The Liturgy of the Sacrament

Sermon preached at 9.15am Eucharist at St Alphege, Solihull
Sunday 19th July 2009 – Trinity 6, Proper 11
Teaching Eucharist on Liturgy of the Sacrament
Delivered without notes.

Readings: [Jeremiah 23:1-6 Ephesians 2: 11-22] Mark 6: 30-34 & 53-56


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So today we have the third in our series of four Teaching Eucharists in the build up to Back to Church Sunday on 27th September. We have been looking at the four parts on the Eucharistic liturgy.

Slide 1
In May Fr Tim lead a Teaching Eucharist, about the gathering rite, the first part of the Eucharist service. In June, Fr Patrick lead a Teaching Eucharist about the Liturgy of the Word. Today we shall be concentrating on the Ministry of the Sacrament, and on 6th September we shall be looking at the final part, the dismissal rite. And let’s just remind ourselves why we are doing this. We are doing this in response to the question “Why go to Church?” The more we understand why what we do in church, the more we are able to enter into worship and participate in the liturgy the more simply and naturally we will be able to help others do the same. In particular it will help us as we encourage others to come back to church with us on Back to Church Sunday.

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So let’s think about the liturgy of the sacrament. If we look at our service books we can see that the ministry of the sacrament starts on page n with the Peace. We have an offertory hymn, we bring our gifts of bread and wine to the altar and say a prayers over them. Then we have the Eucharistic prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, the breaking of the bread the invitation and then we start to receive Holy Communion, the consecrated bread and wine, together.
Now I have to say that as I started to prepare this teaching slot I realised that it was such a huge topic, and there was so much that could and should be said, and so much that inevitably must be left out that I started to feel a bit daunted, especially I as know Fr Tim is such an expert on all of this.
But it seems to me that a good way of starting out is to think about the word “Communion” because communion lies behind almost everything that we are doing in the Liturgy of the Sacrament, indeed, everything that we are doing in the Eucharist. Now this word Communion is the way that we most commonly translate the Greek word Koinonia, used many times in the New Testament. But Koinonia can be translated in other ways too; it means fellowship, it means participation, it means shared life, it means a contribution to the life of community, or a receiving from that life. And Koinonia, or Communion, or Shared Life in Christ is what we are trying to build in the Church. God is the source of all life (Is: 42: 5). We gain eternal life by sharing in the life of God, sharing in the resurrection life of Christ. Eternal life is not something we can possess for ourselves; it is a gift given to us by God’s grace. Perhaps we think the Church exists for the saving of souls. Well that’s true but what does it mean to save a soul. It means to bring that person to share in the life of Christ (e.g. Romans 6:23, Col 3: 4). And Koinonia does not just involve sharing life with Christ, it also involved shared life with all the other people who share life in Christ. The other people are very important. As St John says, “Those who do not love a brother or sister who they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4: 20).
And this is why the Liturgy of the Eucharist begins with the Peace. Jesus says, “when you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go, first be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt 5: 23). To share in the life of Christ we have to be reconciled with the other people who share in that life. We have to be reconciled…that does not mean that we have to instinctively like them. It does mean that we have see them as God sees them, love them as God loves them, and be ready to share in Christ’s peace with them. So we shake hands with the people around us and say, “Peace of Christ”. Now this is a symbolic act. I have been to churches where the liturgy almost collapses at this point because the 150 people in church feels the need to hug and kiss each of the other 149! Now we don’t need to do that. If each of us has exchanged the peace with the three or four people immediately around us, then that is enough. It’s enough to remind us that we don’t share in Christ alone, but we share in him together with the whole Church.
Now after the Peace the liturgy moves into the Offertory. We sing an Offertory hymn and we have an Offertory procession, which brings up the gifts of bread and wine to the altar. You can see the gifts now at the crossing in the centre of the church, waiting to be brought up. These gifts of bread and wine represent our offerings to God in the Eucharist. Offering things is a crucial part of the sharing, of the Koinonia. So we are offering not just bread and wine, but our whole lives; our work, our play, our prayers, our hopes, our worries and concerns, the people or situations that we carry on our hearts. We offer all these things to God as the bread and wine are taken forward. Now in the Eucharist Jesus takes the bread and wine we offer, and transforms it, makes it holy and then given back to us to share. And it is the same with all the matters that offer to God in the Eucharist. Jesus takes them and transforms them, making them holy, and then gives them back to us. So, for example, perhaps we are worried about a child who is struggling at school. We can offer that worry to God as the bread and wine go up to the altar. God will take our prayers and as we receive Holy Communion we will receive the grace that we need in that situation; the grace to love the child for the child’s sake not our own, the grace to trust in God, rather than being anxious, perhaps even the grace to do something practical to help the child. So the offertory comes to an end as the bread and wine are placed on the altar, and the priest takes them and says a pray over them, which brings together all our own prayers as the gifts go up.
Then we start the Eucharistic Prayer. Now in the Eucharistic prayer we are copying what Jesus did at the last supper. At the very heart of the Eucharistic Prayer are the words that describe what Jesus did and said. So for the bread we have these words.

