“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
We proclaim a death. We do this every week. Some of us do it more than once a week. We break bread and give everyone in the room a small portion, and everyone eats. We pour wine into a chalice and everyone is invited to drink. And whenever we do this, we proclaim a death.
We break the bread, and as it breaks we cherish the horrible memory of his body broken, hammered to a pole and crossbar, left to hang in such a way that he would slowly suffocate. And we remember his body stripped of clothes, particularly clothes that would identify or dignify him: no colorful garment to signify that he was a rabbi, an educated teacher and leader; no tunic that signaled wealth or social status; no pockets to hold money; no modest underclothes to protect his privacy.
We break the bread, tear it in half, then quarters, then into little bits. And then we gobble it up, we wolf it down, we consume it. We consume him.
Then we pour the wine, and as it pours we cherish the horrible memory of his blood poured out. If he hadn’t suffocated on the humiliating pole, then he would have bled out. Blood: it carries oxygen and nutrients to the furthest reaches of the body; and it carries back toxins to be processed and discarded. Blood carries life. Blood sustains life. But his blood poured out, taking the life out of him.
We pour the wine, and each of us is offered a taste. We drink it down, we guzzle it, we quench our spiritual thirst. We quench our thirst with his blood, with him.
Every week, sometimes multiple times a week, we do this. We eat and drink our Savior. And in this eating and drinking, we proclaim his death. We enact it. We perform it. We live it. We eat and drink him as he passes from life to death.
We do this because our Savior taught us to do this. He demonstrated the whole thing, to his friends. So when the priest leads our thanksgiving prayers, she wears a tunic, much like his tunic: we call it a chasuble. You’ll see Father Jay change into the chasuble in a little while: he’ll take off his coat (which we call a cope) – the cope is a lot like the overcoats that Roman officials wore when they worked in unheated government buildings – anyway, Father Jay will take off his coat, and then he’ll put on the chasuble, the tunic – Christ’s tunic.
This is done not because the human presider at the Eucharist is Jesus, or even “Jesus-y” – we may love our presiders, but they’re just our human siblings. The presider’s tunic merely reminds the assembly – it reminds all of us, priests included – that Jesus gives us this meal; Jesus teaches us how to break his body apart and pour out his blood; Jesus makes us ready to proclaim his death in this particular, startling way.
And tonight – just one night a year – tonight we will take the leftover bread and wine and place it on the Altar of Repose. We set it on a table covered in candles and surrounded by fragrant flowers. The table stands at the entrance to this space, next to the baptismal font. This is our Garden of Gethsemane, recalling that fateful night before his death when he waited and prayed in the garden, all night long, while his friends dozed.
If you like, at any point overnight, you could keep watch, though from the distance of our video stream. We’ll have a link on our website that you can use to spend some time watching, and waiting, and watching. Youtube tells you how many people are watching with you. You can see the number go up and down. If others are watching with you, say a prayer for them.
Whenever I do this, I look at the veiled bread and wine (you can’t actually see them because they’re covered in a white cloth), and every single time, every year, I think about the priest who consecrated that bread and wine, whether it’s me or Jay or Catharine or Mary Jane, it doesn’t matter. I think about that person. I pray for them. (Is that selfish? I sometimes pray for myself on this night.)
Whoever the priest was, they asked God to sanctify these gifts – these gifts of the earth, shaped by human hands. And so now, the bread and wine are more than just a dish of starch and a flagon of alcohol. They are also the Body and Blood of Christ. They’ve been broken; they’ve been poured out. And since that first night, every time we do this, someone leads the prayer, wearing a tunic. So I think about that person, and pray for them.
And then I think about all of you. I think about you sleeping in your homes, which dot the city, near and far. I think about how hard you work, not just here at church but in your family lives, and in your vocations, and in your countless efforts to make a positive difference, to be kind, to be good. If you’re like me, then you’ll doze in the garden, just like those flawed disciples. But you do care. You do make a difference. And I pray for you.
Then my mind wanders, as I keep watch with the bread and wine, the veiled Body and Blood of Christ. I think about the world, every bit as broken as Christ’s Body. I reflect on the rivers of anguish and anxiety that course through the world right now. And yes, the world has always suffered from anguish and anxiety, but it seems especially terrible now. Do you feel this agony? I think about some of our members who are only thirteen years old, or only three years old. I pray for them.
And I wonder, in all of this, I wonder how this meal of thanksgiving, this eating and drinking our Savior, makes a difference in the world, makes a difference in our community, makes a difference inside you, inside me. Why stay up in the night, spending quiet time with a plate of bread and a jar of wine? Why do it? Does it matter? Does it help? Does it work?
Yes. It matters, helps, and works because it extends great love into the world. When we break bread and drink wine together, and when we keep vigil together with the Body and the Blood, we naturally, inevitably keep vigil with one another, and with the whole world. We breathe, and our breathing slows, becomes even. Our Savior, broken in a terrible death, is poured out to the whole world in wondrous self-giving love.
You see, when Jesus taught his friends about the bread and wine, he knew what was about to happen. He knew that he was about to die, and die horribly. And so he taught them how to proclaim that death, enact that death, embody that death, so that his death would fire and found a new community, a community of wondrous self-giving love.
And so it’s only natural, then, that Christians down the ages have been known for taking bullets to save innocent life; we’ve been known to give everything away to be sure everyone in the village has food and clothing; we’ve been known to stand alongside the vulnerable – think Sister Helen Prejean standing in solidarity with death-row inmates, seeing Christ crucified even in them! It’s only natural. We Christians act this way because Christ taught us about this meal, and we repeat it countless times to be sure it works – to be sure it works on us.
The death of Christ is not just a trauma. It is not just a pointless tragedy. The death of Christ is dinner: Christ’s death is a Table laden with platters of food, groaning with flagons of festal drink. If I am going to die, Christ teaches me, then my death should count for something: my death should save lives; my death should bind wounds; my death should nourish all who hunger.
And so it seems right, it seems fitting, that we should recall an old Protestant saying, a little statement the presider would make after the invitation to Communion. It’s in our Prayer Book, but we never say it at St. Paul’s, probably because we Anglo-Catholics don’t want the mystery of the Eucharist to be nailed down by one specific explanation. But the statement is short and sweet, simple and good. It helps us understand why we share this odd but nourishing meal, week by week, and especially tonight. And it only riffs on what Jesus himself said, wearing his tunic at table with his friends on that terrible night, long ago.
Good catholic Christians, allow yourselves to hear this bit of Protestant wisdom:
The gifts of God for the people of God: take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.
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Preached on Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2024, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14
Psalm 78: 14-20, 23-25
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35