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August 9, 2009
The Rev. Anne Dryden McKeever
Beginning last month with the story of Jesus feeding five thousand followers, we’ve been hearing a lot from the Gospel about hungry people and bread. Get ready, because we’ll be hearing about the Bread of Life for a whole month of Sundays in August.
Last week, while Dean Baker was preaching about the Bread of Life, I was startled to hear my stomach growling. I was certain everyone in the choir must have heard me, but just one acolyte gave me a quick smile of acknowledgement. It occurred to me then that the growling of our stomachs is the one and only digestive sound our bodies can make in church without causing us profound embarrassment. Everyone’s stomach growls from time to time, and there’s nothing we can do to stifle it. I’d had a small breakfast earlier in the morning yet still my stomach growled.
We smile at the person with the grumbling tummy in church because we feel a common bond; we all know what it’s like to feel physically hungry and to yearn for our next meal. But are we able to acknowledge and help to feed the spiritual hunger of the people sitting in our midst?
Jesus wants to feed our hungry hearts. And the nourishment Jesus alone provides can give us the strength and courage to feed others with his love. When Jesus keeps reminding us that HE is the Bread of Life, the living bread that came down from heaven, he is offering a radical invitation. Jesus is inviting us to change our lives by eating his flesh and by drinking his blood.
That’s what we Episcopalians do when we come to church on Sunday: We bring our hungry hearts and we ask to be fed. Some of us are fed through the words and music of our lovely hymns. Others are fed by the beautiful sight and aroma of the flowers, and sometimes we are treated to a whiff of God’s own perfume—incense. For many of us, reading aloud and hearing the words of Scripture each week is a deeply nourishing experience.
But the central action of our Sunday worship is to come together to be fed at the altar. Because I love our service of Holy Eucharist I want to share with you today my insatiable hunger to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord” over and over and over again.
What’s not to love about our Holy Eucharist? Where else in our lives do we gather as true equals, all loved the same, all offered the same portion of bread and the same sip of wine?
I love that there is no tollbooth here at the altar rail. You are all free to step forward to receive the holy sacraments whether you are a big financial donor or you seldom tap the collection plate. This altar is not a Holy Vending Machine either. We can’t tote up for God a big, long list of our deeds of good will and expect a bigger chunk of bread to plop into our outstretched hands. Nor should we hang back and avoid contact with the bread and wine, wrongly thinking we are somehow unworthy to receive Jesus this way.
All are worthy. All are welcome. We all stand or kneel together at this altar as Children of God, all forgiven sinners, all worthy of unending grace, all deserving of God’s abundant love.
Two recent experiences have enriched my love of our celebration of Holy Eucharist. In May I attended a service at a Jewish synagogue as an assignment for seminary class. We were supposed to notice what was similar and what was different in the worship styles of Episcopalians and Jews. I happened to go to the synagogue in Davis on the Saturday of a young boy’s Bar Mitzvah. I had attended Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies of family friends, but it was different to attend purely as an observer.
The main similarity I observed in our worship is a reverence for scripture. I love the Jewish ceremony of the slow opening of the tabernacle and the way the huge scroll of the Torah is gently removed and then paraded around the room. Jewish worshipers rush out of their seats to touch the scroll with the tip of their prayer shawl and then touch that tip to their lips in a kiss.
We Episcopalians do a pretty good job of showing reverence for the Gospel by turning to face the Book as the deacon proclaims the Gospel each Sunday. Some of us do a little ritual of crossing our heads, lips and hearts with our thumbs to ready ourselves to absorb the Good News of our Lord.
Can you imagine worshipers here being so excited to experience the Good News that we rushed forward to touch or to kiss the Gospel Book? I’d welcome that! Another thing I observed at the Bar Mitzvah service that touched me was that in welcoming the young boy, the rabbi put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and said: “Be proud to be a Jew. Be proud to say ‘I am a Jew.’ Be proud of our ancestors for preserving the Word of God and for preserving our traditions.”
When I heard this it felt good to acknowledge my own Jewish heritage as a Christian. But I was struck with the realization that as a cradle Episcopalian, I have never heard such words of pride spoken in church. I realized my heart yearns to hear these words: “Be proud to be a Christian. Be proud to be an Episcopalian. Be proud of our heritage and our traditions. Be proud that we gather at the altar every week to eat the flesh and to drink the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ. Be proud that each week we confess to each other and to God our brokenness --and that we are forgiven. Be profoundly grateful that we are invited to come to the altar every week to feed our hungry hearts together as we become the Body of Christ by sharing one bread and one cup.”
Maybe we shy away from such bold proclamations due to modesty and politeness. Maybe we Episcopalians avoid such stark statements of pride for fear of sounding superior or exclusive or snooty. I wish we could get over those fears and be openly proud of what we do here together. I wish we could feel proud not in an arrogant sense but with a sense of gratitude.
More recently my faith was enriched when Canon Kelly shared the story of Father Walter Ciszek with those of us who gather each Thursday for Trinity’s Voices of Faith series. Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit priest born in Pennsylvania, answered the Pope’s call in 1928 to volunteer for missionary work in Russia. But after war broke out, Father Ciszek was swept into a dark pit of prison and forced labor camps in Poland and Siberia. Father Ciszek labored in a cold and brutal death zone for twenty-two years, witnessing starvation, madness, forced confessions and executions, yet he never lost his faith in God.
What sustained him? Prayer. What fed his hungry heart? The sharing of Holy Communion -- secretly, surreptitiously, dangerously. Yes, under penalty of death, Father Ciszek conspired to celebrate Holy Eucharist during short work and meal breaks, sometimes whispered, sometimes in silence.
Prisoners and slave laborers who were given just enough to stay barely alive to work would hide in their pockets their meager morning bread rations, often laboring for hours on empty stomachs until they could work their way over to Father Ciszek to offer their bread to be consecrated.
Can you imagine the excitement of hiding that piece of bread in your pocket as you worked all morning, motivated by the knowledge that within the day that bread would become the Body of Christ, the nourishment your hungry heart craved?
Can you imagine the thrill of savoring that blessed bread in the company of other believers who were risking their lives to share Holy Communion with you?
Thanks be to God, we here at Trinity don’t need to sneak around to receive the Holy Sacraments. We don’t have to hide bits of bread, either. Did you know that twenty parishioners at Trinity serve as bread bakers, creating the delicious bread we enjoy at every Eucharist? Prayerfully, they follow one of two recipes, one with yeast and one without, to bake the bread that unites us. As someone who serves at the altar and handles that bread, I can tell you that it may look the same from week to week, but the bread always has a distinct texture and flavor. I surmise the Holy Spirit at work in each baker accounts for that difference.
Unlike the prisoners Father Ciszek served in Poland and Serbia, we don’t risk our lives by stepping forward, hands outstretched, to receive the Bread of Life that Jesus offers us here. But we do risk a blessed transformation of our lives every time we accept God’s love this way.
Your growling stomach may elicit a sympathy smile from your pew-mates in church. Oh sure; we can easily acknowledge each other’s physical hunger. But today as you experience Holy Communion, I invite you to acknowledge the hunger of your own heart for spiritual nourishment.
For what does your heart hunger? Forgiveness? Reconciliation? Friendship? Healing? Self-worth? Hope? And I invite you to consider the hungry hearts of the people who will become the Body of Christ here with you soon. Ask God what you can do to nourish others with your well-fed love.
The Bread of Life awaits you. Please come forward with pride in our traditions. Please come forward with gratitude we are free to worship together this way. Please come forward to feed your hungry hearts. |