Lenten Meditation 4 April 2012
Speaking of Holy Communion Father Rohr says, “He gave us
something that he did not say we needed to “think about” or “agree upon,” “look
at” or even “worship,” but he just said ‘Do this!’ It was an action, an audiovisual aid, a
sacred ritual for a community, built on Jewish roots, that would summarize his
whole lasting message for the world.”
(Page 215)
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| Leonardo Da Vinci – “The Last Supper”. |
Perhaps the most powerful and important legacy given to
the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion of the 20th and 21st
centuries by a group of Oxford scholars of the 19th century is the
recovery of the Eucharist as central to the Sunday worship of the community of
faith. Prior to the late 16th
Century ascendancy of the Puritan movement in England, the “Lord’s Board” or
Holy Communion was the normal worship of the Lord’s Day. By the middle of the 17th Century,
laws regulated the percentage of a parish which was required to be present for
Eucharistic worship. (In England, a
parish is a geographical area and consists of all those who live within the
boundaries of the parish; by contrast, in the US a parish is a voluntary
association of individuals whose membership is entered in the parish
register.) For at least one Sunday prior
to celebrating Holy Communion, the Vicar would be required to read the
Exhortation and announce to the congregation his intention to offer Holy
Communion on the subsequent Sunday. If
the requisite number of members of the parish were not present, the Vicar would
begin Morning Prayer and omit Communion.
To violate the law invited imprisonment or being defrocked. In the first quarter of the 18th
Century, the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, were teased and lightly
ridiculed by their fellow students for their “methodical” celebrations of the Sacraments. It is interesting that Methodism devolved
almost entirely to prayer services with only infrequent Communion
services. Toward the middle of the 19th
Century, several instructors at Oxford began to re-examine the Church of
England pattern in light of their study of Scripture and the tradition and
theology of the Early Church, and they began to write tracts in favor of a more
“high Church” understanding of worship, communal aspects of the Gospel
(outreach), and community life. Out of
the Oxford Movement came a recovery of the importance of the sacramental life
as well as ministry to the poorest of the poor who lived in slums, teaching of
the faith from what we now call an Anglo-Catholic perspective, and monastic
orders for men and women.
On the evening Jesus gathered with his disciples either
to celebrate the first day of Passover (as recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke)
or to eat a meal which has Passover overtones (John) we have the long tradition
of the Jewish “remembering” of the escape from Egypt which leads to freedom
from tyranny and oppression. Even today,
as modern Jews celebrate Passover, the four questions, traditionally asked by
the youngest male child, begin, “Why is this night so different from all
others?” For 3500 years families and
communities re-call the events and re-live them “today.” It is not a “once upon a time” tale, nor is
the remembering of what happened to our ancestors long, long ago. They are participants in the events of God’s
protection in which they are being led out of slavery. The Haggadah, the ritual of the Passover
meal, is spoken in the present tense which intensifies the participation in the
singularly focal event of all Jewish theology and experience. There is a Greek word for this re-calling
which we use for our Eucharistic understanding as well: the word is anamnesis which means to re-member, to put together, to bring to
the present, to experience now what once occurred then.
Jesus took this very Jewish experience of being present
in the central “God Event” for Jews and expanded it for his disciples. When he said “Do this for the remembrance of
me” he was giving the 12 and all who have come after them a way to be present
with Jesus in the upper room as he says “This is my body…this is my
blood.” The anamnesis brings Jesus present to us in a way that is both
spiritual and physical; we are given “outward and visible signs” of bread and
wine through which we can appropriate at a very physical level the Presence of
our Lord Jesus, not just a spiritual thought that we can either accept or
ignore as we feel at any given moment.
Unfortunately since the 16th Century, Western
Christianity has argued and fought over how Jesus becomes present to us in the
Eucharist. Roman Catholic doctrine
utilizes Aristotle’s philosophical basis in the term transubstantiation, the language of the Scholastics of the 12th
and 13th Centuries, to describe the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist. Some Lutherans quibbled with
the older term and rephrased it as consubstantiation.
Other of the 16th Century Reformers rejected both of those
understandings and posited that Holy Communion is simply a memorial of an event
which occurred in the life of Jesus. [For
a more thorough definition of any of the terms used in describing the Real
Presence, I suggest exploring Google.] Anglican
doctrine formed in the late16th Century in the Articles of Religion, Article
XXVIII, says, “…the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ;
and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.” Exactly how this occurs is not specifically
defined, although the doctrine of Transubstantiation is “repugnant to the plain
words of Scripture…” My preference is
simply to say that in the bread and the wine we are able to receive Christ’s
Body and Blood which is available to us, unexplainable but absolutely real. As a Rabbi friend from long ago would say,
“It’s a mystery.”
As believers gather to celebrate Jesus’ presence among
us, we are nurtured and fed on Heavenly food.
We are strengthened to be the Body of Christ and to live out our calling,
as St. Teresa of Avila says, to be the hands and feet and lips of Jesus to
bring blessing and Christ’s healing touch to our broken world. Spirituality without action is hollow; action
without spiritual preparation is merely good work.
As we continue to walk through Holy Week, may we remember
the words of Richard of Chichester whose day we celebrated yesterday, “to see
thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day.”
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