Talk: Being Church - Entering the Easter Mystery

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At the Cathedral, people of all ages can learn about faith and discipleship. We run a Sunday School and are developing work with young people; there are occasional study groups and Lent Lectures.

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Speaker:

Date:

Thursday 21st March 2013

Service:

Lent Talk

Lent Talks 2013 – 5 – Entering the Easter Mystery: life, death and the Kingdom of God

This evening, we come to the end of our reflections on what it is to “be church”. We have considered our gifts, our unity and our common purpose, and the challenges and blessings within that calling.  Tonight we enter into the Easter mystery, but thinking about the Eucharist and how, by encountering Christ in bread and wine, we are renewed in our vocation for the sake of the Kingdom.  We will be thinking about what it means to “remember”, or in a more literal translation of anamnesis, “unforgetting”.  Having spent many weeks in attentiveness to both the Pauline epistles, and also to John’s expression of the call to abide and be sent, we will consider how these dynamics shape our common life with reference to a range of thinkers including David Ford, Catherine Pickstock and Rowan Williams. 

 

This is a STORY.  These words are printed in bold capitals on the back of Phillip Pullman’s novel: The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.   This novel forms part of a series of re-rewritten, re-imagined myths published by Canongate. Pullman’s narrative engages us with the person and teachings of Jesus and the tensions within organized religion. It is a novel that in part was inspired by a conversation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who asked him why he had dealt with the Church, but not Jesus, in the series His Dark Materials series.  As a result, Pullman embarks upon this narrative, which Rowan Williams describes as ‘searching, teasing and ambitious’.

Some have accused Pullman of being blasphemous, of attacking Christianity and undermining a sacred text.  None of these charges stand.  In his own words he writes ‘I wasn’t trying to write an alternative Gospel. What I was trying to do was tell the story of Jesus in a different kind of way. And make a fable out of it.’ He hopes that his own novel will lead people back to the Bible itself, challenging the ‘vague impression’ that many of us have about the story of Jesus.

Pullman’s idea of writing a fable about twin brothers arises from a lifelong engagement with the biblical story: ‘Paul refers to Christ rather than Jesus; the Gospels call him Jesus rather than Christ. And I thought that was significant. Because the Gospels want to tell us about his life, and Paul wasn’t interested in his life, he was interested in what its meaning was after he was dead, the meaning of the resurrection, the meaning of this figure having come from God, being part of God, being God himself, really.’

Pullman’s Jesus is radical, generous and challenging; his twin Christ is portrayed as a more introspective character, impressed with his brother’s passion. He tempts his brother to perform spectacular miracles and records his teachings, under the guidance of a mysterious stranger.  The novel seeks to make sense of the relationship between the teachings of Jesus –recounted as inspirational, demanding and inclusive – and the life of the Church.  Pullman is contemptuous of the institution, seeing it as corrupt and powerful.  Yet even he notes the paradox that without the story, there will be no church, and without the church, Jesus will be forgotten.

The Church is as fragile and flawed as any other human institution. People make mistakes, errors of judgement or cause hurt. But the Church also strives to live in attentiveness to the message of Jesus.  At the end of Pullman’s story, the stranger leaves the house and the other characters discover that the bread was all gone, and wine-jar was empty. The story comes to an abrupt end.

But for us, the breaking and sharing of bread, the pouring out of wine is not an abrupt ending. It is a remembrance and a continuation. To quote the words of a Salvation Army hymn: my life must be Christ’s broken bread, my love his out poured wine. We are reminded about the purpose and meaning of the Eucharist by a non-sacramental denomination, all this is for the sake of the Kingdom. The Eucharist is not just a retelling of the story of Jesus – it is an enactment and an embodiment of that narrative.  It is an act of proclamation which anchors us in the present, but which also gives us a hope for the future. 

