Sermon: Corpus Christi

Preacher:

Date:

Thursday 30th May 2013

Venue:

St Nicholas Guildford

Readings:

Gen 14:18-20

1 Cor. 11:23-26

John 6:51-58

Why couldn’t someone else have found it? I opened the box and saw the sacred host… I did not dare to put it back into my pocket. It seemed wrong company for lighter, keys, and dirty handkerchief… I had an outside pocket on the left of my thin jacket – near the heart, I thought; that was where I wanted to put it.

 

So opens, in translation, Hans Bender’s short story: “Die Hostie”, “The Host”. The unnamed narrator had been a prisoner of war; he’d returned to his home town to discover that none of his relatives could be found. He spends 4 years drifting; he is penniless, hungry, and restless; he lives alongside similarly fragile characters, trying to survive moment by moment, meal by meal, cigarette by cigarette. He dodges the police and mistrusts the church.  Yet, the pyx containing the sacred host is something he cherishes and protects; he cannot relinquish it. It reminds him of what he has left behind; it reminds him that he is not beyond the scope of love.

 

In the closing paragraph, our narrator says: I left the place… in order to be by myself. But was I really alone? I had the host. I took it away with me into my restless life.

 

Hans Bender’s story compels us to think deeply about the great feast we celebrate today.  Today we celebrate the gift of Christ’s real and continuing presence with us; he dwells with us, near our hearts. Yet as we extend the moment of sacramental encounter in adoration and in jubilant procession, our commitment to engage with our world is deepened. 

The sacred host is the gift we receive in order that we might become who we are: the body of Christ.  Hans Bender’s fearful narrator keeps the host in the midst of his restlessness; echoing Augustine’s meditation that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. We, as the body of Christ, are also sent out into our restless world. We are conduits of compassion in the midst of isolation; we are expressions of love in response to fear; we are signs of hope in the face of fragmentation.  As the Father sent the Son into the world, so we too are sent in the power of the Spirit.

Today the Eucharist has been celebrated in our Cathedral Church and amongst our colleagues in Diocesan House.  Communion will have been received in homes, hospitals and prisons.  The mass will have been said in rural communities and urban priority areas; in smart city churches and in this town centre parish. In the face of birth and death, disappointment and delight, work and isolation we gather to extend our hands to receive the bread of heaven.   In the intensity of those moments, all that we are is drawn into the heart of God; the extensity, the spread-out-ness of our lives is gathered up, and transformed.

That gathering and transformation shapes our engagement with the communities within which we live, and worship and work.  We are called to respond to the love of God for the whole world; and we are to connect more honestly, more compassionately with each other. We are called to respond to the love of God as we face both environmental and economic challenges, as we engage with the cultural and political concerns of society.

These things, I know, are very much at the forefront of your plans for mission and ministry in this place.  They are also at the forefront of the Cathedral’s vision, as we seek to foster Christ-like relationships and deepen our conversations across the diocese and within the public sphere.  We are all asking the question: what does it mean to be the body of Christ?

Celebrating this Eucharistic feast is a place of gathering and forgiveness; attentiveness and refreshment; a place of healing and nourishment.  Here, in Augustine’s memorable turn of phrase, we receive what we are and become what we receive.  As we encounter Christ in this sacrament we are sent out to love and serve him in our homes, in our workplace, in our community.  We are gathered and then dispersed, full of purpose and potential.  We can be confident in this gift we receive because of Jesus' own words of promise to us.

In John's Gospel, Jesus declares: I am the living bread that came down from heaven. It's not surprising that the Jews began to dispute amongst themselves.  Jesus' words echo God’s provision of manna in the wilderness.  The meeting of this physical need was a powerful narrative within the religious tradition.   But here, Jesus' promise surpasses the provision of material sustenance.  He is not just the provider of bread: he is the living bread. He also surpasses Melchizedek – the priest of God who brought out bread and wine.   Jesus himself is the true food; the true drink. Those who eat and drink abide in him and he in them.  They will have eternal life.  The bread that he gives is for the life of the whole world. 

Christ gives himself to us and promises to be with us.  Paul reminds the Corinthian church: This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me... This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.  

That command has echoed throughout history as Christians have gathered together to participate in these sacred mysteries. Such an act of remembrance is dynamic and creative.  As we receive Christ’s body given for us, we become his body, the Church.  As we remember, the fullness of Christ’s presence is mediated to us.    As we obey that command we are formed into the body of Christ; we are called to mediate the fullness of his life to others.  The body that we receive and become is for the life of the whole world.

 

We have in the Eucharist a memorial of Christ’s passion.  In such an act of remembrance we stand on the night of his betrayal, yet we do so in the light of resurrection hope.  The Eucharist is a place of honesty and of abundance. The risen Christ meets us in the midst of our hopes and failings, our fears and desires.  He comes as gift, in bread and wine.  As we receive him, he abides with us and we in him.  We become his Church, his body.  As Paul writes elsewhere in 1 Corinthians: Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

We encounter Christ in the present reality of our lives.  We are one because we share in broken bread.  We are whole because we share in out-poured wine.  The real presence of Christ’s most blessed body and blood calls us to eternal life. 

This calling is a future hope, which challenges and transforms our present reality.     It begins as we seek to  fulfill the highest potential of human life.  It continues as we bring to others Christ’s promise of abundant life; when we work for justice and peace in his name.  That hope is completed when God is all in all; when the fullness of God’s kingdom is revealed.

In the Eucharist, Christ calls us into the fullness of life and costly self-giving.  The encounter with Christ in these holy mysteries is transforming and challenging; it increases in us our capacity to love.  To be fed by the bread of heaven does not remove us from the world; rather it shapes our participation in it.  Our obedience to Christ’s command to remember is bound up with our obedience to the final imperative of our liturgy: we are sent out as his Body to love and serve him.  As we bear the sacred host in procession, we remember that we are called to be his body, walking in his steps.

As the priest and theologian Dan Hardy wrote:  The individual pilgrim shares in the Church’s eucharistic communion and eucharistic communion extends beyond the sanctuary into all the daily actions of its members. He continues, we are to imitate Jesus by walking around, embodying a presence on the actual land.

Tonight, as in every Eucharist, we celebrate the reality of Christ's presence among us.   He comes among us as a gift.  We receive from him what we are becoming: Corpus Christi.  The challenge to us is to commit ourselves to self-giving.  We receive life abundantly in him, we are called to mediate that fullness in the world around us.  That is God’s mission.  That is our mission.  It is a daunting and thrilling task.  We are called to be alert to the needs of our community, whilst drawing them into a dynamic society which transcends differences of gender, age, ethnicity or class. 

We should not be discouraged for much of this will be achieved through small, risky steps.  All these incremental shifts in relationship, all these glimpses of reconciliation become part of a movement of peace, generosity and gladness. That would indeed be a prophetic witness in a world in desperate need of such hope and transformation.

As we participate this great feast, let us give thanks that we have a memorial of Christ’s passion; as we celebrate the gift of Christ’s presence in bread and wine; may our vision be renewed; let us pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may fulfill our calling as the Body of Christ, being sent out to in peace to love and serve. Christ dwells in our hearts; may we share his love in a restless world.  Amen.