Tuesday April 1, 2014

Tuesday April 1, 2014 

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

One of the many things that drew me to Anglicanism as a (much younger) adult, was the beauty and simplicity of the Eucharistic liturgy.  I’m not sure what specifically did it for me, but I would hunch that it was the reverence throughout the service, as well as the sense that the whole community had gathered for this sacred meal.  Those feelings remain with me to this day.

It is through these filters that I read today’s passage from the First Letter to the Corinthians.  Here Paul is addressing issues that have arisen in the infant Christian community at Corinth.  It seems that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper has become a time for, at the least, some bad manners, and perhaps even some serious abuse of this sacred meal.  Paul quite forcefully tells those to whom he writes that they are quite able to have their regular meals at home – with, it would seem, an excess, both of food and wine.  The gathering of the community, however was not a suitable venue for this gluttonous behaviour.

Then follow the words that have become known as the “words of institution”, involving seven actions – taking, blessing, breaking, and distributing bread; taking, blessing, and distributing the cup.  These words and these actions are visible in the church’s celebration of the Eucharist each time it occurs. 

Paul concludes this passage with further instructions concerning each individual’s preparation, and a recap of expected behaviour.

One of the great tomes written about the Eucharist in modern times is called “The Shape of the Liturgy”, by Dom Gregory Dix.  I quote a very small portion of this monumental work, which speaks to our Lord’s command, “Do this in remembrance of me”:

Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. . . And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God.

-Reverend Paul Kett