God, we acknowledge you as
Creator of the universe with a casualness that keeps us from having to admit
that we simply cannot conceive of your beauty, or wonder, or awesomeness in
power. We try, with little success, to
bring you down to our size. Challenge us
to give ourselves to you exactly as we are—joyful, broken, confused and
sad. Let us trust you to meet us here. Amen
As
I began this sermon, I was looking out the window and, no surprise here, it was
storming. Made me think of the
unbelievable light or lightning shows we have had in the past few weeks. One night last week I was standing outside
with the dog, once again, waiting for the dog to do, well, what dogs do, and
the lighting flashing from cloud to cloud was absolutely spectacular. Of course, it dawned on me that this was a
rather dangerous show I was watching and that Jonathan was now ready to go in,
so we made it to the front door just as the rain started. I kept thinking about the “show”, if you
will, and how that related to this week’s sermon topic. I want to spend this and the next three weeks
speaking about various aspects of the meaning and nature of communion,
Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper in our lives.
Today, I want to talk about the emergence of communion with God in
Creation, Creativity, and the act of creating.
So,
back to the lightning. If you saw it
that same night, you know that the clouds were lighting up from side to side as
the lightning bounced back and forth from cloud to cloud. It was beautiful and, of course, since the
cloud formations, even at night, continue to change, no two bursts of lighting
were the same. Every once in a while, as
if to say, “don’t get too comfortable!” a bolt would strike vertically and land
somewhere on the earth not too far from where I was standing. Creation is like that, unpredictable
sometimes, coming from seemingly nowhere, and not altogether
understandable. As if to say, “don’t get
too comfortable!” God suddenly appears in our lives in a new form or person,
thought or idea and we are suddenly flailing around trying to understand what
just happened. Even in the midst of our
very human flailing, I believe that God says to us, “Peace, be still”. When we open our hearts to the wonder of
creativity, that very creativity that just turned our lives upside down, we
will find peace. And with peace comes
communion with God.
So
it is with the sacrament of communion.
When we open ourselves to what God is saying to us in the sharing of the
bread and wine, divine creation occurs over and over again in us. God is calling us to an openness and
vulnerability to God’s creative acts in our lives.
If
we, and I do, believe that we either meet or have the opportunity to meet the
Creative Christ every time we come to this table we call “God’s table” than we
must explore how we are to approach this potentially powerful creative moment
of communion with the God of the Cosmos.
We must begin, of course, with our relationship with the Cosmos itself. Rachel Carson, author of the pivotal book, Silent Spring, ruminates about children
and the gift of wonder: “If I had
influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening
of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a
sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an
unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the
sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the
sources of our strength… Those who
contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure
as long as life lasts. There is symbolic
as well as actual beauty in the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of the
tides, the folded bud ready for the spring.”
To
Carson’s wish, I would add the wish for the ability to hold in a sacred balance
our ability to take in the absolutely overcoming power of the presence of the
Creator in Creation abundance at the same time we wrestle with forces larger
than ourselves. And, I am left with this
question: Because the vastness of the
universe is lost on us, is unperceivable to our limited, time- and
space-specific minds, do we absorb what we can and trust the Source of all
Being to take care of the rest or do we consider what we can take in as all
there is? This openness to the
vulnerability that comes in joyful acceptance of the gift of all creation and
all creativity without the need for complete understanding lays the groundwork
for authentic interaction with the Creator as we drink from the common cup and
taste the common bread.
When
we involve ourselves in discussions such as these, it keeps us from falling
into the trap of thinking that communion is just about us. Paul says, in his letter to the Romans, “From
the beginning till now the entire creation has been groaning in one great act
of giving birth; and not only creation, but all of us who possess the
first-fruits of the Spirit,…” This,
without a doubt is a strong and compelling invitation for us to join in this
creative process. But how are we to find
direction, instruction concerning the creation and recreation of the earth and
cosmos? Where else but in the great
mystery of all time, sometimes called the Paschal Mystery, when we celebrate
the living, dying, and living again of Jesus Christ himself. When we allow ourselves to play an active
role in the re-telling and re-living of this mystery, we allow ourselves to be
taken deeper and deeper into the living and dying of the earth, the creation of
God. Theologian Gerald Manley Hopkins
tells us how this is accomplished:
“Eucharist is Christ as journey-food, as inn-keeper, as torrent, as
birdsong, wolf howls, salmon leap, cock-crow.
Christ is our living text and context, the embrace within which we live
abundantly and know our being …” These
concepts are not easy, but we must wrestle with them if we are to grow in
further understanding of all we are and all that is.
Let’s
look at the actual act of communion and ferret out the creativity that lies
hidden in word and tradition. There is a
trend among MCC churches and other progressive churches to substitute other
food and drink items for the usual bread and wine or grape juice. I react, not particularly positively, to that
practice because I do not think that we have to change the elements in order to
change the way we both approach communion and discover the creating God in the
midst of it all. It is not communion
that must change it is we who must change.
Never is an old saying more true than at communion—you know the one—‘if
you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always
get.” But the changing in the doing
rests in us. We leave communion to the
last of the service for very good liturgical reasons. But what do you think would happen if we
celebrated communion at the beginning of the service? Do you think that if we dined with the author
of all creativity at the beginning of worship that our worship would
change? I hope so. If we truly believe that we meet God—the very
same God that created the universe—each and every time that we come to
communion; and, if we believe that interaction has the ability to change who we
really are, then why not do it first, so that our praise comes from a sacred
and centered place—a place where the Creator of the Cosmos dwells in very real
spiritual and physical bodies in the breaking of the bread and the blessing of
the cup?
As
the ecumenical mutt that I am in denominational experience, I have the
privilege of looking at certain aspects of the worship service from many
perspectives. One thing I miss most in
the giving up of the Episcopalian Mass is a sense that the entire service is
the Communion Service—the Eucharist. The
Mass, whether Episcopalian, Catholic, or Greek Orthodox—places the Christ of
the Cosmos/Jesus of the Cross at the center of the service. The Passing of the Peace is more than just a
brief time of socializing before the real thing happens in the Fellowship
Hour—it is the calling together of the community. And the exchange of Christ’s Peace is central
to preparing one’s heart to receive the living Christ. Let me make this clear—this sermon is not
about what you believe about communion—we could argue that for a while, I
fear. It is about one divinely created
person entering first into the context of creation itself and then into the
presence of the creative source—God—in which we live and move and have our
being. Will you take a chance today? Will you risk your vulnerability to the
Creative Source of the Universe by opening your heart and mind to the creative,
energetic working of the Spirit in your
life? Will you come eagerly to the Table
and return to your seats so awed by your encounter with God that you can only
rest and pray? Will you begin, even now,
to allow the Spirit of God to begin a good work in your heart and life? And, we say together—come, Lord Jesus,
come. Amen and amen.
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