Singing the Catechism: Holy Communion

So when we come to the subject of Holy Communion, it is with a sense of wonder and awe, not a business-like attitude that we have everything figured out.

We hear some wonderful and outrageous promises.

The parts of the catechism which I did not include in the dialogue today are the little sections that list all of the scripture references for what Luther says.

That is bedrock for what we say and do together.

This is my body, this is my blood Jesus says.

The first thing to note is that is means is.

He does not say this represents my body and blood, but this is my body and blood.

How can this be?

The tendency is for us to get hung up on the objects, when the emphasis is more on the actions.

It is the sharing of this bread and cup together with the promises of Jesus that constitute the sacrament.

The Word comes to the element and thus there is the sacrament,” St. Augustine famously said.

The sharing of this particular bread and wine with the spoken promises of Jesus simply is the body of Christ among us.

And note that it is the risen Lord Jesus Christ about whom we are speaking.

It is the resurrected body of Christ that we take, bless, break, and share.

Scripture also speaks of the church as the body of Christ.

If that is true, then in the words and actions of Holy Communion we are actually becoming a little more of what we already are, the body of Christ.

What a wonder; what a joy: what a responsibility!...to become a little more of what we are, the Body of Christ.

Across the centuries, scholars have argud about the passage from John that we read together today.

Does it mean what it says, or is this just a symbolic reference?

The tendency for preachers when they come to this passage in the summer of the second year of our three-year cycle of readings, the lectionary, is to preach on one of the other lessons.

After all, we have had four weeks already of the Bread of Life discourse and the feeding of the 5,000 before we get to this passage.

But to listen to this carefully and humbly puts all of life in a different perspective.

Thick-headed humans that we are, we are so often ready to bash each other over matters great or small,

But wait! We are the body of Christ, made so by the promises of Holy Baptism.

We share the Holy Communion to become that Body ever more firmly, in anticipation of our being resurrected body when we get to the fullness of heaven.

We cannot blithely tear into one another without damaging the Body.

Oh, we say, I didn't think of it that way. Indeed! We should, we're invited to do just that.

The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life, Jesus says.

These words that enter your ear and your mouth try to enliven your body and mind in connection with God.

Unfortunately, some decline the offer, even as they did in that first crowd: From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

But some persevere, continue following Jesus, puzzling over what Jesus' words mean.

After the cross and resurrection, they begin to understand at least in part.

And every succeeding generation continues in thought and wonder.

In that first explosion of Luther's hymn writing in 1524, he wrote several hymns on the subject of the Holy Communion.

This was four years or so before he wrote the catechisms.

One of these hymns, Jesus Christus unser Heiland, Jesus Christ our Savior, presents the eucharist as a token of God's love and mercy, which requires no preparation other than faith, and has love as a resulting fruit.

The text of the 5^th stanza is:

Firmly hold with faith unshaken

That this food is to be taken

By the sick who are distressed

By hearts that long for peace and rest.

And the 10^th ad final stanza proclaims:

Let this food your faith so nourish

That its fruit of love may flourish

And your neighbor learn from you

How much God's wondrous love can do.

In spite of such a wonderful Gospel message, this particular hymn has not been as popular as some others by Luther; it is available in the Missouri Synod hymnal, but not in our Lutheran Book of Worship.

So this day we have sung another hymn praising the Eucharist, O Living Bread from Heaven.

It comes from a century later and was written by Johann Rist, pastor and physician as well as prolific hymn-writer.

There are at least 680 from his pen, but this is the only one of his in our hymnal.

The tune Aurelia is by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, grandson of the famous Charles Wesley, and himself a well-respected organist and composer for 19^th century English cathedrals.

(We associate the tune also with the hymn The Church's One Foundation.)

Notice how the text does not try as much to explain the sacrament as to simply celebrate it:

My heart this gift possessing,

With praises overflows.

And, rejoicing, it ends with this prayer:

Lord, grant me then, thus strengthened

With heavenly food while here

My course on earth is lengthened,

To serve with holy fear.

Do we know everything that we wished we would? No.

There is much about the nature of God around which we simply cannot wrap our minds.

I think the word for this is inscrutable.

But we know enough to hold onto the sacrament, to treasure it, and to sing about it with joy. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.