 

We have reflected on some of the challenges Paul faced in relation to early Christian communities and how he calls them back to the place of mutual affection, reconciliation, humility and generosity.  When he writes to the Corinthians, the failure to reflect their life “in Christ” is most painfully obvious when it came to the Eucharist, when social division undermined their common life.  It is in that context that we hear the earliest account of the Last Supper – and the words of institution.  In 1 Corinthians 11:23-7 Paul writes: For I received from the Lord what I handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night that we was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

In those few verses we are connected to a last meal with resonances to the Jewish Passover; there is betrayal and thanksgiving; a new covenant and the proclamation of a death; there is the expression of a future hope and a call to remember.  These words and actions are passed on – in the light of the resurrection and in anticipation of the fulfilment of future hopes. 

What is our experience of this “doing in remembrance”? What impact has it had on our lives?  How often does participation in the sacrament punctuate our day to day living? We all come to our Lord’s table, approach the altar with different expectations.  I can remember being absolutely desperate to be confirmed; I can remember telling Peter in my year 6 class that it would mean sharing in the bread and wine.  To me there was something mysterious and special; there was something about belonging.  I waited and waited (until my sister was old enough for us to be confirmed together); I can remember hearing the fraction, the breaking of bread.  I can remember seeing the hands extended to receive the bread. We glimpse something of the brokenness and abundance at the heart of the Eucharist.

This is a story. A story proclaimed and remembered in so many different contexts and with varying degrees of frequency: the intimacy of home communion, the joyous dismissal at the end of the parish Eucharist, the informality of a student retreat, the splendour of Durham Cathedral, the quietness of an 8am Communion, the routine of a college chapel.  However, whenever, how often... it is the same but different.  To approach this gift as if it was the first, the last and the only.

The life and witness of the Church over two thousand years has been punctuated by obedience to the command ‘Do this in remembrance of me’. The Church is a community that gathers for anamnesis (unforgetting) and is in a profound sense formed by it: our understanding of Christian identity, life and action, theology and worship; it enables us to understand more fully the nature of the relationship between the Church's worship and its life and witness as the body of Christ in and for the world. 

I glimpsed something of the intensity of this sort of remembering at the Easter Workshop yesterday – as children attended to the story and thought about how and why they remembered.  It is also a dynamic activity, as the following verses from Luke 24 illuminate: 

He explained to them in the whole of scripture the things that referred to himself... he broke the bread, and offered it to them.  Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him... Without a moment’s delay they set out and returned to Jerusalem.[1]

The disciples on the way to Emmaus hear Scriptures explained to them; but the climax of the story occurs when the risen Christ is recognized in the breaking of bread.  There is continuity with the Last Supper and there is an encounter with Christ in the present. This moment is transformative, prompting the disciples to return to Jerusalem where the Church is coming into being, where the Church is beginning to engage in mission. 

Like those disciples on the road to Emmaus we encounter Christ in the present to be nourished and transformed. The fullness of Christ is mediated through the eucharistic anamnesis enabling the Church to embody and mediate that fullness to the world.  The Eucharist points back towards Christ’s life, death and resurrection as the culmination of God’s saving acts in history. This finds its focus in the Last Supper, which is continually recalled in the Eucharist.  In celebrating the Eucharist, the Church stands at the moment of betrayal before Christ’s death, but does so in the light of the resurrection.

As we share in broken bread and out poured wine we nourished by Christ’s body, and we become the body of Christ in and for the world.  The Church is sent out in service, sharing in God’s work in anticipation of his Kingdom. We are called to abide; to be sent; to receive forgiveness and to step out into the world in love and peace.  Remembering gives us a language of connection between the historical, sacramental and ecclesial embodiments of Christ.  Itspeaks of the past and the future; it is about encounter, gift, transformation and building the Kingdom of God in the present.  Caravaggio captures the impact of an encounter with the fullness of the risen Christ in his painting of the supper at Emmaus.  The transformative encounter results that that fullness is expressed in action and service. The effects of such transformative encounter are diverse: discerned in mission, service and engagement with the complex particularities of the world: in places of work and leisure, in volunteering and friendship, in those incremental shifts towards virtue described by Barbara Pym in “Good Women”.

