St Barnabas, Hove Corpus Christi 23 June 2019

I want to do some thinking with you this morning about the meaning and power of the eucharist. Since this is at the heart of our life together as Christians, it's good to consider what we receive and what we put into Sunday worship on the great Feast dedicated precisely to such reflection.

The Eucharist is the Hour of Jesus. We come as the Lord's people to the Lord's house on the Lord's day around the Lord's table - to be impressed by Jesus! Just like when you miss your morning prayers the day gets jumbled, when for trivial reasons we miss this Hour, the Sunday Hour of Holy Mass, we find some disarray in our week. It’s as if the attention we give for an hour to eternity brings eternity to bear on our use of time. The urgent things give way to the important!

Nowadays the Church’s Holy Days of Obligation on weekdays run to six: Epiphany, Ascension Day, SS Peter & Paul, the Assumption, All Saints and Christmas Day. Few devout Christians though would omit New Year’s Day, Ash Wednesday and Holy Week as days to find during the week the Hour of Jesus - or maybe a half hour Mass! Some like myself come day by day. When people ask me about such devotion I explain I see the Eucharist as Jesus' embrace. When we were children we received tender loving care from our parents. As a mother consoling a hurting child the Lord embraces in this rite our hurts, as well as joys, along with those of the whole world.

The Eucharist is also the place that builds the Communion which is the church.

It is Christ's Sacrifice and ours, the memorial of his once for all redemption.

It is Christ's Presence at the table of his word and the altar of the sacrament.

The Eucharist is lastly a great Promise, the pledge of glory.

These four headings Communion - Sacrifice - Presence - Promise are  stated poetically in the refrain for Corpus Christi on the pew sheet. Let’s start by looking at and reading the refrain together and see what thinking emerges. Have a look through the antiphon. It was written by St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century from a scripture base and possesses noble simplicity.

You might recognise the four themes of Communion - Sacrifice - Presence - Promise

Let me read it: O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ, his sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with his grace, and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours.

Let’s look more closely at four phrases in this antiphon addressing the four headings I mention:

O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ… The Eucharist is firstly the place that builds the Communion which is the church. We are made one not by having the same feelings but by sharing one bread in penitence, not trusting in our own righteousness but in God's manifold and great mercies. Christians share the same doctrine - or should do! We share a good variety of spiritual experience but, against certain forms of Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, there is no subjective experience held in common within mainstream Christianity save sharing the one bread. As the Apostle Paul says in the chapter before today’s set reading from 1 Corinthians 11, we who are many are one body, for we all partake  of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:17) As today’s prayer over the gifts expresses it, this unity is a gift both expressed and effected at the celebration of Mass. We come united to be made more united in our sense of need for God’s grace which is itself the secret of a church that’s together. God deepen our sense of need for him, especially in the inevitably troubled seas of a pastoral vacancy! I speak as retired priest covering one 3 years old at St Bart’s - God spare you that!

His sufferings are remembered… The Eucharist is Christ's Sacrifice and ours. It is the memorial of his once for all redemption. As we heard in the second reading Until the Lord comes… every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you are proclaiming his death. (1 Corinthians 11.26). We stand at the Cross.

Obedient to Jesus we take, bless, break and share. It is our grand invitation to enter into the movement of his self-offering. I’m grateful to holy priests and people who over the course of my life have lifted the veil covering the sacred mysteries for me by their teaching and example. They’ve helped me see beyond this brief action with scripture, bread and wine the power of Christ’s Sacrificial Prayer to which my intentions are joined day by day I’ve gained confidence in a transformative dynamic summarised in Our Lord’s promise that ‘I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself’ (John 12:32). All people, but also all things as St Paul writes of all things being ultimately put ‘in subjection under Christ, so that God may be all in all’ (1 Corinthians 15:28). Such ultimately is the power of the eucharist expressed in a verse of George Bourne’s Communion hymn: Paschal Lamb thine offering finished once for all when thou wast slain in its fullness undiminished shall forever more remain cleansing souls from every stain.

Our minds are filled with his grace… The Eucharist is Christ's Presence at the table of his word and the altar of the sacrament. How else can people come close to Jesus in this world other than through word and sacrament? My flesh is food indeed Jesus says to us. We come here for the empowerment Holy Communion effects just as in the days of his flesh the hungry were fed by Our Lord in the Gospel from Luke Chapter 9. We note a parallel with the Lord’s action at the eucharist as we read how Jesus raised his eyes to heaven, and said the blessing over bread, breaking and handing them to the disciples. To this day priests, Jesus’ men, imitate that action lifting their eyes upwards before they say the Lord’s words at this sacred meal, This is my Body...this is my Blood offered for you to the Father, given to you in Communion. It’s good Anglican practice to bow or bend the knee as we come into Church or leave Church, or as we approach or leave the Altar, practice honouring the Real Presence of Christ. Outside the eucharist, it’s believed Christ is present, truly present, under the veil of the Tabernacle or Aumbry where a light burns perpetually before the safe where the Sacrament is reserved, for Communion of the housebound or for our corporate devotion as in Benediction. To honour that perpetual presence, by bowing or bending the knee when coming and going, doesn’t deny that presence elsewhere through prayer, the reading of Scripture, in Christian Fellowship, in the beauty of nature, in holy people and so on.

We receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours… The Eucharist is a great Promise, the pledge of glory, like the cinema advertisement, a preview of forthcoming attractions. Last month I was privileged as Priest Associate of the Holy House at Walsingham to be present with up to a thousand at a day when Mary’s effigy was brought to stand on the coronation pavement before the high altar of Westminster Abbey in a great day of devotion. You could see these words behind the statue, inscribed over the high altar, from Revelation Chapter 11 verse 15: ‘the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ’. I found this deeply moving. It made for a day not just aspirational but touching on the reality of the Eucharist there and then as hundreds did business with God bringing the nation on their hearts. The coronation eucharist sets earthly kings and queens to be servants of the advance of Christ’s kingdom which is both present and to come. The use of material objects at the eucharist reminds us that God is transforming the whole universe building up the new creation in which indeed the kingdom of this world becomes the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. At Mass the priest invites us to Communion with the words ‘blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb’ and this phrase has a double resonance - the Supper is here and it's to come, a preview of the forthcoming attraction of the banquet of heaven. As today’s postcommunion prayer expresses it: may we delight for all eternity in that share in your divine life, which is foreshadowed in the present age by our reception of your precious body and blood.

To summarise this is the hour of Jesus, the communion of the church, Christ’s sacrifice, presence and promise.

O Sacred feast in which we partake of Christ, his sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with his grace, and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours.

Trinity 11 (19th of Year) Faith 7th August 2016

I’ve had some pastoral encounters recently in which people have taken me aside to ask how they can regain the faith their parents instilled in them so they can find hope to carry them through a trial. It’s a reminder to me of how Christianity’s getting eroded all around but that there are residual embers of faith that can be fanned into flame.

People say they find faith hard, but it’s simply a matter of opening up to God, opening your inner eye as suggested in today’s second reading. The letter to the Hebrews famously defines faith as conviction of things not seen. That conviction is just the same as the one that clicks the kettle on to release an invisible power. Being a Christian is being like a kettle. We always need the surge of the Holy Spirit to warm us up to boiling point so that faith fizzes out into overflow. I hope our children will remember what overflow there’s been from Anne and my believing and seek the same for themselves. God has no grandchildren.

When we possess faith, that conviction is practical wisdom. Its practical in that it counters our fears, which is why Jesus says to his disciples in today’s Gospel Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Faith sets your sights on the big picture of things, as we read in the letter to the Hebrews, it is to desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. As for Abraham in the first and second readings faith is taking God at his word when he promises you something good ahead of you. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.  By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God…  because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, ‘as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.   

We, people of God, are the descendants of Abraham who is our father in faith!

So this morning I want to remind everyone that we have a mission action plan at St Giles Church to grow in faith as well as in love and numbers.

How can we grow in faith?

We need to commit again and again to God in Jesus Christ. God, give me a vision of yourself more to your dimensions and less to mine. Open my inner eyes! If we really prayed that prayer day by day we’d have an awareness of God in the present moment that wouldn’t just satisfy inner restlessness but make our faith grow, warm up and fizz out to bless and serve others.

To grow in faith, as our Hebrews passage said, we need the conviction of things not seen…By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Thomas Aquinas wrote wisely that to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. The wisdom of this saying is brought out in the story of the acrobat who wheeled his son in a wheelbarrow as part of his high wire act. When they asked his son how he felt about the exercise his only comment was I trust my dad.

Here is faith defined as the extra sense it is, quite beyond the natural senses, but nevertheless based on experience. The boy needed no explanation for the faith he had in his father though few others would rise to it. By analogy Christian faith in God is the certain conviction you will be carried forward in all the perils of life by one who loves you beyond reason. The strength of Christianity lies in this revelation of God as the Father of Jesus who acts by his Spirit to carry us forward through all the pitfalls in our life to resurrection glory.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom Jesus says.

How can we grow in faith?

Commit yourself to God – and see yourself more fully as he sees you. This means more prayer, more space to ponder God in his creation.

It also means a certain biblical literacy, that is, getting into scripture, where there are so many promises addressed to believers. Those praised in today’s purple passage from Hebrews are praised like Abraham for taking God at his word. Only when you experience a passage of scripture being underlined to you by God and the consequences of that, can you see the powerful implications of taking God at his word.

Repentance is one of the implications. The Book of Common Prayer exhortation says because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy Communion, but with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with a quiet conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means [of self examination and prayer] cannot quiet his own conscience, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned Minister of God’s holy Word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God’s holy Word, he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness. It’s appropriate I mention the special confession time on Saturday 6pm before the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary but in the spirit of the Prayer Book you can approach the priest at any time.

To grow in faith we need from prayer, scripture and turning to God in repentance a fuller sense of who we are as his children, filled with his Spirit, promised his provision and destined for his glory.

Seeing yourself more fully as God sees you is a real eye opener. It comes though from a readiness to allow the opening up of those inner eyes that are the Spirit’s gift to every human being, even if, mysteriously, so few seem graced to see them opened.

As something God-given, faith is inevitably mysterious. Believers hold things together in their experience that live in tension from a rational perspective. Hence faith is seen as both a virtue and a gift, a human act yet one prompted by God, a personal act yet inseparable from the corporate faith of the church. The paradox of faith is captured in the famous definition of Thomas Aquinas: Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.  

Though seen as a human virtue, faith is seen as something moved by God through grace.

So here we are this morning open to grace, seeking those inner eyes to operate more fully in an unbelieving culture. Here we are encountering God in word and sacrament, coming close to God who embraces us in the eucharist, as a mother embraces her children, to assure them they are loved.

May the love of the Lord be upon us as we put our faith in him!