Introduction
At this time of the year, following on from the Easter and Pentecost Season many churches take time to reflect upon the Eucharist - Jesus' great gift to His people. In many Catholic countries this great thanksgiving for the Eucharist is accompanied with extravagant processions and much ritual. Whilst not wanting to get us all up and processing around the church I want to reflect a little about this central act of worship where we meet Jesus through bread and wine. The account of the Lord's Supper we just heard is the earliest of all the accounts in the Scriptures. St Paul's letters were written some time before the Gospels and it is clear from this letter to the Corinthian Church that meeting together, and sharing bread and wine had become important parts of the Church's worship. Furthermore, this sharing had started to become imbued with rich symbolism and meaning. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke also have accounts of the Lord's Supper whilst the Gospel of John doesn't; instead John has a whole chapter of teaching about the Eucharist.
We all think we know what happened at that last Supper. However, we don't! We probably think it looked rather like Da Vinci's portrayal here. Now without getting into the ins and outs of the Da Vinci Code - it is pretty obvious that the meal didn't really happen like this. Do you know why? At the time of Jesus people ate in the Roman fashion and reclined to eat. They wouldn't all sit up at the table like that nor would they all sit and pose for the artist like this! Feminist friends of mine also wonder why no women are mentioned as being present at this Last Supper when Jesus treated women with such tender equality - of course the Catholic church uses the absence of women here to preclude them from the ordained priesthood.
A Meal of Conflict
One of the saddest things for me is that this great gift of Jesus to the Church has become such a source of division and conflict between Christians.
Jesus' words "this is my body" and "this is my blood" have confused people since the start of the Church. One of the earliest rumours about the Church was that they used to gather before dawn, on the first day of the week and indulge in cannibalistic practices where they ate the flesh and drank the blood of a baby. Of course this is nonsense, but one can see where the Romans got these notions of cannibalism from.
For the first thousand or so years of the Christian Church all Christians believed that in the Eucharist they ate Jesus' body and drank his blood but didn't really try and explain how this happened. This is still the position of the Orthodox churches today. They see the Eucharist as a mystery and they don't try and explain how the mystery happens.
By the middle ages in Europe, however, theologians started to try and explain how bread and wine can be transformed into being Jesus' body and blood whilst at the same time maintaining all the appearance of bread and wine. They came up with interesting explanations of how this happened based on Greek philosophy rather than theology.
Over time some Christians began to reject these explanations saying they were not found in Scripture. By the time of the Reformation the meaning of the Eucharist was one of the key differences between Catholic and Protestant. Many Protestants, though not all, thought that the Bread and Wine were symbols of Jesus' body and blood. Others, thought that we received Jesus into our hearts and lives as we received bread and wine but nothing particularly special happened to the bread and wine, whilst the Catholics continued to believe that bread and wine became Jesus' body and blood. Of course Catholics also believed that in Communion Jesus' death on the Cross was projected through space and time so that when we receive Communion we are standing at the foot of the cross which is made present to us now.
Depending on how you were brought up and how you were taught the Christian faith you will have different views on Holy Communion. Some of you will believe it is a powerful symbol of Jesus' death on the cross. You will associate the broken bread with his broken body, and you will associate the red wine with his blood which was shed for us. Others of you will realise that Communion is special, that at this point in the worship, you feel especially close to Jesus but you don't really know why, just that Communion is special. Others of you believe the body and blood of Jesus are really present in and through and under the bread and wine - some of these folks will try and explain how this happens, others will be content with it being a mystery.
In the final analysis what we believe about Communion is not as important as the fact that we are called to receive it. Our questions about the meaning of this great sacrament will never be fully answered this side of the grave. Yet there are some other, more MCC, ideas about Holy Communion that we do well to ponder as well.
An MCC Perspective
Inclusion
MCC is distinctive in that we include everyone within this meal. We gather together each week to meet God and to remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. Everytime we share Holy Communion together we remember that Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples where he shared with Peter who would deny knowing him, Judas who would betray him and the male disciples who ran away from him. Jesus didn't stop this sinful people sharing that meal with him and so we don't stop people sharing with us. All we ask is what St Paul asks in today's reading - that we examine ourselves first and seek forgiveness for any wrongs we have done.
We also stress this theme of inclusion in the way we allow any trained and equipped member to celebrate the sacrament. Almost all Christian churches reserve the presidency of Holy Communion to ordained ministers. I find this one of the most liberating things about MCC. A few years ago I saw a T shirt at an MCC conference which simply said "Jesus was a layperson". The idea of reserving the leading of this act of worship to clergy is an ancient one and was designed to preserve good order in the church - yet there is no reason why trained and equipped lay people cannot undertake this ministry - so long as they understand what it entails and the responsibilities that come with it.
Meeting God as we are
Another theme of Holy Communion in MCC is that of meeting God just as we are. We come as we are to Communion as that is how God meets us. We are not bothered about how you dress, who you are, what you have done, who you love or who you sleep with - all that we ask is that you come here looking for God in your life. Jesus meets us here as we are ain this meal. St Augustine, writing in the 4th Century, said that the Church was a school for sinners as well as a home for saints. Often we get the impression that we have to be particularly holy in order to be a proper Christian. Holiness, however, is something that is evolving within us as we become more and more like Jesus.
Being the body of Christ
The final MCC perspective I want to mention goes back to this idea about the Body of Christ. Whatever we may feel about what happens to the bread and wine, we are called to be and become the Body of Christ. Jesus has no hands or feet in the world but ours. Jesus' has no body in the world but ours as the Church. As we are fed with Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist, we are called to become his body, his hands, his feet in our world, loving as he loved and serving others just as he served us.
Challenge
And so as we receive Holy Communion this afternoon I leave you with a challenge. We are all called to invite more people to come and share this meal, we are all called to ask more people to meet Jesus here, just as they are, including all people around this table.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.