Slide 2
And you can see that Jesus basically did four things. He took the bread, meaning he received from those who provided it. He gave thanks over it consecrating it, he broke the bread and he shared it with his disciples.
Now just about everything we do in the Eucharistic prayer reflects these four things that Jesus did. And we are going to be thinking about them in turn. But in fact we have already thought quite a lot about the taking of the bread and wine, because this is especially associated with the Offertory. But before we do that there is a little exercise that we can do to which will give us a break from me talking and which will hopeful help us to talk to one another. So have a look at the little sheets you were given as you came in. These were given out one between two, so it would be good if you could do this exercise together in small groups of two or three.

Slide 3
On each side there are nine phrases from the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and the idea is to associate each of them with one of those four actions of Jesus – taking, giving thanks and consecrating, breaking and sharing. Now some of them are really very easy. Number 5 for example if you look at it you will find that it is pretty clear that it is about “Taking”. Some of them are easy. Some are a bit harder and you might need to think about them or talk about them a bit. So we will spend three minutes on this now, then I talk for a little longer, then at the end we will put some answers up and have another short discussion.

[3 minutes]

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Right, let’s leave that for now. We will come back to it at the end. Let’s think about the second of those acts of Jesus: giving thanks. Well the main part of the Eucharistic Prayer is a prayer is all about giving thanks and praise to God. And giving thanks and praise is an important part of the consecration, the making holy of the bread and wine. Giving thanks and praise lifts us towards God and gives us the perspective of heaven. In this part of our celebration we are very aware of the transcendence of God; the fact that he is far above us and beyond us dwelling in the heights of heaven. In this moment we are seeking to share in the life of heaven to live out Koinonia with all the angels and saints. We join our praises with the angels and saints, as we sing the Sanctus.

Slide 4
“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of power and might.” These words come from the visions of heaven in Isaiah 6 and in Revelation 4. Personally I like it when the choir sing the Sanctus for us. It emphasises this transcendence, and reminds us of the great worship of heaven continually going on above us. And then we sing the Benedictus, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.” Here we are still thinking of the realms of heaven, but there is a change. Now Jesus is coming to us. These were the words sung by the crowd as Jesus entered Jerusalem. Jesus is coming. Soon he will be present with us in the bread and the wine.

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Now we don’t know at exactly what point Jesus arrives in the bread and wine. Perhaps it is as the priest repeats the words that Jesus used. Perhaps it is when the priest calls down the Holy Spirit on the gifts, perhaps the whole prayer is important. But when we have finished the prayer we are confident that Jesus has arrived in the bread and wine, so we raise them up for everyone to see and we sing together and we repeat the great Amen and we ring the bells. And this Amen is the climax of the Liturgy of the Sacrament. It is the moment we celebrate God among us in bread and wine. It is comparable to the moment after the gospel reading when we raise the book of the gospels and say “This is the gospel of the Lord”.

Slide 5
And there are great mysteries here. We cannot pretend to understand them but somehow Jesus is lifted up, so that we might be saved. We shall ponder this slide a bit longer later in our Eucharist, during communion.

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Now let’s think about the breaking of bread. This reminds us of Jesus’ broken body on the cross; reminds us that he gave everything for us. It reminds us of the theme of sacrifice. In the Eucharist we proclaim Christ’s death until he comes again (1 Cor 11:26) so there is a sense in which we are reliving Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross each time we celebrate the Eucharist. But it is not just his death we remember. We also remember his glorious resurrection from the dead. The Eucharist helps us to establish that same pattern of death and resurrection in our own lives. We share with Christ in dying to sin and to our old ways, and Christ shares his resurrection life with us. As Paul says, “we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal bodies” (2 Cor 4: 11).
Finally let’s think about sharing in Holy Communion; sharing in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. This is the ultimate building of Koinonia. Jesus shares his body and blood with us; his very life is give to us and enters into our bodies. So the life that we share with Christ grows. We are drawn closer into Christ. Christ bides in us and forms us to be like him. This is a very good time to pray. In silent pray we can hope to receive from God graces which correspond to the things we offered to God during the Offertory. So during communion we try to maintain a very prayerful atmosphere of singing and silence.
Then lets think again about Koinonia. If, through the Eucharist we are all sharing in the one Christ, then we are also all sharing with one another. Its not just about us, it is also about our church community. We pray that it can start to reflect an ever deepening shared life in Christ. So sharing is important in our church community. We can share experiences, our hopes, our fears, the things that we pray for. We can try to spend time together, and perhaps even start to share our worldly goods. All this requires love, that same love that Jesus pours out to us in the Eucharist.
So we are running out of time now. But let’s see some answers to the sheets that we were looking at earlier.

Slide 6
Now these are just my answers, so if you don’t agree with them talk about it with the person next to you. If you still don’t agree then put your hand up and we will see what Fr Tim says!

[two minutes]