We could spend considerable time exploring the richness of the tradition reflected in reticence in the face of sacramental mystery, creativity in the use of language and responsiveness to their context.  I just want to mention one:  Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), a gifted linguist and renowned preacher, engaged with the nature of the connection between memory and sacrifice.  He writes that by the power of the Spirit, Christ’s ‘offering is made present to us, and we are incorporated into His death and invested with the benefits of it’.[2]  His private devotions are imbued with the conviction that through participation in the memorial of Christ’s death, the communicant encounters the risen Christ, is strengthened for service and receives a foretaste of the age to come. In his Easter homily of 1606 based on Luke 24 he said: 'it is in the breaking of Bread especially that we can frequently receive this virtue in order to be like Christ'.[3]  Responses to this eucharistic gift include love and renewal, healing and thankfulness, alms giving and service.  Participation in the Eucharist provides spiritual nourishment and future hope, which renews such commitments.[4]  There emerges a concern to understand the Eucharist as a source of spiritual nourishment and future hope; remembering shapes our lives now in terms of transformation, mission and service. In means living in hope as a new creation, as described by Paula Gooder in her lecture last month.

Recollection of Christ’s life, death and resurrection could not be separated from the desire to be inspired by that same spirit of sacrifice.[5]  William Temple (1881-1944) wrote in Christus Veritas during the following century, of the way in which connection with God in the Eucharist led to service of neighbour; God’s purposes and ethical concerns came together. Sharing in the ceaselessly repeated Eucharist leads to an encounter in the present which inspires a life of service for the hope of the future Kingdom.  Obedience to the command to ‘do this in remembrance of me’ enables encounter with Christ in the present, leading to fullness of life, costly self-giving, and future hope.  A.G. Hebert takes this dynamic seriously in his explicitly missiological theology of the Eucharist.  The Church received the gift of the body of Christ in order to become that body in the world; to be a sign of the Kingdom not a theoretical construct.[6]

The Eucharist draws us into Jesus’s life, death and resurrection; it draws us into a transformative encounter in the present, enacting that story enables the Church to live out her calling as the body of Christ.  The church is fragile and in a sense provision, but lives in anticipation of the God’s Kingdom – embodied and moving in the world, as friends of Christ bearing fruit.

I have mentioned David Ford’s work in previous talks.  He is one of the most influential theologians of this generation and is Regius Professor of Divinity in Cambridge.  He is committed to the principle that those in the academy have responsibilities to Church and society; he has a tremendous vision for theology and for the church.  His work has been influenced by Levinas, Jüngel and Ricoeur, resulting in a concern for ethical responsibility in relation to the other.  He takes history and scripture seriously (Frei/Barth) and has recently published his work on a wisdom-based theology.  On the connection between participation in the Eucharist and Christian living, he writes:  the Church gathers round the ‘body broken for the world’ to which people can bring their whole selves – sins, joys, hopes, guilt – to be fed and transformed’.[7]  The Eucharist inspires and maintains a sacrificial lifestyle. It is ‘the sacrament which is most formative of the worshipping self in Christian community’.[8]  

                                                                        

When the Gospel events, culminating in Jesus’ death and resurrection, are remembered at the Eucharist is not mere recall; it is a profound shaping of Christian belief and practice.   Rememberingforms the bonds of connection with the past, and presents demands to the participants as they too are taken, blessed, broken and given.  The self is shaped through eucharistic worship, through the transformative corporate practice of memory.  At its heart a face-to-face relationships with Jesus and with each other: ‘remembering of this person through this event becomes the context for one’s vocation and the bond of one’s community... entering more fully into the contingencies and tragic potentialities of life’.[9] 

Encounter with Christ is grounded in the command to ‘do this in remembrance of me’.[10]  Transformation flows out of the dangerous memory of Jesus, with all its social and political implications.[11]  There is no retreat into individualistic piety, but incorporation into a dynamic challenging body; there is no escape into a cheap optimism, but a deep joy that emerges out of costly service.  Ford turns to John’s Gospel for a rationale for relating rememberingto the imperative to love one another and an ethos of obedient service.  John’s improvisation upon Christ’s words of institution see Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, in a radical way he enacts the command he calls us to obey.

