I hope that if you have listened to me preach a few sermons you realize that they are my way of carrying on a conversation with you, with myself, and with God. My sermons are one of my main ways to process in my own heart and mind the power of the Gospel, my own terrible inadequacies, my love for the church, the pain I feel about a suffering world, my own questions, the questions people bring to me, my hopes for community and my own bungling attempts to live out the glory of God in the world. Often the sermon I preach today flows out of questions raised by people from the last one. And this next set of sermons does just that. I really enjoyed the last series on spirituality. It really helped me and I was encouraged that a few of you found helpful things in them as well. Also, just so that you know, I am trying to figure out both how to preach but also make this a better conversation. So you can come talk to me, and many of you do. And I can't tell you how much I enjoy those conversations. But also I have started posting the whole sermon on my blog and linking it to our facebook page. So on either place if you want to read, comment, even criticize and challenge (as long as it is charitable) please do so!
The last group of sermons was on spirituality and spiritual growth by focusing on the Word of God. My next group of sermons will look at the reason why we practice spirituality and why we try to grow spiritually. And the reason comes from a ancient Christian legend of a man named Reprobus. He was a giant of a man who served his local king. One day he got the idea that he wanted to only serve the greatest king in the world so he went and found him and served him. But one day at the mention of the devil the king crossed himself in fear. Reprobus thought if this king is afraid of the devil than the devil must be greater. I will serve him. So he found the devil who was at that time leading a gang of theives and murderers and pledged his service. But one day as they were walking along, they came to a cross and the devil flinched away from it. Reprobus concluded that if the devil feared Christ, than Christ must be the greatest. So he searched for Christ when he met an old hermit who suggested that he devote his time to prayer and because he was so big helping people cross the river where the hermit lived. That service would be pleasing to Christ. So Reprobus spent his days putting people on his shoulders and walking them across the river. Until one day a little boy came and asked to cross. Reprobus put him on his shoulders and started to carry him across until the boy became heavier and heavier and as he was about to go under he called to the boy on his shoulders: ""You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were." The child replied: "You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work. Your name will now be Christopher because you are bearing the Christ" The child then vanished. And from that time, St. Christopher, which means the Christ-bearer went into the world bring Christ with him in his acts of mercy and service and his proclamation of the good news.
I tell this story because even though it is a legend it gets at why I fell in love with the Christian faith. I wanted to be a Christopher, a Christ bearer. I think we all want to leave the world a little better than if we had never lived. It can be heroic perhaps like Mother Theresa, but for most of us it will be smaller, like make a good home for our family so they can be. I say seemingly, because small and big don't apply to God. As Michael Ramsey said, "The glory of Christianity is its claim that small things really matter and that the small company, the very few, the one man or woman, the one child are of infinte worth to God. Let that be your inspiration." The vision is clear. If you are like me, you see the pain and suffering of the global world; the struggle of our neighbours, good people who struggle; the struggles of people who are harder to love but who need help. What happens when Christ comes into the midst of it? I think profound things. Healing. Grace. There is a part to the prayer of St. Francis that speaks to me:
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
But as we all know, trying to be light in the darkness can be a hard slog. It can be discouraging, take our energy, be thankless, see no results, the problems are bigger than the resources and so on. How do we continue to be salt to the world day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade? This is what spirituality is all about. Spirituality gives us the foundation and daily renewal that we need to be Christ-bearers. As I said in an earlier sermon: Jesus has a mission, and we are his hands. And to bear him out into the world, we need him in our souls. Because ultimately it is not our strength that makes this possible, but his. That is the spirituality question. How do we get him into us in a way that is sustaining and enlivening. In these next four sermons, I want to look at what it means to be a Christ-bearer. This one is a brief introductory look at the Eucharist. Next week will be about how baptism starts us on this path and nourishes us on the way. The third is about our ultimate goal. It is a topic neglected in Anglican churches: the glory of God. And it is not what you think. It is not about God being egotistical and needing us to tell him how awesome he is. It is something that is so beautiful I hope that it will move you. And finally in the fourth, what ultimately drives us and keeps us going, namely the Holy Spirit. I am excited about this. The theme has a special resonance for me.
