Year A, Easter 3
Luke 24:13-35
As
many of you know, I first heard a call
to ordination when I was a member of the Roman Catholic Church. I felt it so
strongly that I attended seminary, as a Roman Catholic, hoping to either
discover some other way to follow a call outside of ordination, or find some
kind of hidden loop hole. One of the
reasons that I eventually left the Catholic Church was that I feared that if I
stayed, I would just be angry and bitter and no help to anyone. I remember
sitting in mass, watching the Catholic priests celebrate communion and
thinking, if only they knew how lucky they are.
If only they knew what it was not to be able to follow a call because of
the gender that you are born into. I was incredibly envious. I am not proud
it. But what was weird, was that there
was no other part of the ministry that incited my envy. I knew I could help
people without being ordained. I even knew that if I could not preach, I would
find some way to express myself and my faith.
But what I grieved, was not being able to celebrate communion.
When I learned more
about how the Episcopal Church viewed the sacrament of Holy Communion, I knew
that I had found a new home. When I
celebrated my first Eucharist, I remember telling myself, never forget how much
this means. Never forget what it felt
like to yearn for this. But I did. There were certainly moments when I could
remember that feeling and felt rather proud of myself for remembering. But I also took it for granted. It stopped carrying the same weight as it
once did. It stopped feeling like a gift and started to feel like a right. I am ashamed to admit it, but there it is.
So
this time away from the sacrament has been good for me. I have taken it for granted for too many
years now. Now I yearn for it, not in
the same slightly bitter way as before, but the way we yearn for home when have
been gone on a long trip. This time away has also made me wonder what it is I
miss about it. And I think what I miss
the most is the act of simply placing it in people’s outstretched hands, seeing
a young child reach for it before they even know what it is, bringing it to
someone who has been away from church, sharing it with someone in the hospital
who only has days or hours to live.
Because it is in the context of you—the church--where it has the most
meaning for me. Had you asked me before
all of this what I valued most about communion, I might have given you a proper
theological answer---about sacrifice or how the host does or doesn’t
change. So much has changed in the last
6 weeks.
These
changes have caused Episcopal clergy all over the country to question what we
believe and what is most critical as part of our worship. Because for so long, it was all around the
celebration of communion—coming to the table together. Now that we cannot have that, how are we the
church? This is not the first time the
Christian community has needed to shift how we think. This reading from the Gospel is all about how
we encounter the risen Christ.
Typically, when we have interpreted this text, it has all seemed painfully
obvious. The disciples recognized him
after he broke and blessed the bread, an obvious allusion to the Last Supper
and one of the reasons that the earliest Christians interpreted scripture and
then broke bread together. When this Gospel has come up in the past, it has
seemed a perfect opportunity to talk about the importance of celebrating
communion together, as a community. It’s a great time to remind people that
this is why we come together in church.
Of
course this is not just any Sunday. We
will not celebrate communion together.
Now what is this text about? It’s about two disciples encountering the
risen Lord. These disciples had learned
how to be disciples by following Jesus, in the flesh. What they had to figure out now was how they
can follow a God who is not present with them as a human. That must have been a hard transition for
them. They knew how to be followers when they could literally follow Jesus,
listen to Jesus, break bread with Jesus—but how could they do so after his
death, resurrection and ascension? By
interpreting scripture and breaking bread together, Jesus was showing them a
new way to be followers of Christ. It
doesn’t seem very new to us, but it was new to Jesus’ followers and the first
Christians.
For the last ten years,
every church event, every conference has talked about how the church needs to
change. And I took that all in and
talked to you all about it. But I didn’t
really want to change and the urgency was not yet there. Now, we are faced with a change that has been
forced on us. We have no choice but to
change. We can grieve the loss of what we
once had much like the disciples grieved the departure of Jesus. It’s ok to
mourn that. Yet what we cannot mourn is
the loss of faith or God, because God is still present and faith---while
perhaps more challenging, is that much more critical.
One day, we will share
communion together. We have no idea when
that will be. It could be many months and it might look different than how it
looked 2 months ago. However, this is an opportunity for each one of us to
discover a new way to connect with God.
It might be centering prayer, journaling, reading the Psalms or an
online Bible study. These are things we
will be talking about more in the coming months. We will provide resources and
direction. This is a time to do
something Episcopalians rarely talk about….develop your relationship with the
one true God. Much like we are all
finding new ways to relate to one another, this is an opportunity to relate to
God in another way, perhaps a more intimate way. And if you don’t---that’s ok. This experience
isn’t a test sent by God to determine who could find ways to come out of this
with stronger faith. It is an opportunity.
When
we initially cancelled services, I thought, well Conor and I can celebrate
communion together. That will be nice.
Then I realized I had no desire to.
That concerned me as I worried it meant it had lost its importance. Now
I long to have communion. I pass the aumbry
with the reserved sacrament in our sanctuary and look at it longingly. But I am determined to reserve communion for
a time when we can share it together.
When we do, it might be in a small group. It might be with tiny cups (gasp). God will be present. God will be present and I will once again
remember how precious communion is. For
now, we lament our loss and we talk to God about that loss. We wait and we pray. One day we will gather
at the table again.
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