 

He focuses on the building up community, in ongoing ‘faithful innovation’ and the role of the Holy Spirit in remembering.[12]   The Eucharist is not an unchanging spectacle, but a matter of non-identical repetition (we might think back to what Begbie says about musical waves; or jazz improvisation around a theme); of faithful improvisation through which the fullness of Christ is mediated to the world.  Mission is based on the enactment of obedient service, grounded improvisation upon Christ’s words and actions: do this.  Ford has related this directly to issues arising in the church’s ministry in particular contexts, for example in Urban Priority Areas:  ‘the climax of the Eucharist is the face-to-face sharing of... bread and wine, in memory of the last supper but also in anticipation of the feast of the Kingdom of God’.[13] The Eucharist is an act of praise and thanksgiving with the crucified Christ at its heart; but it is also a call to live to God’s praise and glory in the world. The Church is to be committed to practical obedience of Christ’s commands: follow me, do this, I send you.  

The Eucharist is a source of blessing and abundance which shapes the future. A command which anticipated the cross and which is fulfilled in Christ’s death and resurrection.  In obeying that command, the worshipping community is drawn into connection with Christ. It is:  ‘a practice of selves whose “other” is Jesus Christ. He mediates the blessing and abundance of God; he commands “Do this!”: he obeys his own imperative by dying; and he incorporates people through a  practice of worship which refigures time around the knot of  his own death and resurrection... Again the interweaving of the resurrection of crucified Jesus with the theme of facing in worship is pivotal’.[14] For Ford, the emphasis is substantially placed on the effects of the Eucharist, understood in intimate, interpersonal terms.  [Heb. Panim: presence/face].

The Eucharist isn’t a spectacle or miracle seen in abstraction from the whole drama of salvation. Our Eucharistic prayers articulate that narrative – from creation, to the night of betrayal, death and resurrection to the fulfilment of God’s Kingdom.  Anticipation and remembrance are drawn together within the Eucharist, and writes that in liturgy we meet God in our remembrance of Him.[15]   The ‘communal and temporal ecclesial space’ is the locus of the journey towards memory and encounter.[16]  In the Eucharist the Church actively remembers a past event, but does so in the light of the resurrection. In doing this in remembrance the transformative potential of Christ’s fullness is made accessible here and now:  ‘this time of in-between when God descends is also that of the ultimate sacrificed instituted in the evening in advance of itself at the Last Supper... The blood which we are commanded to drink is the blood which had yet to be shed [and by participating in the event of the Eucharist] ... we occupy the sacrificial moment before the Passion, the moment anterior to itself, which we both anticipate and remember’.   This is a powerful insight into the way in which the Church is connected to her source event, and also the potential for encounter and transformation.  Recollection and repetition are situated within the community.  Its narrative and liturgy are shaped by memory and hope.  She writes that participation in the Eucharist is an encounter with Christ that should enable us to live it ‘again differently in our own lives’.[17]

Finally I want to focus on Rowan Williams has held academic posts in Cambridge and Oxford before accepting episcopal appointments in Wales, and becoming Archbishop of Canterbury.  His theological work spans a range of interests in history, literature and social critique, within which he considers the nature and function of memory.  He explores its relation to human and divine time, its creative and critical dynamics and its capacity to transform and challenge, which finds its focus in the Eucharist, which is itself socially disturbing.  He shares with Pickstock a concern for understanding the nature of sign-making and the importance of the language of gift in relation to the sacrament.  However, he develops more fully the social and ecclesial implications of participation in the Eucharist. 

The Church, as a community gathered in remembrance, suggests Williams, is to be place where the risen Christ is known, where the voices of the voiceless are heard; a place where pain and failure can be acknowledged, where hope and forgiveness enable a different future. His consideration of memory and the Eucharist illustrates the way in which this can take place.  Williams is quite clear that the creative dynamic of memory is not just a reaffirmation of collective memory or mere mental recall. By virtue of the resurrection there is the potential for memories of defeat and failure to be restored through encounter with the risen Christ.  Thus remembering has a future dynamic that enables transformation; it is a recapitulation rather than a reversal.[18]  This is most explicitly and effectively realized in participation in the Eucharist: it is the ‘meal which presents to us the reality of Jesus’ giving and recreating activity, [it] is never a commemoration of Maundy Thursday alone, nor merely an extension of an ordinary “fellowship meal” of Jesus with his friends..., nor even a re-presentation of Calvary tout simple: it enacts for us the risenness of the crucified as the inexhaustible gift of mercy among us, in our common life’.[19]

