Tuesday, August 25, 2015

This Holy Mystery, Part 3

Here is sermon #3 in my series on Holy Communion. If you have not read (or heard) the other two, you may want to read them do that before reading this (Part 1Part 2). I put links in the end notes this week. Those should take you to the sources I've cited. Let me know if there is a broken link.

Next week, is the final in the series. Come hear it live! The spoken/preached version is almost always better than the written version.
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We are continuing our series of sermons talking about the sacrament of Communion. If you remember, a sacrament uses everyday, ordinary, physical things to point us to the extraordinary, spiritual grace that God freely gives us – they are also a means by which God bestows grace upon us.

So Communion is a sign pointing us toward God’s loving action, and it is one way we experience that loving action. Two weeks ago, I talked about a couple of ways we encounter and experience God in Communion.

Communion is a time when we re-member – we reenact or relive – our past experiences with God. We remember what God has done for us – in Jesus’ sacrifice through his death on the cross and defeat of death. And we remember what God has done in our lives specifically.

As we encounter God in Communion, we are changed. God’s grace transforms us. As Gayle Felton wrote, communion “puts us in touch with the Power of God to make us into the people God wants us to be.”[1] And as we come in touch with God, she continues, “We surrender more and more of ourselves to God and we are progressively shaped into the image of Christ.”[2]

I want you to do something this week, next week is our last sermon in this series. As a part of that sermon, I want to address your questions. So in the comments or via email, I want you to write two things. First, something you have learned from this series. Second, a question you have about Communion that I have not yet addressed.
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John 6:35, 41-51
51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
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In this series, we are answering some questions about Holy Communion. What is it? What does it mean? Why do we do it? Of all of the passages from Jesus’ “bread of Life” discourse that we’ve used so for, I think this one fits with our topic of the Lord’s Supper better than any of them.

Jesus is, again, using the physical to help us understand the spiritual. In John chapter 6, Jesus refers again and again to the “bread from heaven” that God sent during the Israelite’s exodus from Egypt. If you remember, 6 days a week, the people would wake to find the ground covered in bread – manna. It was this manna that helped them survive the 40 years of wandering before they entered the promised land.

Jesus calls this to mind. You need bread to live and God provided that bread to your ancestors. Jesus is using this as a metaphor – just as the Israelites needed manna to survive, you need this bread from heaven to live spiritually. Jesus is using a physical reality to help us understand a spiritual truth.

We have to have food. Our bodies need food and drink. It is what gives us energy. It fuels us. It sustains life. Food gives us energy to grow and develop when we are young. Food helps our bodies transform and mature. Food also gives us energy for our day to day lives. Without food, without nourishment, our bodies deteriorate and we have no energy to even get out of bed. Food sustains us.

In the same way, we are nourished by the sacrament of Holy Communion. It may not sustain us physically, but just as our bodies are nourished by food and drink – we are spiritually nourished by coming to the Lord’s Table. 

Communion offers us spiritual nourishment. Just as our bodies need nourishment in order to live, we need this spiritual nourishment to live a life of faith. We need the grace we receive in Communion. We talked last time about how God’s grace transforms us. That same grace sustains us as we seek to live a life of faith. John Wesley wrote that, “[Grace] is the food of our souls. This gives us strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection.”[3] I heard it put this way, “To continue living faithfully and growing in holiness requires constant sustenance.”[4]

In Holy Communion, we receive that sustenance. I have mentioned several times that Communion is a means of grace. It is one of the vehicles God uses to impart grace to us. God’s grace is, as Wesley said, “food for our souls.” It is what strengthens and sustains us as we seek to live faithfully.

Living a life of faith is not easy. To love others as God loves us. To respond peacefully and with joy to a world that is neither peaceful nor joyful. To be kind and patient and gentle. Those things are not natural responses. They are not things we encounter often enough. But it what it looks like to live a life of faith. And it is something we cannot do without the nourishment of God’s grace.

This Holy Mystery says, “As we return to the Table again and again, we are strengthened repeatedly.”[5] Holy Communion offers God’s grace that empowers and enables us for a life of ministry. As we recite in our Communion liturgy, “Grant that we may go into the world in the strength of your Spirit, to give ourselves for others.”[6] We acknowledge our need for and ask God for strength – for nourishment to live faithfully.
In Holy Communion, we are nourished as we encounter Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus is truly present in Holy Communion.[7] This is something that has been debated for centuries in the church. How exactly is Christ present in Holy Communion? There are many theories and doctrines – transubstantiation maybe one you have heard of. This doctrine says that the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Jesus. We don’t teach this doctrine. In fact, our articles of religion say that this doctrine “cannot be proved by Holy Writ.”[8]

We don’t believe the elements to be the literal body and blood of Jesus, but we believe they are essential and that God works through them. We believe in the reality of Christ’s presence, but we don’t claim to be able to fully explain that presence. John and Charles Wesley wrote about this in one of their hymns with the line, “Who shall say how bread and wine / God into us conveys!”[9] As Gayle Felton writes, “Christ is present in ways that we cannot explain.”[10]

So now you see why our official understanding of Communion and this sermon series are titled “This Holy Mystery.” Christ is present in communion, even if we cannot fully explain his presence. But we can sense it and experience it. Christ is present and invites us to participate with him.

