C. Douglas Simmons, D.Min.
“All you need is Love”
Of late I have set myself the task of amplifying segments of the
Eucharist when I preach at later services. This morning I want to address the implications found in the
Post Communion prayer of our Rite I Eucharist, Eucharistic Prayer number one,
you’ll find it on page 339 of the Prayer Book.
Again I ask
the same question that I have asked in each one of these
sermons oriented toward an understanding of the Eucharist. Do we know what
we are saying? And, if we do, do we accept these words
as a truth for our lives?
These questions
have come to have special meaning for me in relation to my reflections on this
particular part of the Eucharist.
Some may feel
that the Rite II Post Communion prayer is just as
eloquent, I partially agree with that observation. Yet what is now Rite I has meanings that have ingrained
themselves, over long years of use, into the deeper parts of my psyche. I have been astonished
at the windows
that have been opened to my mind, most especially by this particular
prayer. So please permit me to use
this “old friend” to teach myself more about what I understand all of us are
doing and receiving during this sacred service instituted by Jesus.
We use this prayer to conclude each Eucharist as a verbal reminder of
what has spiritually taken place. Whether or not we are aware of what has
transpired is an implied question that I leave to you to contemplate. The words of this
prayer are, in my
judgment, the most eloquent summary of what the Eucharist is all about.
It begins by reminding us of the principal agent involved in what has
transpired, God. For Jesus was a
human when he instituted this Sacrament.
And, even as close to God as he was, he had not
yet experienced the
Resurrection and so could only act in trust that what he was doing at the Last
Supper would bring together in unique fellowship all those who would
participate in it. And as Jesus
and his disciples made of that special meal a sacred occasion of deep and
binding spiritual fellowship, so we too have same potential each time we
participate in the Eucharist.
The
concluding prayer, or thanksgiving begins with an affirmation that the God in
whom Jesus reposed so much trust that he gave up his life, is the God we affirm
as omnipotent and infinite as we say: “Almighty and everliving God.” We believe that God has always been
that’s why we call God everliving.
However, no word is ever sufficient to describe
the deity. The closest approximation I have heard
comes from a phrase that I picked up from Jane Gober, see if you don’t agree: “Before
the beginning began, God was.”
This phrase reminds us that all things and processes
originate from and
are sustained by God.
In my
opinion the word Creator would be better used in this context for it implies
that creation is ongoing, it hasn’t stopped, and it never will. The implication
that I see in this
understanding is that this life is only a portion of our ongoing participation
in creation there is more to life than meets the eye. The Eucharist itself is more than it seems. Yes, it is a Christian
sacred Rite yet
it is also a revelation of an all-embracing divine compassion directed toward
all humanity. It accentuates God’s
inclusion of humanity as a whole in this great dance of life that embraces all
the animate and inanimate things that have been, are and will be. This is what lies
behind our
acknowledgement of what has transpired for all of us, to whatever degree,
during the Eucharist.
We have been
part of a creative action with our Creator and God has promised, in Christ,
that it will always be so.
Our participation
may not even be conscious yet we participate
nonetheless. How does that
happen? How can we explain
it? Well, how can you explain love
to a 12 year old? You can’t
because it’s a mystery to them at that age, even though they believe they
understand. The same holds true
for the Eucharist for it is also finally a mystery. What happens in these sacred actions for each of us is
cloaked in the complex mystery in which all spiritual acts involving God and
humans are veiled; each act different yet all emanating from the same source.
The prayer we say at the end of the Eucharist is the culmination of
centuries of devout experience and reflection. So what does it have to say to us about what has transpired
in the Eucharist? Listen to these
words with a new appreciation for their innate wisdom: “we most heartily thank
thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual
food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ.” In effect what we are affirming with
these words is that what Jesus began with his disciples draws upon the deepest
meanings of humanity’s relationship to God.
Here is how
I make sense of it for myself. Jesus took bread, the bread of his time, full of all the
minerals and nutrients for the body that grain contains before it is bleached
and most of the nutrients are processed out. His people, his disciples, knew that this bread was indeed
the “staff of life” for it nourished their lives and strengthened them for
their daily arduous work.
So in
essence Jesus was likening this nourishing food staple to his own Body. By this means he
took the physical
nourishment of bread and transformed its meaning for them. And further, he
had to break the bread
to share it. So the breaking of
the bread at the Eucharist is a crucial symbol that the Christ Spirit will be
shared by all who come to this meal.
All God needs is our trust that Christ is present. His presence is made possible by His
willingness to be broken on the cross, the bread and its breaking is the symbol
for that act of Love.
The wine,
red in color, as blood is, was likened to the blood he would shed, transforming
its meaning into the enlivening Spirit at the center of Jesus’ life. Blood is a critical
element of life for
all humans. His disciples knew,
just as we do, that it is blood that gives life to our bodies in so many ways,
carrying the nourishment of food to all of our body’s parts and with out which
we would surely perish.
It was
this precious element of life he gave up in a profound act of Love. For the wine; now
known as the blood of
Christ, becomes as crucial as the bread that is known as His body. Jesus, by using
this parallel spiritual
meaning transformed this simple supper into a sacred contact with God. From that time
forth this ritual meal
has been a symbol for the presence of Jesus, the Christ. Each time his followers
gathered for
this sacred meal they knew something vital happened. Our equivalent modern Eucharist is meant to have an equal
connecting quality for these symbols to the reality behind them. In effect I understand
this sharing to
be the giving of a spiritual revitalizing to each one who receives it in the
trust that God accomplishes what Jesus promised. So what we are affirming is that the unseen yet real part of
who we are has been nourished, blessed and occupied again by the unseen and yet
real Christ Spirit.
