Today, I want to focus on something that we do, every week, year in and
year out. I'm speaking of course, about
the Mass, or the Holy Communion, or the Lord's Supper, or the
Eucharist....whatever your favourite name for this service is!
Actually, all these different names are important...because they spring out
of the ongoing debates in the church, all around the world, about the primary
meaning of this liturgy. Those who use
the word 'Eucharist' are drawing from the Greek word 'eucharistia' which means
'thanksgiving'. For them, the key moment
of this service is the eucharistic, or thanksgiving prayer, during which the
people of God are reminded of God's actions in the world and in their lives
through Christ and the Holy Spirit. The
Eucharist is where we give thanks to God for the sacrificial death of Christ,
and commit ourselves to live new lives following his example.
For those who prefer the term Holy Communion, it is the more 'communal'
aspects of the service which are important.
Through the liturgy, the 'community' comes together, and communes with
God and one another, before going out to love and serve the Lord in the community. It is that 'communal' emphasis that has led
the Church of England to mainly prefer the title 'Holy Communion' than some of
the other options. We are a parish
church, called to serve a certain parish, in a certain community. We invite others to an ever more Holy Way of
being in communion, and in community.
The Lord's Supper is a term mainly used by the 'non-conformist' churches -
those who do not conform to all the teachings of the orthodox and catholic
versions of Christianity. Most Lord's
Suppers are a very stripped-back, bare version of the liturgy. The main focus is the meal of bread and wine,
which is consumed (mainly) as a memorial of Christ's death. A ‘Lord's Supper’ tends to focus on the meal
as a historical event, rather than (as the traditional churches teach)
something which is still happening today.
For a non-conformist, (and for most evangelicals) the bread and the wine
are merely tokens, rather than something which by the Holy Spirit, is
mysteriously transformed into the body and blood of Jesus - whether that is
meant spiritually or literally. The
piece of furniture on which this happens is called the Lord's Table, rather
than an Altar - because non-conformists prefer to believe that what happened
once cannot be repeated again. For them,
the sacrifice of Christ was made once for all, and cannot be repeated. Those who prefer the term Altar claim that in
some spiritual sense Christ continues to sacrifice himself again and again for
the life of the world...and therefore, the place on which this Sacrifice is
made present would be called an Altar.
There are many, many other names for this central feast of the Christian
Church, and many many ways of interpreting all the different elements that it
includes. For example, some Christians
call this 'The Table of the Lord' - the 'Mensa Domini'. Some call it 'the Lord's Body' - the Corpus Domini. Some call it the 'Holy of Holies' - the
'Sanctissimum', or the 'Eulogia' (the Blessing) or the Synaxis (the
Assembly). And there are others!
The main alternative that I suspect you have all heard is of course ‘The
Mass’. There are debates around where
that particular title came from. One
idea is that the word comes from the same root as the word 'Mess' - as is used
on ships all over the world. It’s the
place of 'the Meal' - so the The Mass is The Meal. Another suggestion is that ‘Mass’ comes from
the Latin words of dismissal, at the end of the service: "Ite, Missa Est', which directly
translates as 'Go, the dismissal is made'.
In other words…'You are sent' - emphasising that having received the
spiritual nourishment of the Eucharist, we are sent out into the world 'to love
and serve the Lord'.
And all of this is very interesting...especially to a geek like me! But of course, the real question is
this: what is the Service for?! What is its fundamental purpose? Why do we do it, and why should we continue
doing it?
Surprisingly, one of the most profound answers that I've found to these
questions comes from an Atheist…
The philosopher Alain de Botton has written a description of what he calls
'the Mass', which is well worth hearing. (This is part of his book "Religion for
Athiests: A Non-Believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion"). He argues that Atheists need to learn from
the Church. For example, he praises the
Mass for the way that it brings people together in community around a
meal. He points out that with declining
church attendance we have seen an exponential rise in Restaurants - But, he
points out, Restaurants fail to "introduce patrons to one another, to
dispel their mutual suspicions, to break up the clans into which people
chronically segregate themselves”. The
focus is on the food and the decor, never on opportunities for extending and
deepening affections”.
In contrast, de Botton says these things about the Mass...” Those in
attendance tend not to be uniformly of the same age, race, profession or
educational or income level; they are a random sampling of souls united only by
their shared commitment to certain values"
The Mass "should inspire visitors to suspend their customary
frightened egoism in favour of joyful immersion in a collective spirit - an
unlikely scenario in the majority of modern community centres"
These are all brilliant observations, I think. De Botton goes on to suggest the formation of Agape Restaurants, where patrons are
mixed up, and forced to sit with people they don’t normally mix with. They should be places where people are
challenged to think about life, and their place in it.
I rather like the idea of Agape Restaurant.
In fact such restaurants already exist in many churches. We have one, just like that, in Havant, in
the Pastoral Centre with the Methodist Church.
So does the Portsdown Community Church, at the Beacon. There’s also the
Meeting Place at the URC. This is what
Authentic Christians do - we take a simple idea from the normal plane of modern
existence...in our case, the idea of eating together. Then we transform it, with God's help, into
something holy, by introducing the idea of community - teaching people to love
their neighbour as they love themselves.
We give every visitor a warm welcome, and the chance, if they wish, to
think about the deep questions of existence.
And that is what the Mass, or the Holy Communion, is ultimately about. It's the place where people from all walks of
life can come together, united by a common Vision of what the world could be
like. We are united by a common
understanding that none of us is free of sin, and we all need to give and
receive forgiveness...from God and each other.
We are united by a common meal, in which we take into ourselves the very
stuff of God, in bread and wine; we take in sustenance for the next stage of
our life...whether that be the next day, or the next month.
And we do other vital things too. Together,
we recite historic words of faith, like the Creed. Many of us might struggle with the actual
theology of some of the words we recite,
but nevertheless they tie us to the previous generations who have believed
before us. Together we offer up the world, in all its chaos and pain, and
challenge ourselves to be part of the solution to the world's problems. We share peace with each other...even with
people who we would normally not think of as friends. And together, we commit ourselves to going
out in the name of Christ, to love and serve the world.
What could be a more appropriate and magnificent thing for followers of
Jesus - to do?
Amen.
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