Sermon
7th May 26
Corpus Christi is Latin for the body of Christ. It is the day when we thank God for the Institution of Holy Communion, and reflect on that Sacrament. Of course, Jesus instituted the Holy Communion at his Last Supper, which we commemorate on Maundy Thursday. But there are so many other things happening that night, that the Church long ago moved this celebration to the first free slot after Easter, hence the Thursday or Sunday after Trinity Sunday.
As I was wondering what to say today, I was thinking about the many and varied ways that I have seen Jesus’ command to “Do this in remembrance of Me” being followed. Some of those, like here, involve a fair bit of ritual: “bells and smells”. Others, like the parishes in which I served were more “middle of the road”: no incense, no bells, some with, some without, vestments. Others, like a couple that I have gone to from here to give cover, were very low Church. No ceremonial, no ritual, and no unleavened wafers, but slices of white bread and those awful choruses!
Those of you who travel abroad will have seen a not dissimilar variety of practice in the Roman Catholic Church. Different degrees of ritual and of robing, although never anything other than unleavened wafers. I have been to Methodist Communion services, with both ordinary bread or communion wafers, but always with individual glasses as they use non-alcoholic communion wine which, for hygiene reasons, prevents the use of a common cup.
Finally, I remember the Russian Orthodox mass. When I was at university, we had an Orthodox Chaplain, Fr Sergei, whose day job was as a lecturer in Russian. He would occasionally celebrate the liturgy as the main University service, and I was trained to assist him. We would begin over an hour before the public service. As part of that preparation, he would take specially baked leavened rolls. Using a special knife, called the spear, he would extract a small portion from the heart of each, the so-called lamb, and the rest of the roll would be put into a basket. At the main liturgy, these small pieces of bread were consecrated and administered to the faithful. However, the remaining parts of the rolls from which the lamb had been extracted were blessed but not consecrated and, at the end of the service, everybody of whatever tradition shared this blessed bread called the antidoron: Greek for instead of the gifts. Remember that Greek word “doron” meaning gift, you’ll need that next Sunday!
Such a variety of practice, so many different ways of obeying Jesus’ command to take bread and wine and “do this in remembrance of Me”. It would surely be wrong to suggest that one is better than another. For at the centre of all Christian worship, going back to the very first days of the early Church, is that sharing in the body of Christ broken for us, and his blood shared for us: doing this in obedience to his command.
Amen
