DEUTERONOMY 8:1-10

PSALM 34:1-8

EPHESIANS 4:25-5:2

JOHN 6:37-51

Sermon – August 10, 2003

I am fascinated and amazed by the advances in astronomy in the last three decades or so.

First we had the space probes landing on Mars and Venus, not to mention the Apollo program and the moon landings. Then there were the spectacular photographs of Jupiter’s moons and of the outer planets. Now, astronomers have been able to detect the existence of over 100 planets in other solar systems. Just incredible.

But you know what? The more I hear about other planets, the more I appreciate this one. So far, I have not heard of any other planet on which water could exist on the surface in a liquid state – without which our kind of life, at least higher life, is inconceivable. After viewing pictures of the windy, freezing deserts of Mars and reading data from Venus, where surface temperatures would melt lead and it rains sulfuric acid – well, even weather like we’ve had this Spring and Summer is easier to take.

What Eucharistic Prayer C calls “this fragile earth, our island home” indeed looks like that when you consider the Earth from space, or consider how the Earth came wonderfully well equipped to protect us from radiation and other hazards of existence in this universe – even with Jupiter to draw rogue interplanetary bodies to its embrace with its gravity and reduce the number which crash land here. And the abundance of life here, and how much can grow and multiply, even to feed 6 billion people if we distribute it right.

This kind of cosmic perspective should fill us today with thanksgiving, thanksgiving for the abundance which God has created and entrusted to our care, so much of which is available (if we care for it well) for our consumption and well-being.

The entire book of Deuteronomy is presented in the Bible as Moses’ “farewell address” to the people of Israel, whom he has led for 40 years through the wilderness of Sinai to the eastern bank of the Jordan River, in what is now the country of Jordan, where the people could see the Promised Land. Moses himself would die before crossing the Jordan. He gave this address to remind the people of their experiences, of their faith and to ensure that they did not stray from their faith once they started settling in the new land and traded the nomadic life in the wilderness being fed by God with manna to the settled life of farms, villages – and living next door to pagans.

Moses reminds the people how God provided for their physical needs in what looked at first like an inhospitable wilderness and assures them that God is leading them into a country of much more obvious abundance, and that being faithful and thankful to God is always called for. Moses adds the crucial line, repeated 1,200 years later by Jesus when he was hungry and was tempted in the wilderness: “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

This is taken to another level by Jesus in the long passage in John 6 which we are reading in parts all this month. He is talking to the people who have just experienced (or heard of) the feeding of the 5,000, who recognize its miraculous character, and either want more physical bread or more proof that he is the Savior.

Jesus instead says it’s time for faith on their part not more miracles by him, and that in any case the greatest gift is his gift of himself to those who believe: “I am the bread of life,” he declares, and moving to sacramental language declares that “whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

This does not make receiving communion a magic act which guarantees going to heaven; salvation is by God’s decision and action, though belief and tangible evidence of belief are important. What Christ has given us in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is a tangible sign of his presence with us, tangible assurance of his love, a tangible token of the limitless abundance which God has ready for all who come into God’s home.

Episcopalians talk about the Real Presence (capital “R”, capital “P”) of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, but don’t try to define it intellectually more than that; we see it as a wondrous mystery beyond full human comprehension. People, therefore, who believe in the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation can be included in the wider intellectual “tent” of those who affirm the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but not all who believe in the Real Presence of Christ may believe in transubstantiation.

Protestant communion services tend to emphasize the rite as a memorial to Christ’s death and resurrection; Roman Catholics tend to emphasize the living reality of Christ’s presence with his people by means of the sacrament; Episcopalians, characteristically, emphasize both.

We can see what we believe by how we treat the sacrament. The Holy Eucharist is the main service on Sundays in a larger and larger percentage of Episcopal Churches, compared to 20 or 40 years ago. Once the bread and wine are consecrated at the altar, they are treated as special and different: leftover bread is reverently eaten (in the case of pita bread or others which could go stale) or, in the case of wafers, kept as the reserved sacrament to be used to take communion to those too sick to come to church. Leftover consecrated wine is either reverently consumed or, as is our policy here, put down the piscina in the sacristy - a special sink with a pipe which goes directly into the ground. Consecrated wine may not be put into the sewer system or a septic system as common wastes are. Some consecrated bread and wine are kept behind the altar in a tabernacle to be available to take to the sick.

A light is kept lit 364 days a year near the tabernacle which symbolizes the presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine. The one day the light is extinguished and the consecrated bread and wine are moved to the sacristy is Good Friday.

On the other hand, unlike in Roman Catholic practice, a priest cannot say Mass by him or herself: in the Episcopal Church there must be a congregation, even if it’s only one other person, since the sacrament was given by Christ to be given to the people. Also, it is extremely rare in the Episcopal Church for the Sacrament to be the object of a service of veneration, as the Roman Catholic service of the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. There are risks in giving too much respect to any tangible object, even the consecrated host.

In sum, then, when we gather for the Holy Eucharist we give thanks for God’s abundant generosity towards us, both with physical blessings for our physical nourishment and more spiritual gifts for our spiritual nourishment. We remember Jesus’ life and willing sacrifice to take away the sin of the world with awe and humility, and are lifted up, strengthened and guided by his presence in word and sacrament.

Experiencing Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist is part of our longer-than-lifetime experience of being made new, which, God willing, will come to fulfillment in God’s home and God’s new creation. In the meantime, the Eucharist is, so to speak, the “appetizer” before the wondrous, unending holy banquet which God has prepared for all who come to him. Come, let us receive God’s gift with thankfulness and joy.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church