We have recently been holding a training course for members who wish to become celebrants of holy communion. In the first session we considered how different churches - and how our members from those churches - might view the importance of the act of communion.
Then came the hard question: we had to say how important holy communion was to each one of us on the course. Did we regard it as the central act of worship? Did we just accept it as part of what we do during worship? Or did we feel we could take it or leave it and that worship without communion could be just as rewarding?
Interestingly, for many of us, that part of our worship which involves bread and wine becoming - in some special way - the body and blood of Jesus, holds some really deep significance for us. We couldn't always explain it; but we really value its inclusion in our services, and we think we would miss it if we left it out.
In today's reading from the Hebrew scriptures, we look back to a time when the people of Israel, wandering in the desert, learned that they could not continue their journey without being sustained by God. This experience was to teach them that they could not live on bread alone: when the bread ran out and the water dried up, their very survival depended on God making new life possible for them. The outward sign of this was the way in which God provided quail, other small birds, but - most importantly - manna.
No-one is quite sure what manna exactly was. It is described as a flaky food-like bread which was found lying on the ground each morning. The people were allowed only to gather as much as they needed for the day: they were forbidden from hoarding any of it - although on the sixth day they could gather twice as much as usual to provide food for the Sabbath. Each day, the arrival of the manna was seen as a new sign of God's continuing favour.
As Moses led the Israelites through the wilderness years, whenever new trials were to be faced, God's promise saw them through the pain and guided their survival. Every new experience of want or suffering served to keep alive the memory of God's promise to the people of Israel. And so often the prayers of the people centred on reminding God of the promises God made to them, prayers of intercession to jolt God's memory, to replay God's promise, to hold God to God's word.
But what happens when the people come through their trials and their difficulties and become comfortable and satisfied? Do they remain faithful to their promises to God once they become prosperous and live in a land of plenty? In that first reading from Deuteronomy, Moses reminds his own people of the need to remember God. He notices that as the people get richer, their memories get poorer. In the midst of comfort, God's promises, and the need to respond to those promises, seem unnecessary. Prosperity has made them a thankless people.
In today's Gospel reading, John picks up the theme of manna, and contrasts the bread the Israelites ate in the desert with the new bread of life given by Jesus. John says that, in the person of Jesus, there is a new Word of God and a new bread from heaven. This Word of God has become flesh; and the new bread of heaven is the very life of Jesus himself. To eat this bread, says John, is to have a share in the life of God's own self, and to share eternal life.
Most of us don't actually have to remember to eat! Our stomach has its own way of telling us when it's time. But most of us do have to remember to eat in the name of Jesus - to gather in community each week to keep the memory of Jesus alive. The communion service is a celebration of thanksgiving for what Jesus has done; and in case we forget what he has done, we assemble to hold that memory sacred. We keep the memory fresh; we celebrate it anew; and in celebrating, we receive new life for our own journey of faith.
Perhaps this is what the members of our training course could not quite get into words: the act of communion in our worship service holds a deep significance for us because somehow it nourishes our own journeys of faith.
And in celebrating communion we celebrate some revolutionary memories: memories of betrayal, suffering, death and resurrection. We recall Jesus's radical values that put him in opposition to so many of his own people. We recall his teaching about God and heaven; his insistence on forgiveness; his opposition to religious sham; his commitment to peace; his willingness to die to overcome sin.
But before he died, he gave two specific examples to his followers of how to worship. When asked by his disciples how they should pray, Jesus gave them the example which we now know as the Lord's Prayer - and told them to use it.
Then during supper with twelve of his friends, on the night of his arrest, he showed them how bread which is taken, blessed, broken and shared could become his broken body, and how wine which is taken, blessed and shared could become his blood - and told them to do this in remembrance of him.
And so, in our service today, the Lord's Prayer will form the foundation of our time of intercession, and our worship will reach its high point at our communion with Jesus through bread and wine. We believe that by receiving the body and blood of Jesus we become his body in our world; in communion, we share with Jesus and one another; and we become one with his memory which never dies.
Whether we live in the midst of desperation or the height of affluence, we come together as a community to declare that what Jesus did for us has a continuing importance. Our celebration of communion keeps us from being a thankless people.
So, when the time comes today for the celebrant of communion to move to the altar and speak words which recall an event which took place on the night before Jesus died, I invite you to think about the memories which are being brought to life again; the visions of heaven and eternal life which are offered to each of us; and the nourishment Jesus freely gives for our own journeys of faith.
And then decide: shall we remember to eat together regularly in the name of Jesus, to follow his command and do this in remembrance of him, and give thanks for what he has done for us? Or shall we lose touch with the living memorial of our faith and risk becoming a thankless people?
Amen
(Philip Jones)
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church
of Manchester. Click here for further information.