This Do in
Remembrance of Me
August 4, 2013 Luke
22
As a
minister I get an interesting amount of email sent my way about God and God things
and church and church things. One such
email was a video link to a bunch of wedding bloopers – most of them were yeay!!!
Very ‘America’s Funniest Video’ category - But there was one that still makes
me smile whenever I think of it – the video was taken at a young catholic
couples wedding, by the looks of the dress sometime in the 1990’s – for the
bride had a big poofy head dress and large shoulders puffs and it was quite low
cut. The couple are standing in front of
the priest who is in the midst of the Eucharist – sharing the bread (the small
round wafer) in this case – as the priest goes to place the host in the brides
mouth – the wafer slips out of his hands and lands right down the front of the
brides dress – now before anyone can even think to react the priest shoves his
hands down the brides dress searching for the lost wafer. He digs until the bride regains her composure
and slaps his hand away. And you may
wonder why a priest would be so brash, would be so bold as to chase a little
piece of bread down the cleavage of a woman –we need to remember though, that
to that priest, in that moment, it was not just a piece of ordinary bread, that
wafer was part of a Eucharistic meal, and in that moment retrieving that piece
of bread, however misguided - was the most important thing – for that bread
represented so much more. That thin
small coin of flour/water/salt,
the bread – was about the memory,
the bread - the remembrance,
the bread - the story,
the bread - about connection
to the Divine
the bread – it was an outward sign of inward grace – it
was sacred, it was sacrament.
Sacrament is about the memory,
about the ritual about the vast meaning behind the very simple food.
And we
remember – we remember Jesus who on a certain night gathered with his friends
and shared a meal – yet underneath that layer of memory there is another
because Jesus and his disciples were
sharing a meal of remembering – for they were gathered on a certain night
sharing in a ritual to remember others who gathered on a certain night hundreds
of years before – a night unlike any other when all around them the world
seemed to be falling apart.
We remember the
first bread
A series of terrible
plagues had come and gone – pestilence and frogs and flies and gnats and locus
– the river had run with blood, the cattle had died people were covered with
boils and all around the land there was fear in the air. The pharaoh, the leader of the country and self
proclaimed God of the land of Egypt had hunkered down in his palace bunker
refusing to acknowledge what was going on around him – he was at war with God
and he was losing.
The terms of the war had
been spoken – let the Hebrew people go –
the Hebrew people who were
slave for the Pharaoh and the Egyptian people –
let the slaves go where
the terms–
but
Pharaoh for reasons of commerce
or
reasons of pride
or
reasons of self righteous indignation –
or
for no reason at all –
refused to let the people go in spite of the
plethora of pestilence and plagues and powerful storms to convince him
otherwise.
After nine
different afflictions tonight was the
night when the final battle of this war of plagues would be fought – the Hebrew
people had some notice that it was coming down tonight and they were told to
prepare – to get ready for something was about to change.
They were to prepare a
meal –
a simple meal –
slaughter a lamb –cook it
all – leave no part untouched –
and make bread – simple bread
– plain bread – bread that has no Levin – bread that has no yeast –
bread that is made in
haste,
so that they are ready to
go as soon as they are set free.
The most dreaded plague is about to occur – the death of the
first born – and therefore over the lintels of the doorways on each of your
houses, the Hebrew people are told – paint a marking of blood – and when the final
plague comes – the blood will make a barrier from the shadow of death and he will
not cross the entrance way but will pass over.
And so it came to pass. The shadow of death passed over and the Hebrew
people were set free.
And so every
year around about the time when death passed over the Hebrew people come
together and bake the bread and shared a meal to remember - and they remember that once they were
slaves and now they were free,
And they
remembered that once they lived in Egypt
under the tyranny of the Pharaoh and now they had been delivered by God and
Moses to live in the promise land –
And they
remembered that even though they were once again conquered and once again sent
into exile – they still needed to gather together and to remember and to share
the bread and the memory of the Passover.
