Eucharist and Service Go Together

Maundy Thursday April 14, 2022
Ex. 12:1-14a Ps. 78:14-20, 23-25
1 Cor 11:23-32 John 13:1-15

Lectionary Link

The liturgical cycles of the church and our phases of spiritual identification are tied to what might be called the transitions in the life of Jesus Christ.  And the most intense days of transition are found in the Paschal Triduum, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil.

We begin the Paschal Triduum tonight, and even though we know the end of the story, we retrace the events with dynamic memory as we hope that the power of these events will continue to affect us and influence our lives in excellence.

As a church, our identity as a community which have survived in the continuity for 2000 years are attached to the two events of Maundy Thursday.

Our identity as a church is being a Eucharistic Church; a church whose most literal social reality is seen when we gather to break bread together.  We are grateful that the Eucharist has helped to keep us together for so many years, so grateful, as to recall that Eucharist means gratitude, thanksgiving, and our very life together is built upon thanksgiving for the life of Jesus Christ.  The church, beginning with St. Paul's writings and the writings of the Gospel, believed that Jesus associated himself with the bread and wine of a meal, and gave us the gift of a ritual identity with him forever.  Do this as oft as you eat, in remembrance of me.  This ritualized presence of Christ to us is a real presence, a significant presence, a giving presence, a corporately experienced presence, and a touching and powerful presence.  The institution of this special ritualized and repeated and continuing presence of Christ in the Eucharist is what we celebrate tonight.  Holy Communion is a renewing event which we practice with Jesus Christ in our goal to be identified with his life and his values.  We are communicants in the church because together we communicate with Christ and each other in this event.

Someone one asked me if I had every excommunicated someone, that is, refused to give them communion.  I said, "no but I have experienced many excommunications."  Just begging to be asked what I meant.  The most excommunications that I have experienced are what I call "self excommunications," when people quit coming to the Mass to receive communion.  I've seen it happen more times than I would like to admit.  I think self-excommunication happens because of failing to understand the second feature of Maundy Thursday, the feature which gives Maundy its name.  From the Latin, mandatum novum,  the new commandment.  And what is the new commandment: To love each other as Christ has loved us.  And how did Jesus exemplify such love?  In the footwashing of his disciples.  The new commandment is the commandment to serve one another.  This is what happens when we are thankful for the life of Jesus.  Eucharist means thanksgiving, and when we do not understand that Eucharist and Service are tied together in an intimate way, we can be on a path of "self excommunication."

We are here tonight to hold together Eucharist and Service as chief values of the identity of our community that have derived from Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.  I thank you for honoring your communication with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and I thank you for every act of service, every act of footwashing that you have done to make the witness of the love of Jesus Christ a reality at St. Mary's in the Valley.

Thank you for your service in the name of Christ.  Thank you for being faithful to the real and ritualize presence of Jesus in this Holy Communion.  Amen.