Summer is over and vacations are done.  Our vacation was very nice – we spent a time with Martha’s folks and our last week was in Santa Cruz with both of Martha’s sisters and their families (or parts of them) coming and going.  Two comments made by folks there helped me prepare for today: one, was a pastor who observed that the world has it’s own ways and won’t tell you God’s truth.  He was right.  The second was a comment made by Ed (of Club Ed surfing lessons) that, “you probably have some ‘lost muscles, after surfing for a little while they’ll be found.”  I paddled out there into the waves with Forrest and Grace and lost my breath.  Every time I was about ready to catch the instructors would yell, “OK let’s paddle over here.”  I was terrible but it was fun.

Today as we kick off our fall programs I wanted give you a truth that the world will neglect and that you may have lost as you go about your daily routine but, if you find it today, it will provide a fundamental understanding of who you are.  You are not just a human being having a temporary spiritual experience.  You are a spiritual being having a temporary human experience.  The world will say only the outside counts – hence plastic surgery – but it’s only temporary.  You know that it’s what’s on the inside that makes a person unique and that it is both eternal and spiritual.  Today we’re going to consider how your spiritual being is nourished during the Lord’s Supper.  These three points encompass God’s activity with us and could even be labeled: past, present and future.

I.  The Lord’s Supper is the sacrament of SHARING the DIVINE LIFE with humanity.  From the garden God demonstrates the desire to be with us.  The Lord’s Supper sums up the history of God’s interaction with people.  As we prepare to eat bread and drink from a cup, we move back through history to the upper room with Jesus and the disciples.  They were celebrating the Passover – the defining event of the people of Israel – to remember what God had done.  “…do this because the Lord brought you out of Egypt.” (Ex. 13:8 [CEV])

Jesus transformed the Passover so the disciples and we could feast on the benefits he gave us by sacrificing himself on the cross: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (Jn 6:51 [NRSV])  Jesus was sharing the divine life with people in the past and it is still available to us today.

 

II.  Which brings us to the present – The Lord’s Supper is the sacrament of HUMAN PARTICIPATION in the divine life by SHARING life with EACH OTHER.   The first Passover was a meal to strengthen the Israelites for their journey from Egypt to the promised land.  They would remember the meal and God’s rescue and as they shared the table a powerful bond was formed between participants – breaking such table fellowship was heinous.  Look at Psalm 41:9 – “Even my best friend has turned against me--a man I completely trusted; how often we ate together.”  The same is true for the Lord’s Supper, in fact Paul gets angry at those who don’t wait for the rest of the family of faith.  He was trying to help us see not only that we are bound to each other through this sacrament but also that we will be strengthened for the journey of life as we are nourished by the body of Christ.

When we, as Presbyterians, celebrate the Lord’s Supper we affirm the real presence of Christ right here, right now, through the power of the Spirit.  Christ is present in the whole sacrament not just the elements.  As you, in faith, eat the bread and drink the wine Christ joins you to himself and builds up your Christian life.  Because this is real Paul told us to “Examine your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe.  If you give no thought (or worse, don't care) about the broken body of the Master when you eat and drink, you're running the risk of serious consequences. (1 Cor. 11:28-29 [Msg])

I can picture a young man here coming forward to receive communion, just as you will today.  He tore off a piece of bread.  An elder told him, “This is Christ’s body broken for you.”  Then he dipped it into the cup I was holding, as I said, “This is Christ’s blood, shed for you.”  He popped it in his mouth and said, “Whatever.”  I know he was showing off, but I can see it in my mind as if it just happened.  I wonder if I did the right thing by saying nothing or should I have stopped serving others and challenged him immediately.  I still think about that and worry about him, because he’s “running the risk of serious consequences.”

III.  The notion of consequences demonstrates that the journey leads us into the future where we discern – The Lord’s Supper is the sacrament of the SHARED LIFE and COMMON DESTINY of HUMANITY and nature.  As the Passover was the pledge of the coming messiah, so communion is the pledge of Jesus’ return.  Nature shares in God’s work of giving both life and new life to us.  We share in the care and cultivation of the earth and receive its good gifts.  The Lord’s Supper portrays the interconnectedness and interdependence of our personal, our community and cosmic salvation. 

I love the Message translation of 1 Corinthians 10:17: “Because there is one loaf, our many-ness becomes one-ness – Christ doesn’t become fragmented in us.  Rather we become unified in him.  We don’t reduce Christ to what we are; he raises us to what he is.”  Reflect on that for a while and you’ll begin to see: my life is shared with everyone here, around the world, and through time – not because of my abilities but because I have received Jesus Christ into my life and he has made me part of himself.  Loved ones, that is seeing life from a spiritual perspective recognizing that you are having a temporary human experience.

“The Lord’s Supper gathers together the past, present and future of God’s creative and redemptive work.  …for the community of faith, Christ is no mere memory: he makes himself present here and now through the breaking and eating of the bread and the pouring and drinking of wine, and those who partake of this meal are made one community in him."[1] We remember we are spiritual beings and the Lord’s Supper shows what human life by GOD’S GRACE is intended to be – a life together in mutual SHARING and LOVE.