It became the ritual to remind the people who they were and to whom they
belonged – and they remembered that they were God’s people, delivered out of
Egypt – and that they belonged to God.
And so even after
hundreds of years when Israel, their promise land is yet again occupied by an
alien power called Romans as it is in Jesus time– the Hebrew people still
gather and still make the bread, without the yeast and without the leaven, and
still share a meal and remember.
It is hard
to believe that something so simple as sharing bread and sharing a meal – would
have so much underlying meaning – but it does – because that is how it works
with God – the stuff of life, the ordinary is really extraordinary and the
simple is really the complex –
so
the last is first and the first is last
and
the one who serves is the greatest of all,
and
the kingdom of God is here amongst and within us. –
and
love and forgiveness is something that is extended to all no matter who you are,
Regardless
of you postal code, or your gender or you sexual orientation or the colour of
your skin or the number of your IQ score – God’s love, God’s grace is extended
to you and we remember – we remember
How on a
night long ago, Jesus was gathered with his disciples to share a meal and eat
the bread of the Passover meal – but in the midst of the meal he took, the
bread – the simple bread, made just like it had been hundreds of years before
when it was prepared in haste, bread without yeast and bread without leaven –
Jesus took
that simple bread and shared it with those around the table and invited them to
take and eat and remember. But he said
other words too – words that took the simple bread of the Passover and made it
about more –and he said “this is my body, and it is broken for you - whenever you do this – remember me” He made the bread’s meaning deeper and richer
and now kneaded into the memory of the Passover bread is Jesus,
who he was and
what he did and
what he said,
and what he shared about God
and God’s love for the world.
It actually
is quite a burden to put on bread – especially this poor striped down version
of bread – not some of the heafty chunky crusty loaves of bread we consume in
our everyday - – all this simple bread consists of is a little flour, some salt
and some water –and now not only was it used to remember the events of the
Passover by hundreds of thousands of Jews, it is also going to be used by millions
of Christians the world over to remember Jesus and his body, his physical
presence on this earth, broken for us.
And here it
is – it is our turn, our turn to remember, our turn to take this simple meal of
bread and juice and infuse it in memory so big and vast in encompasses all the
people and history and meaning of every meal such as this from the time of
Passover, and as it intersects the time of Jesus and right up until Sunday
August 4 – Pike Bay – 10:15 EST – Lions Head – 11:40 EST. That’s alot of memory to pack into a little
piece of bread. Which is what makes this
meal sacred – this food -sacrament
And we remember
that meal of Passover and the meal in the upper room – in this really simple meal, we remember about God and God’s
love and forgiveness and Jesus and his life and who we are and whose we are – we
remember – with simple food, bread and
juice.
And as our service
book says when we share this simple food: “The brokenness of our world is lifted up in
the bread broken. The bloodshed of our world is remembered in the cup shared.
In the gathered grain we are brought together and grounded in God’s good earth.
In the fruit of the vine we are united with the groaning of all creation. We do
this at table to remember our identity as a covenant people of God. We receive,
and are sustained as, the body and blood of Christ. This is our eucharist, this
is our thanksgiving.”
So this meal
– these simple foods of bread and juice on the table in front of you – this table
is set the food is ready - and you are invited, you – yes you – you there
sitting in these pews – you are invited - not because you are perfect and
whole, but because you are imperfect and broken – this meal is for you.
Not because
you are free from faults and faultless in all you do – but because you makes
mistakes and fall down and pick yourself up again – this meal is for you.
Not because
you have arrived and have become the person you are meant to be – no those who
are invited to this table are still on the journey and have a ways to go – this
table is ready for you who would like some nourishment in the midst of your
travels – this meal is for you.
And so we pray
before we share this meal together – pray to God and give thanks for this food and
all the sustenance we receive, and we pray to be reminded who we are and whose we
are – we are God’s people and these are the gifts of God for us – the people of
God –this is our meal. And we remember
Let us pray......
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