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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