“Two of the earliest representations, or symbols, or icons
of the Holy Communion are bread and fish.”
The Sermons At Calvary
By The Reverend Richard H.
Humke
THE EUCHARIST FORMS A COMMUNITY
July 23, 2006, 11-B, Calvary Church
Isaiah 57:14b-21
Psalm 22:22-30
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-44
“On
the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took
bread…” Those are the words you hear
every Sunday in that part of the Eucharist called “The Great Thanksgiving.”
If
you are paying attention at that time, your mind is taken back in one way or
another to the Last Supper on the night before Jesus was crucified, when he
gathered with his disciples and took bread and wine and spoke of his life being
given up for them. He said his life was
his body and his blood, being given to them in the bread and the wine. And so the Holy Communion is always tied in
our liturgies and in our minds to that Last Supper.
So
it may come as some surprise to you to learn that the early Christians, at
their simple table Communions, not only recalled the Last Supper but also, we
believe, they recalled Jesus’ feeding of the 5000 by the lake side, our Gospel
today. That is not a connection we
readily make, but they did.
Two
of the earliest representations, or symbols, or icons of the Holy Communion are
bread and fish. You would expect bread
and grapes, but it was bread and fish.
You will find that symbolism in Christian art, in carvings and windows,
for instance, if you look closely, though I don’t believe you find it in any
windows here at Calvary. That fact in
itself indicates to us that today’s story is in some way connected with the
Lord’s Supper.
I
wonder if it would not change the whole tone of what we do on a Sunday
morning if we were able more easily to look at the Eucharist with this story in
mind, as a picnic on the green, as a time of being fed after hearing the Word
in Scripture and sermon, just as those picnickers with Jesus in our Gospel
today were fed after listening to his teachings. In this act Jesus was beginning to shape a community of
followers, people whom he taught and then whom he fed, people who shared a
common experience.
As
our Gospel begins, Jesus’ disciples, who had been sent away on their first
mission, as we heard last week in the Gospel, had now come back with all kinds
of exciting news as to what had happened to them. So Jesus asked these tired disciples to come away with him to a
quiet and lonely spot —to rest and to exchange stories, I would think. Such a time together would also build
community among these close followers of his.
They would have time to be with each other, and to talk together, and to
share meals together, and to enjoy one another’s company.
They
were, however, as it turned out, not to have much time alone because the crowds
found where Jesus was and followed him there.
So then Jesus proceeded to teach them further, telling them about the
Kingdom of God and life in the Kingdom.
When
it got to be evening, and they were hungry, Jesus, much to his disciples’
surprise and, I suspect, chagrin, provided food for the crowd – in a miraculous
way, the story tells us. I do not
intend to trivialize this important story by trying to explain it away as we
once did. The story is too important
for that. We did that sort of thing at
one time, you know, trying to find rational explanations for what appeared to
be a miracle. So, for example, we
explained the story of Jesus walking on water by saying that it must have been
near the shore and there were stones hidden in the water that he walked
across. That sort of thing is not in
vogue any longer. Now we are more
willing to accept the story as it was told and to seek to understand it from
there.
This story
is told more times than any other story of Jesus. It is told, in one form or another, six times in the Gospels; so
it surely has an importance that surpasses any rationalistic explanations you
and I have heard in the past about how it could have happened.
Do I think
that five loaves of bread and two fish actually turned into enough food for all
those people? No. But I do think that behind this story
lay an event of some kind that was told over and over again by those first
Christians until we get the miracle story that we hear in the Gospel. We may not be able to uncover the reason for
its importance to early Christians, but we can honor the story by attempting to
uncover some meanings in it. And one of
those meanings may be, as I have said, that it is a hint of the Lord’s Supper
where multitudes are fed by small amounts and are satisfied.
When
you gather at the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist, as you do here at Calvary each
Sunday, you are being fed with the life of Christ himself. That we know and believe, though how
that happens people may differ on. And
each one of us comes to that Meal with our private and personal fears and hopes
and needs and pains, all of which we lay before Christ at the altar. If I hadn’t been a parish priest for so many
years, I never could have imagined the many things that people bring in their
hearts on any one Sunday: the anxieties, the hurts, the anger, but also the
joy, the thanksgivings, the hopes.
That
is an important part of what takes place at the Eucharist, but it isn’t the
only one. IT IS NOT THE ONLY ONE. There is another dimension that we may
overlook, one that for so many years (and even centuries) the Church hardly
recognized because it had privatized Communion so very much: it was a private time between you and God, a
time when you “made your Communion,” as we used to say, a time when you stayed
on your knees and covered your eyes and went inward. Now there is nothing wrong with that so long as we see that it is
only one dimension of what we do when we gather together at the altar.
We
also need to see that Meal as a time when the community is strengthened and
bound together. As we gather together,
and eat together, not only are we helped individually, but we are strengthened
in our community life as well. I have
to tell you that there was a time when I felt guilty, when sitting in the
congregation, about watching the parade of people coming and going at the time
of Communion, as though I should have had my eyes covered the whole time and be
saying prayers. I no longer feel that
way, and I hope I can relieve you of any guilt that you may have about doing
the same.
I
think it is important to give thanks for that gift of Communion after I have
received it. But then I sit back to
look at who in my faith community is here today. It’s also a time of prayer, but of a different sort. And this is what goes on in my head: “There’s Donna. I haven’t seen her since she had surgery. I’m glad she’s
back.” “There’s Bill. What would we do in this parish without
him?” “There’s Elaine. I know I’ve been
negligent about getting in contact with her.
Tomorrow morning I’ll make a phone call.” “I haven’t seen Bob in a long time, not since his wife died last
year. Looks like he has a new lady
friend. I hope so.” Those are the sorts of things that go
through my mind.
But
even if I didn’t know the people, even if I were visiting elsewhere, for
instance, I can still do the same thing because in some sense it is my
community even though I am a visitor. So watching the elderly woman, whom I do
not know, make her way up to the altar, when I know it is an effort and there
must be considerable pain involved, inspires me. Watching the young couple holding hands as they go up to the
altar fills me with hope. Seeing the
young child approach the altar with expectation reminds me that I might have
more expectation myself. Looking over a
diverse congregation, young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight, people of
color and white, makes me happy to be a part of such a community.
Well,
you get the point, I think. I don’t want
to trivialize what we do by suggesting that it is a display for the purpose of
seeing and being seen. If it were only
that, we could each Sunday just have a parade of everyone up and down the
aisle. What I am suggesting is
that, in the context of the Lord’s Supper, where we all come knowing that none
of us is perfect, each one of us has failed, all of us need forgiveness,
something good happens in our life as a community.
In
a day like ours in America when, as we know, so many bonds of community have
been lost, the parish church can still be that place for many people where one
is known and cared about, where one can know that he or she is an important
part of something greater. But it
doesn’t always happen, and when it doesn’t happen, one may feel a deep sense of
betrayal – betrayal because the Church has talked one way and done another
way.
Calvary
Church, I have found, is a real parish community, and there is an intense
loyalty by its people to this parish.
You have come through good times and bad times together, and you are
still here. But that sense of
community, strengthened by the Eucharist, can be lost, too, unless everyone
plays his or her part in seeing that it stays vital.
So
this wonderful and overly familiar story in our Gospel today is more than a
miracle story. It is a story of a
diverse group of people, bound together by a common need and fed by a generous
Lord.
It
sounds like us.
Richard
H. Humke