16^th February 2012

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 5 February 2012

Lessons -- Psalm 105:1-11; 1 Corinthians 11:17-27; Luke 22:14-23

Jesus said: 'Do this in remembrance of me.'

It is fitting to focus on these familiar words as we celebrate the Lord's Supper and the renewal of our covenant promises. Luke, Matthew, Mark and Paul show that Jesus linked this meal with the 'new covenant'. In the service today we are reminded of what it means to belong to the Church -- to 'remember' what a privilege it is to be 'members' of the Body of Christ.

[The English words for 'remember' and 'member' come from different Latin roots. One refers to 'memory'; the other to a 'limb'. However, combining them in the context of the Covenant Service and Lord's Supper may be helpful in encouraging us to deepen our understanding of what it means to belong to the Christian community.]

The congregation at Corinth had not remembered the responsibilities of membership. Some treated the supper as a pagan feast. Self-indulgence, neglect of others and squabbling were on display around the meal-table!
Paul had to correct them. Their behaviour was damaging the holy communion into which God had called them to be a sign to the world of God's love embodied in Christ. They had forgotten what it meant to be members of his
body: that, as Paul says elsewhere, 'as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another' (Romans 12:4).

It is easy also for us not to remember what it means to be members of the Body of Christ. We may not be guilty of self-indulgence at this meal, but a flippant attitude to the Lord's Supper and divisions between members still cause disharmony.

Before Christmas, and after much prayer and thought, Church Council sent letters to confirmed members who, for various reasons and over a long period of time, had not participated in the worship of God or the sacrament of Holy Communion with fellow members. It is hoped they will be encouraged to reaffirm their membership vows, either at St John's or in another Christian community.

At such times people often say they do not have to go to church to be a Christian. What they really mean is that worshipping God with other members is optional. They think that to be a member of the church it is enough to be involved in church activities -- apart from worship.

It is a pity the rest of us tend to become very defensive when such things are said. We should be encouraging people to remember -- as well as reminding ourselves -- what it means to be members of the Body of Christ.

Members of the Body of Christ should be delighted to gather together on a regular basis to remember what God so graciously has done to redeem the world in Christ's life, death, resurrection and ascension, to be reminded of God's presence with us and never to forget what has been promised.

* We think that 'remembering' is only about the past. When Jesus says,
'Do this in remembrance of me,' we think about what he has done at a
particular point in the past. And that is decisive. The God who made
covenant with Israel -- by saving them from slavery, calling them to be
a light to the nations and promising that their suffering faith would
be vindicated when the Messiah comes -- has renewed his covenant with
the nations in Christ. God has acted for us in past events!

* But what has happened does not belong entirely to the past. In Holy
Communion we are to 'remember that Christ died, and his blood was shed,
for each one of us' -- that what happened for all, once-upon-a-time is
also a present and personal reality. Remembering what Jesus has done
for us commits us to remember that he is the ascended Lord who has
defeated the dread power of evil, and so to proclaim his saving grace
today. We are reminded of the privileges and responsibilities of our
vocation.

* The future too is included in remembering Jesus. It sounds strange to
say that we should remember the future. But it is not. Memorials, at
their best, are not only about the past or present. For example, War
Memorials encourage us to honour the sacrifices of those who have died
(in the past) to keep us free so that we will work for the common good
(in the present) in the fervent hope that the horrors of war will not
threaten us (in future). Memorials can be signposts to hope. And hope
certainly is an essential part of remembering what God has done in
Christ! As we say in the liturgy, 'For as often as you eat this bread
and drink the cup,' says Paul, 'you proclaim the Lord's death until he
comes.' (1 Corinthians 11:26)

Therefore we are to participate in the Lords Supper with 'prayers of thanksgiving', ever mindful that what has been decisively begun in Christ's sacrificial death (past), and gladly acknowledged by countless members of his Body throughout time (present) is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet that will mark the end of sin, evil and death and will be a time of praise and worship around the throne of grace.

The New Testament scholar Jeremias says that 'the meal is a memorial
(Greek: anamnesis) of the Lord, not (only) because it reminds (members of) the church of the past event of the passion (of Christ), but because it proclaims the beginning of the time of salvation (grace) and (includes) prayers for the breaking in of complete fulfilment.' (para. The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (1964), p118, cited in CK Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (1971), p271.)

It is now clear why it is so divisive when members separate themselves from other members at the Lord's Table. They have not remembered that, as fellow sinners who are the beneficiaries of God's saving grace in Christ, they are called to worship together, to be reconciled to their brothers and sisters and so be a visible sign of hope in our strife-torn world.

Sadly, some members no longer believe that the broken loaf and out-poured wine represent the grace of God as it has been embodied in the broken body and the out-poured blood of Christ.

In fact, some prominent ministers in the UCA and other churches have now dispensed with the Words of Institution. References to sin and grace and the reconciling love of God for sinners are deliberately omitted in order not to cause offence. Instead, the Lord's Supper is treated as a common meal open to anybody, regardless of faith in Christ. Whilst it is good to share table- fellowship with others, we need to remember that the Lord's Supper is a distinctive meal. It is a sacrament of grace in which the Lord Jesus Christ is present among members of his Body in the sharing of bread and wine.

The trivialising of Holy Communion is most regrettable. The new liturgies underplay the terrible cost of sin, evil and death in the world. They dismiss the wonder of Christ's sacrificial love for broken humanity.
Ultimately they leave us without hope. By misunderstanding or deliberately undermining the Lord's Supper, these members have trampled on the memorial to God's grace and have dismembered the Body of Christ. They have cut themselves off from their fellow members who share in the new covenant that has been so magnificently embodied in the crucified, risen and ascended Lord.

Much, much more could be said about the Lord's Supper. There have been many passionate debates in history about precisely what is meant when Christ says 'This is my body' and 'This is my blood'. Protestants tend to get squeamish about these words -- a young lad in my confirmation class long ago, not having an eye to deep symbolism, expressed horror at such cannibalistic and vampirish practices!

The fundamental point is this. When as members of the Body of Christ we participate in Holy Communion, we are drawn into union with the One whose body was broken and whose blood was shed for us and all people. We become members of his body, the Church: participants in the mission of the One who embodied hope for our broken and blood-stained world.

Since God is present in the incarnate, crucified, resurrected and ascended Body of Christ, all members of the human race may know that their sins have been forgiven and that, in him, evil and death have been defeated as a sure sign of the glorious future that awaits us and the whole creation.

Therefore, on this Covenant Sunday, as members of the Body of Christ, let us remember what God has done for us all in Christ and commit ourselves to worshipping and participating in the Lord's Supper together. So may we give thanks for what God has done (in the past), commit ourselves to serve Christ boldly (in the present) and look forward in hope to the completion of all things (in the future).

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Rev Dr Max Champion is minister in the St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia. Dr Champion is Chair of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.