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CLent5 Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8 March 21, 2010
This will be the 4th and last homily in a series on The Holy Eucharist.
The first Sunday we looked at what it means simply to walk into a church and enter into the Holy Eucharist with others.
Then we spent one Sunday on the first half of the service -The Word of God;
[That this Word of God is actually a joining together of two voices - the voice of the Church in the words of the bible and prayer book and the voice of our own lives that we bring in with us. We looked at a rhythm that goes on during the service. We hear the words of the Church; we take them into ourselves and let them resonate with what’s going on in here [in ourselves] and then together we make our response in psalm, song, or hymn.]
Last week we looked at the Offertory and the Peace. That our religion is not one that requires offerings and sacrifices from us; but that our God simply wants us to return, bringing ourselves. And as we return to God with our selves, praise and thanksgiving are our natural response.
[for all that our Creator has provided for us. What we bring forward in terms of our selves and our gifts to be used in Christ’s name for ministry we are actually returning them into God’s hands acknowledging that all we have received comes to us from our Creator.]
As we offer each other the Peace of Christ, we are stepping into that glimpse of the fullness of God, where all are forgiven, loved and free.
And now we arrive at the altar. When we get to the prayer said over the bread and wine, which we call the Great Thanksgiving, it seems on the surface that the bishop or priest is the one who says the prayer while the congregation listens and observes and solemnly assents to it all by saying a final AMEN. But, like everything that has taken place before this, there is a lot more going on.
The Eucharist finds its beginnings in a form of Jewish prayer called the Berakah: a prayer of thanksgiving that includes two parts: a blessing of God and a recounting of something God has done for God’s people. For Christians, the chief form of our returning and responding to God is to bless God and to retell the events of God’s love shown and given to us in Jesus Christ.
This coming Thursday night when we celebrate the Jewish Seder, the Passover meal, we will say this form of prayer over and over again of blessing God and recounting God’s mighty deeds. Then we will process into the church and pray the Christian berakah, the great thanksgiving in which we recount how Christ has become our Passover.
Most all Christians believe that in the Great Thanksgiving the bread and wine are in some way changed. On the far protestant end, it is a symbolic remembrance of the Lord’s Supper, On the other end where the Roman Catholic Church is, it is a true change into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. We Anglicans find ourselves in the middle and believe that there is a transformation that takes place. That what is on the altar becomes joined to the life of Jesus, the living presence of Christ.
Evelyn Underhill wrote: Silence falls. Awe-filled [Awful] words are said. A bell rings. A miracle is accomplished.
And it is not the priest only that is active. An early church father named Pelasius wrote: Each person has been ordained priest of his own person – to make his body a temple and his heart a pure altar.
All that we have brought thus far will be taken, blessed, broken, and given. not only the bread and wine, but our selves. Our prayers, confessions, our praise, our doubts, our gifts for the work of the Church. All joined with Jesus’ being taken, blessed, broken, and given.
[from Dom Gregory Dix in Eucharist and Henri Nouwen in Life of the Beloved]
Henri Nouwen in his book, Life of the Beloved, writes about our being God’s beloved. And he makes this point – While we are the beloved, we also have to become the beloved. And you can’t have one without the other. Said the other way around: We can desire to become the beloved only when we know deep down that to be beloved is already in us.
This applies to all that we want to be. A teaching certificate helps someone to know that he is a teacher. Yet, for the rest of his life, he will be becoming a teacher. Getting your first chip at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting says that you are sober. And, yet, for the rest of your life, you will be working out your sobriety. Giving birth to a baby is a sure way for a woman to know she is a mother (especially in the middle of the night.) Yet, I know for the rest of my life, I will be learning true motherhood. A marriage license is what proves that two people are married. Yet, they will be living more and more into their union for the rest of their lives.
Nouwen in this book places our lives in the context of our Eucharistic prayer. We have been given Jesus, the one who, for us, was taken, blessed, broken and given to show us that we, too, are beloved.
We are taken. To be taken by God means we have already been chosen. God has already loved us and chosen us, if God is going to take us and do something with us.
We are blessed. As created and chosen by God, you are already pronounced good.
Nouwen tells this story of the power of a real blessing. Shortly before I started a prayer service in one of our houses, Janet, a handicapped member of our community, said to me: “Henri, can you give me a blessing?” I responded in a somewhat automatic way by tracing with my thumb the sign of the cross on her forehead. Instead of being grateful, however, she protested vehemently, “No, that doesn’t work. I want a real blessing!” I suddenly became aware of the ritualistic quality of my response to her request and said, “Oh, I am sorry, …let me give you a real blessing when we are all together for the prayer service.” She nodded with a smile, and I realized that something special was required of me. After the service, when about thirty people were sitting in a circle on the floor, I said, “Janet has asked me for a special blessing. She feels that she needs that now.” As I was saying this, I didn’t know what Janet really wanted. But Janet didn’t leave me in doubt for very long. As soon as I had said, “Janet has asked me for a special blessing,” she stood up and walked toward me. I was wearing a long white robe with ample sleeves covering my hands as well as my arms. Spontaneously, Janet put her arms around me and put her head against my chest. Without thinking, I covered her with my sleeves so that she almost vanished in the folds of my robe. As we held each other, I said, “Janet, I want you to know that you are God’s Beloved Daughter. You are precious in God’s eyes. Your beautiful smile, your kindness to the people in your house and all the good things you do show us what a beautiful human being you are. I know you feel a little low these days and that there is some sadness in your heart, but I want you to remember who you are: a very special person, deeply loved by God and all the people who are here with you.” After I had spoken these words of blessing to her, many more of the handicapped members of the community followed, expressing the same desire to be blessed. The most touching moment, however, came when one of the assistants who worked with this special community raised his hand and said, “And what about me?” “Sure,” I said. “Come.” He came, and as we stood before each other, I put my arms around him and said, “John, it is so good that you are here. You are God’s Beloved Son. Your presence is a joy for all of us. When things are hard and life is burdensome, always remember that you are loved with an everlasting love.” As I spoke these words, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and then he said, “Thanks you, thank you very much.”
We are broken. Part of the mystery of this life is that we all are broken. And our brokenness is as true about us as our chosenness and blessedness are. Oddly, we are called to claim it – not to avoid it – because it tells us about ourselves – just as Jesus’ being broken is so revelatory of who he really is. And that is why the cross, the symbol of his body being broken, is not seen as a gory instrument of death, but has become a symbol of all the life and hope that have come from his being broken. We move through our own brokenness to new life.
There is a scene from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass (a musical work written in memory of John F. Kennedy) that embodies brokenness being put under blessing. Toward the end of this work, the priest, richly dressed in splendid liturgical vestments, is lifted up by his people. He towers high above the adoring crowd, carrying in his hands a glass chalice. Suddenly, the human pyramid collapses, and the priest comes tumbling down. His vestments are ripped off, and his glass chalice falls to the ground and is shattered. As he walks slowly through the debris of his former glory – barefoot, wearing only blue jeans and a T-shirt – children’s voices are heard singing, “Laude, laude, laude,” – “Praise, praise, praise.” Suddenly the priest notices the broken chalice. He looks at it for a long time and then haltingly, he says, “I never realized that broken glass could shine so brightly.”
We are given. It is after Jesus is taken/chosen, blessed, broken, that he can be given to the world – to us. And likewise, we are most ready, most useful when we have come through and know that we are chosen, blessed, and broken.
And then, in the end, we respond by saying to God, send me. Send me now. Send us now out from here. Send us out now to take your peace into the world. Send us out now with Christ alive in us! Now – send us!
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