The dynamics of this transforming and Church generative reality is illustrated with reference to the dialogue between Peter and Jesus in John 21, which Williams himself draws upon.  Peter’s threefold denial becomes a threefold confession.  Peter had been bold and confident in his commitment to Jesus; he is overwhelmed by a sense of failure and returns to what is familiar to him.   He has heard rumours of resurrection, but we find him again at the sea shore with the boats and the nets. The risen Christ meets him there in the midst of despair.  He says three times “do you love me” and opens up a capacity to respond and serve.  The memory of his calling and his failure become the foundations for his future ministry.  In confronting the reality of his life in the presence of Christ, Peter is made present to himself and the future becomes hopeful and fruitful.  Memory is ‘never the recovery of lost innocence’, it is never a reversal, but it can bring healing.[20]  

Williams writes that by participation in the Eucharist we are also made present to ourselves and to Christ.  The Eucharist is a place of honesty: on the night that he was betrayed… supper with his friends.  We are his friends. We too stand at that point of betrayal, yet in the light of the resurrection.  We can acknowledge our own betrayal and hope for healing through the presence of Christ, such that he says to us: ‘here I called you, here I broke bread with you, here you betrayed me; and I still stand with you, calling you, breaking bread with you again, and giving you a destiny in love. Do we not remember all this every time we celebrate the Eucharist? ‘In the night that he was betrayed, he took bread’. Don’t forget that: but here it is made into grace and healing.’[21]  The past is remembered, bringing about transformation in the present, for the future.  At the Eucharist, we stand at that sacrificial moment before the passion identified by Pickstock. Yet we do so in the light of the cross and resurrection: the transformative potential is released in a way that sets us free. Williams comments that participation in the Eucharist ‘allows the source event, the mystery of the cross and resurrection, to become present again’ and so we open ourselves to the ‘rich resource of that event’.[22]

Remembering is central to the process of the Church becoming the body of Christ.  Jesus’ life, Williams writes, can be woven into the ‘fabric of our lives... not simply as narrative memory, but as an active transforming presence, never exhausted or assimilated... it is in confrontation with his presence that human lives are restored and reshaped.’[23] Williams talks a great deal about memory and remembering: about source event and transformation.  The effects emerge in political convictions about the nature of society.  For ‘unless we grasp that the characteristic from of God’s dealing with us is in the formation of community that manifests the possibility of human healing and justice’ we shall not see why there is a eucharistic community at all.[24]  The Eucharist is both creative and critical; a place of obedience and hope. As Williams puts it when the Church performs the eucharistic action and is identified with ‘the traitor, penitent and restored’, yet standing at Gethsemane and Emmaus the Church ‘is what it is called to be... transforming and recreative.’[25] 

The Eucharist is not an intrusion breaking in upon the complex realities of life, rather it weaves them together.  It is about transformation.  Williams articulates this in a vision of transformation brought about by a movement from the one to the many (social challenge/political change); it is glimpsed in the one-to-one interpersonal encounters described by Ford (ethical behaviour).  The Eucharist is Church-generative, and therefore we must pay attention to explicitly missiological issues.  It is about becoming Church – the body of Christ nourished by the body of Christ – so that the Gospel may be proclaimed in such a way that engages with the complexity and particularity of life.  The Eucharist draws us more deeply into the mystery of passion and resurrection and also opens up fresh ways of engaging with these issues: offering continuity and stability, challenge and transformation.

