to recognize that in the ordinary act of eating the bread that he gave them, they were being blessed by God; not only were their bodies being filled, but their souls, their spirits were also being nourished. The crowd cried out, “We’re hungry, hungry for God, for this bread of heaven… feed us.” And Jesus replied, “I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me, … the one who comes to me, who believes in me, who trusts in me, will hunger no more!” Do you remember the Taize song that we often sing in the midst of our communion service? --
Eat this bread, drink this cup,
Come tome and never be hungry
Eat this bread, drink this cup,
Trust in me and you will not thirst.
Maybe another way we say yes to the call of the bridegroom.
I like what John is doing, deconstructing the ritual of communion, so that we don’t forget that we are talking about the basic stuff of life; that we recognize that that’s how God touches us, reaches out to us. Bread, fish and wine – which become holy food. He also is pointing out that everyone is welcome – remember, five thousand were fed – 5000 men says one of the gospel writers, but pointedly adding that there were also many women and children. Nobody had to offer their credentials to come to Jesus’ table – which is something that we too often forget in our present day communion squabbles among the various denominations. Anybody who showed up received the bread of life. Male and female; adult and child; slave and free; gay and straight, Jew, Gentile, foreigner, stranger; those who knew a lot about the tradition, those who were simply hungry.
And there was enough… enough for everyone. There’s always enough, you know… it just needs to be distributed, shared, passed around… no hoarding, no grabbing more than you need and then trying to sell to some other hungry person….. bread, love… God’s love.
“Every time you do this, remember me.” That’s how Luke phrases it in his gospel account; but it raises a question about what Jesus actually meant when he said “do this”. What did he mean by “this”?. Was he really referring to elaborate communion rituals… or was he… and wouldn’t this be revolutionary? … was he suggesting that every time we sit down at table and break and share bread, we are to remember him. Not just communion bread; not just holy wine, or grape juice; but every time we eat bread together, then Christ is present.
That’s why one of my favourite resurrection appearance stories is Luke’s account of two disciples travelling the road to the village of Emmaus
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide….”
Or perhaps,
Stay with us through the night,
stay with us through the dread,
stay with us, blessed stranger,
till the morning breaks new bread.”
This is what Luke says happened: Jesus took the bread; he blessed the bread; he broke the bread; he gave the bread to the two disciples. Can you hear the echoes of communion? But it’s not the last supper – it’s the next supper. And suddenly, they recognized what was happening; their eyes were opened; they suddenly saw Jesus… there, beside them, once again, feeding them. In the bread… blessed, broken and shared. Just for a moment… and then he was gone. But it was enough. Suddenly the common stuff of life had been broken open, and the glory came pouring forth. They raced back to Jerusalem
So… this is the moment…. here… in this holy space… when the bread will be broken; when the cup will be filled. The resurrected Christ, the unrecognized one, the mysterious presence of Spirit, stands in our midst; Jesus, in whom, through whom God reaches out to us; inviting us to the feast; bread … my body, my life, my spirit, my presence. Can you hear the call of the bridegroom-- come and eat and drink,
We are standing on holy ground,
And I know that there are angels all around,
Let us praise God forever now,
For we are standing on holy ground.
No comments:
Post a Comment