Theology Matters

Theology Matters: What Anglicans Believe About Holy Communion

What Anglicans Believe About Holy Communion

I did not grow up Episcopalian, and it wasn’t until my junior year of college that I took the Eucharist for the first time.  I remember not going forward for the first few visits I made to St. Mark’s in Troy, Alabama, then finally daring to kneel in front of the altar to take the bread and cup.  I walked back to my pew and, following what everyone else was doing, knelt in silence to pray.  I could still feel the warmth of the wine in my chest, and taste it on my tongue.

Holy Eucharist is like that, in that even when we have left the altar, it remains with us.  It follows us, stuck on our tongues, and in our hearts.  When we take the Eucharist, we believe we are mysteriously receiving the presence of God.  We know through Holy Scripture that God has showed God’s faithfulness to us in countless ways—the deliverance of the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the creation of the Church, and in even more ways, happening now.  One of the many ways God shows God’s faithfulness to us is through nourishing us with the bread of life that will give us what we need to navigate the challenging life of faith. 

In our catechism, the Eucharist is described as having the benefits of “forgiveness of our sins, the strengthening of our union with Christ and one another, and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet which is our nourishment in eternal life.”  The Book of Common Prayer also says that it is “required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people” in order to come to the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is, simply put, a gathering of community.  As anyone in a community knows, the life of community is not an easy calling.  Being together means recognizing that we have sinned against both God and one another, and asking God for forgiveness.  Being together means being reminded of our need for union with Christ and one another.  Being together means that we strive to create peace where there is discord as best we can now, in our flawed world, knowing that God has created a place for us in the heavens that has no division within it.  

Eucharist is a reminder that we cannot live this Christian faith and life alone.  In order to live in community, we are required to examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people, all of which is wrapped up in the thinnest wafer and smallest sip of wine.  The Eucharist requires us to dare to get over ourselves through the humble act of receiving the gift of bread and wine, so that we might be transformed by God into a people who treasure the presence of God over our own pride.  I may not agree with you, but I will kneel beside you, and together we will taste and see that the Lord is good.

The word Eucharist means thanksgiving.  Yes, if we are to have a conversation about what Eucharist means in our tradition, it cannot miss the fact that the Eucharist introduces us to the real presence of God, provides nourishment for the journey, and instructs us in how to be disciples.  However, we also cannot miss the fact that for us, Eucharist conjures up within us the overwhelming sense of gratitude we feel for the love, grace, and truth given to us in the one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The Eucharist is a mysterious act, and it is intended to be so.  What is not mysterious to us when we receive the bread and drink of the cup is the abundant love that is shown to us in God, and our commandment to follow the way of Jesus.

Warde is Associate Rector for Christian Formation for Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas.

Theology Matters by The Rev. Bill Murray

 The Commandments 4-6

My younger son is a joy and a challenge. From his earliest moments on this earth, he has been a willful child. Said differently, my son loves to break the rules. We discovered very quickly that the best and only way to get him to do something was to enjoy full-press reverse psychology on everything. “Son, you are not allowed to pick up your dirty clothes and put them in the hamper!” With a chuckle and delighted glee, he would gather up each piece and sprint to the laundry room. “You cannot eat your peas.” Like clockwork, the pile of green English peas would be consumed. Even his older brother learned quickly that telling him not to do something was the quickest way to getting what you want. Of course, there were and are rules that we make clear. Certain commands are not negotiable and are to keep him safe. We just have to craft them in such a way that we avoid words like “no”, “not” and “never.”

Imagine my delight when I was assigned the fourth, fifth, and sixth commandments. God handed down ten rules, among many others, to Moses. Of those instructions for better living, eight begin with “no” in Hebrew. Four and five are reminders of how to live a better life through positive requests. In case you do not have them memorized, number four is, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8) The fifth commandment comes shortly after, “Honor your father and your mother.” (Exodus 20:12) In many ways, they may be the toughest of the ten to follow. We can avoid a host of problems but being asked to dedicate a day to God and love our families is going a whole lot farther towards ordering our lives.

The official reasoning for setting aside a day is that God rested on the seventh day of creation. As a result, many folks will talk about how we must rest from our labors as though that is sole the purpose of the day. Terence Fretheim, a Lutheran professor, notes that true “Sabbath-keeping puts all human striving aside, recognizes the decisive role of God in creation, and provides for a weekly oasis to rest back in the arms of this reality.”[1] In others words, keeping the Sabbath holy is a clear reminder that we are not the center of the universe. God started creation before us and will complete it long after us. Through baptism and a life in Christ, we are beloved sons and daughters of God and participants in God’s kingdom. In the same breath, we rely on God from beginning to end for all of it. Sabbath keeping in this sense is about worshipping God and about reordering our lives weekly to what matters in God’s kingdom, not our personal fiefdoms.

The closest we come to understanding that call to a life prioritizing others is family. So, God continues the request that we order our lives differently by instructing us to honor our mothers and fathers. Regardless of our age, our parents are reminders that we did not get to where we are alone. From the beginning we need someone to feed us, clean us, care for us, instruct us, raise us up, and remind us that it is not all about us. We are pulled into relationship from birth through the desperate and basic needs of human life. Our parents are walking, talking, incarnate reminders that we did not do it all alone. Honoring our fathers and mothers is an invitation by God to remember that there are a million ways to be in relationship, most of them modeled by our parents in the first place. God’s command is a deeper reminder of the one who created us in the first place and upon whom we should depend at every age. Whether we have perfect parents, difficult relationships, never knew them, or lost them years ago, the instruction to honor fathers and mothers encourages us to reflect on all who have shaped, molded, and mentored us - and especially on our God who created us out of nothing to be who we are today.

The movement from keeping the Sabbath to honoring our parents is positive in command and breathtaking in simplicity. Taking time to remember who is in charge makes sense and flows into a gentle reminder that many others brought us to this day. To argue from lesser to greater, the work and ministry of being a parent has made me even more appreciative of all that my mom and dad did to raise me. And yes, I marvel even more at how much God engages us as our divine Father despite the fact that we are all a willful, crazy, sinful, broken humanity. In the end, it makes perfect sense that God starts again with the “do not’s” in commandment six. God may well be reminding himself as a loving parent as much as instructing us when we struggle with relationships large and small, “Do not kill.” (Exodus 20:13) Of course, if we are doing the hard work of keeping the Sabbath and honoring our parents, human and divine, then avoiding that one should be easy.        

[1] Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus. Interpretation: A Biblical Commentary for Preaching and Teaching. (Louisville, Kohn Knox Press: 1991), 230.

The Rev. Bill Murray is Vicar at Saint Michael and All Angels in Dallas