"Broken"

Sermon

So,

The other night at Bible and Brew we were talking about communion and the study guide we are using for Luke’s Gospel asked the question, “Can you recall your most moving celebration of Holy Communion?”

“What made it moving?”

It’s a great question, because while most of the time we are just kind of going along with the flow of the service, there are times that really touch us, or open our eyes, or make us think, when communion is being prepared or blessed or handed out or consumed.

What made communion moving?

Communion in an unusual place or with a special group of people?

Particular emotions or ideas that came to you at the time?

Or just a moment where you felt like you saw communion for what it was for the first time.

We are planning communion on Easter Sunday at the Sunrise service, and the other services too, so maybe it will be communion in the dark? Maybe that would be memorable!

Like you, I too have been part of communion services that were special and memorable.

Like the time right here when one of the elders at the table who was a recovering alcoholic noted that all of the chalices looked identical but two had wine and two had juice.

He couldn’t take the cup and I was devastated.

Or my first communion service here in Otisville dipping the pita in the cup. I had never seen that before.

Or being given the host by the priest at Mount Carmel at Gregg Atlas’s funeral mass after he died on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center.

Or being invited by the bishop presiding at the wedding of Father Carl and Sharon Lunden’s wedding, to serve the cup to folks, and no I didn’t spill it on anyone, though a few folks might have been shorted a bit.

Or attending a communion service modeled on one from Papua New Guinea, where since grapes weren’t cultivated on the island, coconut milk was in the cup, and coconut meat was used for bread.

And I have been at services where the bread was everything from a hardroll from Mick’s market, to Matzoh, to challah bread, to our gluten free nut thins, and now the Styrofoam wafers held securely on top of the small individual cups we hand out during Covid.

To be sure, it is all communion…

A remembrance of the Lord’s Supper, and that a remembrance of the Passover meal of the Jewish people, the festival of thin bread as the author of the Gospel according to Mark calls it.

The meal commanded by God of Israel as a remembrance forever of God’s provision for their salvation, the passing over of the angel of death, and their escape from captivity in Egypt.

In preparation for the meal, Jesus sent two disciples to Jerusalem to find a room, and in Jerusalem they met a man carrying water who led them to the right place.

So, they prepared the meal; lamb, wine, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and a mixture, at least in modern Judaism, of finely chopped apples, finely chopped nuts, and wine called Charoset which is delicious, and looks like the mortar the Jewish slaves used to put between the stones of Pharoah’s buildings.

A meal that replicates the Passover meal the people ate before the angel of death passed over their blood painted houses; after which Pharoah in mourning for all of the first born sons of Egypt who died, kicks out his slave laborers.

Communion, a remembrance in the bread and wine, or whatever we have at hand and can set aside to use, that reminds us of Jesus’ words at that meal, that they, the bread and wine, represent his body broken and his blood poured out, like that of the Pascal lamb, for the people of God.

Nothing could have been more moving!

The shock and awe of the disciples must have been overwhelming. So much so that the disciples ask no questions as they struggle to understand.

Nothing we have ever experienced at a communion service could rival the power of these words.

And while the previous covenant was sealed in the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and lintels of the houses of the Jewish people in Egypt in the Passover meal, now the new covenant would be sealed in Jesus’ own blood.

Jesus, the lamb of God slain on our behalf.

Now, we too have been commanded to “do this in remembrance” to take the time to think about that meal in the upper room and to taste and see that the Lord is good!

That is why on Maundy Thursday, the Thursday night of Holy Week, April 1, we take time to think about that first communion in that upper room, and all that it means.

We take time to remember the “mandatum” the Latin word from which we get “mandatory”, the command Jesus gives his disciples to “love one another” no matter what!

And we take up bread and the cup, at home or in the worship space, and remember all that has been done for us in Jesus.

What is your most memorable experience of communion?

Perhaps now, it will be the next time we break bread and drink from the cup together!

May it be so, Lord Jesus. Amen.