The Reverend Kirk T. Berlenbach

Easter III. Year A

April 6, 2008

“The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.” “The Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation.” These are the words of Holy Communion. You might also call it the Eucharist or Mass or the Lord’s Supper. Whatever the case, it is something we do every Sunday. But what is it all about?

From a physical standpoint, communion is this. The Bread and the Wine. Also known as the Body and Blood of Christ. Even though we are all familiar with them, many, if not most of us have questions about what happens during our ceremony and also, about what it all means.

So let’s start with the basics. [Take a host. Hold it up.] This is one of the pieces of bread that we use. We buy them in large plastic containers of 1000 pieces. The technical term for it is a host. When it is consecrated (which is to say when it is specially blessed) it becomes the Body of Christ. But how can that be? Doesn’t look like Jesus. Doesn’t smell like Jesus. Doesn’t taste like Jesus (unless Jesus was made of a mix of cardboard and Styrofoam). So why do we use bread like this?

Well, we use wafers because of their size and the fact that they don’t spoil the way real bread would. Also they are much neater, in terms of not creating crumbs, which given that we believe that the bread is sacred once it is consecrated, is important. Finally, the flat wafer evokes the idea of the unleavened bread, which would be consistent with a Passover interpretation of when the Last Supper occurred.

The same hold true for this. [Take bottle. Hold it up.] This is the wine. The bottle reads ?????… one of the finest wines of Idaho. When it is consecrated it becomes the blood of Christ but just like the host it doesn’t resemble the Blood of Christ in any discernable way. It doesn’t look, smell or taste (yuck) anything like blood, not that blood would taste all that good either. So why use it? Again, the type of wine is chosen for similar practical reasons. It is usually cheap and tends to be higher in alcohol content, which helps both in terms of germs, and also in preventing spoilage. Obviously, both these hosts and this wine seem much more dignified and impressive when presented on a silver paten and in a bejeweled chalice, but when we get right down to it, this is what we’re dealing with.

While I think we can all agree that it is good to understand some of the practical reasons behind why we do what we do, we are still left with a much more significant question. How in the world did we get to the point where weird little pieces of Styrofoam bread and inexpensive high-test wine were accepted as representing Jesus’ presence among us? Truth be told, if Christians from the early Church were to come into our service today, they probably wouldn’t recognize what we do as being the same celebration of the Lord’s Supper at all. So how did we get here?

In the early church, that is, in the first decades that followed Jesus’ ascension, the celebration of communion was nothing like what we do today. It was a meal; a meal shared by believers at the end of which bread was broken, wine was shared and Jesus was remembered. That’s it. No complex liturgy or theology. Just a real meal where Christians shared food and fellowship and felt that Jesus was present in their midst. Naturally, the more time that passed, the more ritualized it all became. Eventually, the celebration of Communion was separated from the actual meal and gradually evolved into the form that we know today.

Needless to say, over the last two thousand years many different interpretations and traditions have arisen. But as it stands now, there are three primary schools of thought.

The first is Transubstantiation, which holds that the substance of the bread and wine is actually replaced by the substance of the body and blood of Jesus. In other words at an atomic level the bread and wine are changed. This belief has dates back as early as the fourth century. It eventually became the dominant view, first in the Eastern Orthodox Church and then later in the Roman Catholic Church in the West. Transubstantiation remained the dominant understanding until the Protestant Reformation

Next is Consubstantiation, a variation of which is called the “Real Presence” doctrine. This view came about as a result of the Reformation. Consubstantiation holds that the body and blood of Christ is really there and present along with the substance of the bread and wine. In the words of Martin Luther, “Christ is present in, with and under” the bread and wine. Incidentally this is the official view of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.

Finally there is the Memorialist approach. Some Reformers were not satisfied with Luther’s offering of consubstantiation and saw Communion as even more symbolic. The bread and wine are means by which we remember and honor Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, but there is no metaphysical change that happens to the elements… they remain just bread and wine. Many of the Protestant denominations that hold this view celebrate communion on a less frequent basis, sometimes once a month or even, just once a quarter. This position is carried to a logical extreme by the Quakers who do not celebrate it at all but rather believe that we ought to remember Jesus and what he did every time we eat and drink.

Now you might be wondering which position to choose? Like me, you might see some value in all of them. The bottom line is that we do not have to choose. Whatever the metaphysical reality that stands behind our Eucharist may be, we do not have to have a full or complete understanding in order to participate in it or in order to gain spiritual benefit from it.

In the history of our denomination there is one person who seemed not only to grasp this truth but also articulated it beautifully. When our Anglican Church was first being defined, there was much discussion and argument between the Protestant and Catholic factions. One of the hot button issues centered on the meaning of Communion. What would our stance be? Would we continue the Roman Catholic theology of the Mass and the doctrine of transubstantiation? Or, would we side more with the Protestants and view it more as just a memorial? As this debate carried, Queen Elizabeth, who had far more influence on the formation of our church than her father did, weighed in. Her counsel took the form of a simple poem. It reads,

He was the Word that spake it;

He took the bread and brake it;

And what his word did make it,

That I believe and take it.

Take a moment to really digest her words. In these four lines Elizabeth wisely and beautifully lays out the simple truth of the matter… that the theological and metaphysical reality of what happens to the bread and wine is beside the point. It is Jesus and not us, who creates the reality of our Eucharist… whatever it is that is happening, it is G-D and not us who makes it meaningful.

The night before he died Jesus instituted the tradition that we now call Holy Communion. And in doing so, he not only inspired the liturgy that we now use, no, what Jesus did was far more important than that. Through the breaking of the bread and sharing of the cup he showed his disciples how he will continue to be present among them, even after he left this world. And every time we do the same Jesus’ presence is revealed among us too. For no matter how varied our practices may have become, the essential core of the Lord’s Supper remains. No matter how much our practices have changed from the time when he first instituted it, the details of our beliefs don’t really matter. Because whatever it is that is actually happening, it is G-D, and not us, who makes it happen.

So long as we remember that, then every time we break the bread and share the cup, Jesus will be revealed. His presence can strengthen the fellowship that exists between us… it can renew our faith and it can strengthen our spirits. Indeed, what happens at the Communion Rail transcends our limited understanding and unites us in something much more important- for as we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are joined together as the living Body of Christ. And that is something we can all take and believe. AMEN