This morning I want to talk about Eucharist. The reason is because as with any endeavor, in order to sustain yourself over the long haul you have to eat. That is so obvious and necessary that I am guessing that you never ever put it on your list of things to do today. Do the laundry, pick up the groceries, drop off the library book, eat, go swimming. Eating you don't put on the list because it is so basic to keeping you going so you can do everything else. The Eucharist is so basic to our spiritual nourishment because it is one of the primary ways that we get the Gospel inside of us.
To see why that is and how that might work I want to look briefly at the Gospel story we read this morning. This is one of my favourite stories in the Gospel and I know for many others. It takes place on a road with two people who are walking out of Jerusalem toward the town of Emmaus. They are dejected because they had been followers of Jesus who had just been arrested and executed. They are talking about this when they are joined by a stranger on the road they don't recognize. He asks them what they are talking about, and they are amazed that this man has no idea what they are talking about. So they tell him about Jesus, and how they had hoped that he would be the one chosen by God to redeem Israel. But that obviously wasn't going to happen now. They this stranger amazes them by starting to explain the scriptures to them. He goes through all of salvation history. Now this is just an ordinary bible study, as he is talking they later will describe that their hearts were on fire. The words of scripture take on a new meaning; they see how God is using all of this to bring about his great plan of healing for the whole world, and how the scriptures told that the Messiah must first suffer and through this, then enter into glory. There was no need to be afraid.
At this point in the story they stopped for the evening for a meal at an inn and invited the stranger to join them. Strangely, it is the stranger who takes the break, and offers the blessing. Then he broke it and gave it to the other two. And when he did it, they finally got who it was that had been speaking to them this whole time. It was none other than the risen Jesus. And then he is inexplicably gone. And they can't finish the meal. They rush back all the way to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples what just happened and the real adventure begins. Jesus is the one who will bring life to this world; it is all about Jesus.
You can read this story a number of different way and get so much spiritual nourishment from it, but for the sermon today I want to look at it in the way that it sets up the basic way that we come together every Sunday morning. As you see in the story, there is a progression like our Sunday worship, we go from Word to Sacrament. And also we see in the story this is no accident. Luke is showing that this is going to be the way that it is done in the church because the actions of Jesus around the bread are exactly parallel to his actions at the last supper. He takes the bread, blesses, breaks and gives. In other words, each Sunday service is supposed to be our own Emmaus road where we come to encounter Jesus. How can we do that? I want to say three quick things about that.
First, Jesus explained the scriptures to the two, and their hearts burned within them. The learning was not just academic, but transforming. This is the way we try to listen to the scriptures in our worship This is the the learning part of the service. The reason we read scripture every Sunday is that we learn more and more about who Jesus is. Calvin tells us that we read scripture in order "to know Jesus Christ truly." Barth tells us: From first to last, the Bible directs us to the name of Jesus Christ." In order to bring Christ in the world, we first have to know Christ better. His character, who he was, how he would treat the person in front of him. But knowledge not just in our minds, but in our hearts. To bring Christ, we have to slowly become like Christ. That is why we read the scriptures.
Second, when Jesus broke the bread they recognized him. Jesus has taken this physical stuff: bread and wine. And given them a new spiritual meaning. A transformation. There is a reason they recognized Jesus when he broke the bread. Jesus meets us here at the altar rail. It is intimate and person; it is God renewing our deepest self, giving us a glimpse of wholeness once again. If we want to be Christ-bearers, we have to let Christ feed us. That is why we break the break together.
Third, After Cleopas and his companion encountered Jesus they sprinted to Jerusalem, and so their adventure started. They became Christ-bearers bringing a good news of a God that is love and by grace meets us in Jesus and who works for the building of his kingdom. Down the line have been generation after generation of Christ-bearers. It is a centuries old family that God has called to be part of the church, and each person who become part of that family is given a special grace that marks that person as Christ's own forever. A grace that forms them their whole life long as Christ-bearers. The grace is called baptism and that is what we will look at next week. Amen.
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