It renews and deepens our understanding of the Eucharist as an act of remembrance which mediates the fullness of Christ. We remain mindful of the fact that the Church, its sacramental life and mission are grounded in the wisdom and purposes of God.  This is a story; a life giving narrative; a story which roots us in God and equips us to live in the world. We stand at the point of betrayal in the light of the resurrection; obeying Christ’s command in the present to enable a transformative encounter; being called to a faithful improvisation which involves self-offering and hope.  By participating in the life of Christ the Church is caught up in a process of becoming more fully Christ’s body; caught up in the dynamics of encounter, healing, transformation, self-giving. That is why the language of non-identical repetition is helpful.  It takes seriously the realities of human life – guilt, betrayal, hurt – and draws them into the fullness of God in the act of anamnesis.  It does so in anticipation of the Kingdom of God.  Repeated yet unrepeatable; not fully realized and inexhaustible; immersed in history, yet embodying a meaning that is indefinite and profound; a gift that cannot be owned, but which is a foretaste of God’s Kingdom.

As Rowan Williams expresses it: ‘At the moment we probably need a much more robust defence of the supernatural, God-initiated side of our church life and the significance of the sacraments as actually creating the Church week by week.’[26] The Eucharist is a gathered moment in the life of the church.  To be a holy, catholic and apostolic church is to be in communion with God, in community with one another and to engage in communication with the world[27].   At the heart of the liturgy, there is an encounter with the risen Christ.  A gift is given and received.  In the Eucharist the Church community touches and tastes the ground of its being; it is refreshed and enlivened with a vision of what it is called to be: indeed, what the Church already is as a result of God’s action: the body of Christ. Obedience to the command ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’ entails faithful innovation and a social/ethical outworking on the part of the Church.   

Like the disciples in Luke 24 we might be aware of rumours about resurrection, our faith and hopes and doubts weaving into one; our hearts might be warmed when we hear words from the scriptures; there might be moments of recognition in breaking of bread.  Our journeys in response don’t take us back to Jerusalem as such; but back into the world from which we have come. To live eucharistically is to follow a way of service; to proclaim the Gospel; to engage in mission In the Eucharist we are formed – measured by those plumb lines – and sent back into the world in peace. Only we return again and again.

This is a story; a story revealing who Jesus is.

This is a story; a story we are called to enact, embody and live out.

This is a story: without the story, there will be no church, and without the church, Jesus will be forgotten... But when they turned back to the table the bread was all gone, and the wine-jar was empty.

 

Within the Church, the bread continues to be broken, the wine poured out as we remember the transforming power of God’s love revealed in his life death and resurrection.  However vulnerable the Church is, the reality of Jesus message and presence is still encountered, shared, discussed, lived out, embodied.  That love is still mediated to the world in need of a radical, inclusive, transforming message.

 

Rowan Williams’ poem “Rublev” gives a glimpse of incarnation, the mystery of salvation which is especially resonant as we approach Holy Week:

 

One day, God walked in, pale from the grey steppe,

slit-eyed against the wind, and stopped,

said, Colour me, breathe your blood into my mouth.

I said Here is the blood of all our people,

these are their bruises, blue and purple,

gold, brown and pale green wash of death.

These (god) are the chromatic pains of flesh,

I said, I trust I make you blush,

O I shall stain you with the scars of birth

For ever. I root you in the wood,

under the sun shall bake you bread

of beechmast, never let you forth

to the white desert, to the starving sand.

But we shall sit and speak around

one table, share one food, one earth.

That is the mystery of incarnation; the hope of transformation; a vision of the Kingdom.

The bread was all gone; the wine jar was empty. Yet that was not the end, because we become the Church: there is one table, one food, one earth.

In our first session we talked about being appointed and called as friends – to abide and to be sent.  The point that Ben Quash makes towards the end of his Lent book, is that we, members of Christ’s body, are to make visible and tangible that friendship with God in our own time: ‘after Jesus’s death, resurrection and ascension, the apostle, in the power of the Holy Spirit, were able to incarnate the same friendship for others: Christ’s friendship… Jesus speaks as the apostle, in the apostle, in the person who physically stands there and tries faithfully to say God’s word of friendship to the world.’  When we are dismissed in peace to love and serve, we are to bear the sign of God’s Kingdom and act as agents of reconciliation in the world.

Remember.

Abide.

Go.

Friends.

Bear fruit.