The spiritual nourishment we receive
in the Eucharist is a declaration
by God, through Jesus, the Christ, that we are accepted unconditionally and
that this acceptance cannot be taken from us by anyone or anything. Yes, it is unseen
and thus hard to
understand or even feel its influence, yet if we can trust that it is there we
can then acknowledge its presence with these words, “and dost assure us thereby
of thy favor and goodness towards us; and that we very members incorporate in
the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and
are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom.” I take this to
mean this to mean that
we are a part of a much larger group than we might first imagine. I understand the
phrase; “the blessed
company of all faithful people” as a good deal more inclusive than the framers
of the Prayer Book. I’m sure they
were referring to all faithful Christians and in their day and time that would
be a natural progression of thought.
They may or may not have been aware of the other
millions of people on
the earth at that time that were also spiritually connected to God through a
different religion and culture.
But I do not think it was their intent, at that
time that non-Christians
be mindfully included within the “blessed company”. In our era, with all that has become known about human
history, we would be hard pressed to say that only Christians have a spiritual
connection with God.
So, for me,
this phrase has become enormously inclusive, involving many different races,
tongues, religions and every other category by which we divide people into
groups. It is so for me because I
cannot imagine a God who does not apply Divine compassion to every person and
every thing in the entire universe.
You may not agree with this interpretation however
I hold it to be true
and count all caring and loving souls, of whatever degree, as belonging in “the
blessed company of all faithful people.”
This understanding
is much more crucial now than when the prayer was
made part of the Eucharist as we know it.
It is crucial because our world is shrinking with
each passing day. The events, actions and attitudes of
one group have a more immediate effect on people in other parts of the world
than in times past. Even our
understanding of the universe and its components is being altered on a daily
basis. We may not be aware of all
that is being learned, yet based on what has been learned and the directions in
which it has taken human knowledge we should all be reasonably aware of the
interconnectedness that makes up our universe. Whether we understand or accept it we here on Earth are
ineluctably bound into that network.
Further, if
Jesus, in his day and time reached out to so many
different sorts of people of every shade of belief and place in the social and
religious structures of his time, how do we dare to exclude anyone in our day
and time from the unconditional compassion of God. It is a daunting challenge indeed to even comprehend it and
our current world troubles show us its difficulties. Yet if we decide to follow the pattern of Jesus’ life we are
called to understand and live peacefully with others who express their
connection with God in a very different way than we do.
We Christians
have long used use the phrase “The Body of Christ” to
indicate the Church.
It was at
this point that a whole new perspective of meaning about that phrase exploded
into my awareness. Because of that
I suggest that for the times we live in and with the knowledge humanity now has
at hand, we need to expand the meaning of the phrase using the following
understanding: “The Body of Christ”
does not mean solely those who profess and call themselves Christians, for what
we call the Christ Spirit, the Spirit that indwelt Jesus, is present in all of
creation. The Christ Spirit or, to
put it another way, the Word that formed the world and became flesh in John’s
Gospel, is actively present at every Eucharist and also in many other devout
acts of worship unfamiliar to us.
Here’s another way to put it, the unconditional
Divine compassion for
all of creation, that was there before the beginning began, enters human lives
anew when they gather to validate that it is true and to follow the path into
which it leads them.
Our Eucharist
is one of many sacred ways to find that truth. The experience of the truth of that compassion is there for
anyone, and I emphasize anyone, who seeks to grow closer to his or her Creator.
Therefore this unconditional compassion does not “belong” to any one
sect, religion, culture or any other group. Indeed it’s the other way around we, all of us, belong to
God, not as possessions to manipulate but as beloved co-workers in the ongoing
acts of compassion that God is constantly doing. We all have a part to do and whether our part is small or large
is irrelevant, because all we do in compassion’s cause is interwoven into the
immensely complex and holy mystery of ongoing creation that we know as the
universe.
So, if you’re willing to agree
with the foregoing conclusions than
what follows next in the prayer should make even more sense than if restricted
exclusively to what Christian’s do in God’s name. “And we humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father so to assist
us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all
such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in.” It may be flowery
Elizabethan English
but it expresses the very core of the great need humanity has in this
Twenty-first century and that is to find ways to bless instead of blow up, to
uplift instead of subjugate, to heal instead of injure. Sadly, I believe
that I have missed a
lot of the good works that God has prepared for me to walk in. Yet I have the
hopeful and uplifting
trust that it’s never too late to do a good thing, never too late to care,
never too late be a part of the great seen and unseen fellowship of Love that
is involved in the work of the ongoing compassion of God for each of us all the
time.
That is why I believe the Eucharist was
given to us; to strengthen us
when we’re faint hearted, to revive our spirits when we are low and thereby
enable us to be followers of the way that God has given to us in the one whom
we call Lord and Savior, Jesus, the Christ. Jesus showed us that it is humanly possible to have
unyielding obedience to the call of compassion. He showed us the good it can accomplish and God revealed,
through Jesus’ death and Resurrection that it really is the only hope for
humanity. We see in and through
Jesus that the world and all its peoples will not be changed for the better by
force of arms, nor by imposing fear or guilt on people or nations, nor will it
be changed by political suasion.
When it comes right down to it, for our modern
era, I believe that those
brash young English upstarts, the Beetles, had it right, “All you need is love.”