As I say each time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we gather at Christ’s table. We gather at Christ’s invitation. And Jesus is not partial as far as who is invited. Jesus invites all to join together at the table.

This brings up a couple of questions that are often asked about Communion. Who can partake of Communion? And what does it mean to commune “in an unworthy manner”? I’m going to deal with that first question next week, but I do want to answer the second question.

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul writes “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord….Those who eat and drink [unworthily] are eating and drinking judgment against themselves.”[11] That has led countless people to wonder, “Am I worthy?” or “Who is worthy?” In my first appointment, I had a man who never took Communion because of that verse. He argued that he could never be worthy, so he would not eat or drink.
You know, he was partly right. He could never be worthy. None of us could ever be worthy. How could we ever be worthy? We are not worthy, but Jesus Christ is and we participate in his worthiness because of the gift of grace. Besides, as Gayle Felton writes, “If we were worthy to receive the body and blood of Christ, we would not need to do so.”[12]

After all, one of the reasons we celebrate Communion is for divine forgiveness and healing. Christ invites us to the table because we are not worthy – not on our own. In the Lord’s Supper, we receive God’s love and mercy – a gift we could never be worthy to receive. But Jesus invites to join in his worthiness. Jesus invites us to experience the forgiveness and healing that comes from God’s loving action in our lives.
In Communion, we partake of, as our liturgy says, the cup “of the new covenant poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”[13]

We experience forgiveness – acknowledgement and assurance of forgiveness. Each time we celebrate Communion, we confess our personal and corporate sin – trusting that God will forgive us. And we receive a reminder and the assurance of that forgiveness. This part of the liturgy reminds us of the forgiveness we receive by God’s grace.

We receive forgiveness and we receive the assurance of our forgiven-ness. This Holy Mystery says, “This assurance is God’s gift to sinners, enabling us to continue to live faithfully.”[14] God’s grace helps us to break free of sin and live a life of faith.
John Wesley wrote, “The grace of God given herein confirms to us the pardon of our sins by enabling us to leave them.”[15] God’s grace enacts forgiveness in two ways. First, God’s grace justifies us. We are washed clean. We receive a pardon from our sins. The penalty of sin is eternal death. By God’s grace, we are saved from the penalty of sin. Because of God’s grace, we have the promise of eternal life.

Communion reminds us of God’s forgiveness. It also reminds us that we continue to take sin seriously. We realize the hold sin has on our lives and our ongoing need for forgiveness and deliverance.

Not only are we saved from the penalty of sin, we are also freed from the power of sin. I said sin has a hold on us. Paul said we are in bondage to sin. We experience God’s forgiveness and we feel the freedom, but sin always seems to catch up to us. We can’t get away from it. We try, but it keeps pulling us back.

I’ve talked about it before like a bungee run. Have you seen a bungee run? One of these inflatable games at kid’s birthday parties. You start at one end with a bungee cord attached. Then you run as fast and as far as possible. But the further you go the more the bungee cord pulls you back. Until finally your crawling and grasping and scratching until the cord pulls you right back to where you started.

God’s grace helps us break free from the power that holds us and pulls us back. God’s grace breaks the power of that hold sin has on us. It doesn’t happen all at once. It is a life-long process, but the more we experience God’s grace the weaker sin’s power becomes. Sort of like stretching a bungee cord further and further over and over, until it breaks.
That is the continuing forgiveness and freedom we receive from Holy Communion.

For a long time, I thought of Communion as a somber occasion. It was solemn and dark. I don’t know why. Communion is a celebration of God’s action in our lives. It is a celebration and a chance to receive sustenance from God’s grace. It empowers and enables us to live a life of faith. We encounter the true presence of Christ and in that encounter, we experience true forgiveness and true freedom.

Next week, we will celebrate Communion together in our combined worship service at 10:00 am. We have a chance to celebrate God’s loving action in our lives. I hope that you can join us and come ready to celebrate and experience God’s life changing grace. 



[1] Felton, Gayle – United Methodists and the Sacraments; p. 56
[2] Ibid.
[3] Wesley, John – The Duty of Constant Communion; I.3
[5] Ibid.
[7] This Holy Mystery; p. 11
[8] The United Methodist Book of Discipline; ¶104, Article VIII
[9]O Depth of Love Devine”; stanza 1
[10] Felton; p. 55
[11] 1 Corinthians 11:27 & 29; NRSV/CEB
[12] Felton; p. 74
[13] UM BOW; p. 37
[14] This Holy Mystery; p. 10
[15] Wesley, ibid. 

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