Celebrating the Eucharist

The Holy  Eucharist

Every Sunday and at least twice most weeks we at Gosforth St. Nicholas  celebrate the Eucharist.  Please note two words in that sentence: “we” and “celebrate”! The Eucharist is what we do. Its not something done for us by the clergy—it’s a celebration by all the Church in obedience to Jesus' command, “Do this”.

Over a thousand years of Church history in England have  not always done us unmitigated good!  Take, for example the phrase we use, without really thinking about it: “going to church”. That’s how we speak –and to some extent how we think: we “go to church”. And all too often our church going depends on how we feel, what alternative attractions or jobs there may be, or even whether we like the Vicar or not.

The trouble is that since the Anglo-Saxon Church set up a parish system in our country there has been a tendency to think of “church” as (a) the building and (b) the Vicar and, to an extent to regard the whole matter as rather akin to the NHS  : its there when we want it, on our terms. There are two real problems here. First a very practical one: imagine everyone—including the Vicar—went to church as and when they felt like it. It could happen that on any given Sunday you are the only person who rocks up—so the church is locked because the Wardens haven't bothered to come, there's no Holy Communion because the Vicar is still in bed, and there are no hymns because choir and organist have extended their summer break by a month in Florida. In other words: we need each other and we need to be able to rely on each other to turn up frequently and often i.e. every Sunday.

 Its not just a practicality though; its theology. You see every baptized Christian person is a member of the church. We don’t “go to church” we ARE the Church. The early church understood  all Christians to be  the LAOS—the people of God. All the baptized—clergy and “laity” together—make up God’s LAOS. You see the damage done by 1000 years of history? We have turned “lay” into a word meaning “non-professional” —but all the baptized are called to be “professional”—or at any rate “efficient” Christians. Sadly all too many of the baptized  blissfully ignore their Christian responsibilities, simply turning up to church, if at all,  at Christmas and Easter. Some have even suggested that Cof E means “Christmas and Easter only”. The fact that many choose not to take God’s love seriously and thankfully (remember: Eucharist means “thanksgiving”) does not mean that we should do the same. One of the reasons for Eucharistic fellowship is precisely to pray for “lapsed” fellow Christians and  offer them the opportunity to rediscover the joys of worship. After all the baptized who only occasionally bother to worship are rather like someone who has a large fortune in the bank but forgets to use it and lives in poverty. We are all called to celebrate Eucharist—every Sunday.

Why celebrate every Sunday?

Why do we celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday? That splits into two questions : Why the Eucharist as our main parish worship? And why every Sunday? 

Lets start simply : the Eucharist is what Jesus orders : “Do this in remembrance of me”. We know from the Acts of the Apostles that the first Christians met together regularly for prayer and worship including the “Breaking of the Bread” . The Eucharist is what marks out specifically Christian worship.

But why every Sunday? We need to do some history. Sunday rapidly became the main day for Christian worship. The Roman governor, Pliny (who witnessed the destruction of Pompeii in 79 AD ) states that the Christian church (i.e. all baptized Christians) met together early on the first day of the week to worship “Christ as a god”. In the Roman  Empire this  was an ordinary working day so since many Christians were slaves, they met very early so that they could be at work in good time. Often the church gathered together throughout the night in Vigil. The Vigil involved Bible readings, psalms, stories about Jesus, sermons , worship hymns, intercessions and climaxed in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread. Today in our own parish church we still celebrate something of this when we have the Saturday Vigil in preparation for Sunday and when we celebrate the much longer (and wonderfully richer) Easter Vigil as we move into Easter Day.

But why Sunday? Very simply: because Sunday is the day of Christ’s resurrection. The resurrection is what makes us Christian. Christmas, Good Friday, all the rest would simply not have happened if  Christ had not been raised. Sunday worship in that sense is a proof of Resurrection. After all,  the very first Christians were also Jews. As good Jews they worshipped in synagogue on Saturday. Its possible that as “Christian Jews” the Roman authorities would have tolerated that continuing— which would have been easier for all concerned . In any case Saturday was “the Sabbath”, God’s day of rest after creation—fro all to join in. For a time most Jewish Christians worshipped on two days: Saturday and Sunday. Sunday won out precisely because it is the day of resurrection—the day of God’s new creation when through the risen Christ God sets to work to re-make and renew the whole cosmos and each one of us. The early Christians referred to Sunday as the “eighth day of the week” i.e. a special day that moves us from this time sequence into god’s new time sequence in Christ.  This is what happens in the Eucharist as the bread and wine feed us with Christ’s broken and risen body and we begin now to share in the eternal banquet of God’s new Kingdom. 

Until about 1500 or so the Eucharist was standard  Sunday worship in every parish church. Then came the Reformation –and things changed quite a lot, often by accident!

The story of the Anglican Eucharist

The Church often needs to be reformed. This should be no surprise. know that we fail God  and so we need to repent;  we experience spiritual growth . Repentance and spiritual growth lead to reformation as the Church as a whole realises that mistakes have been made or comes to see new ways of serving God. When Abp. Cranmer compiled the “catholic but reformed “ Book of Common Prayer he intended to provide  a “reformed” understanding of the Eucharist—though  in other writings he makes it clear that he believes this is no “new” understanding but rather a rediscovery of what the Church should always have been about when celebrating Eucharist. So Cranmer looks back to the Scriptures and to Christian  writings of the first four centuries. He is clear that the Book of Common Prayer is no new invention but a rediscovery of the spiritual treasures of the Church from the earliest times.

Cranmer knew well that in those early centuries the Eucharist was utterly central to regular Sunday—and indeed weekday—worship. Unfortunately over the centuries Eucharistic worship while remaining central  had, at the same time, become very distanced from the lives of ordinary Christian worshippers. Priests celebrated the Mass daily. Ordinary lay members had come to believe that they were only good enough to make their Communion three times a year at most. So, while nearly everybody went to Mass every day only the priest received communion regularly. Cranmer wanted to affirm the first—but to reform the latter. The Book of Common Prayer sets out a Communion Service with proper readings for every Sunday (and for use in the week)  and for some weekdays (e.g. Holy Week) and for the main Saints Days.

Cranmer's clear intention, made plain by rubrics within the BCP, was that the reformed Church should continue to have the Eucharist at its heart; that the Eucharist should be celebrated at least weekly and if possible more often. But he also wanted everyone—lay and clergy—to receive communion each time the Eucharist was celebrated. Here he came up against ingrained English tradition! Lay piety said “three times a year at most” - and that, sadly is what happened in many parishes for the next 300 years. Because people would not make their Communion more regularly the Communion Service came to be celebrated no more than once a quarter. Doubtless it was often celebrated with great devotion—but it no longer formed the staple spiritual food as given us by the Lord Jesus. Instead a much more  demanding “monastic” style of worship (Matins) became the norm in most parishes. From about 1850 onwards parishes gradually restored the Eucharist to its rightful centrality. First there were monthly celebrations, then in very “high church” parishes came the 8 a.m. Communion; then, starting here in Newcastle came the Parish Communion from about 1920 onwards.

Gathering to make Eucharist

Week by week Christ’s community gathers to make Eucharist. But how are we to gather? What have we come to do?.

As you enter the  church porch at Gosforth St. Nicholas  you will see a small bowl of water. It is there as a reminder of our Baptism. Many like to dip a finger in the water and place some on their foreheads, perhaps making the sign of the Cross. This is a very ancient tradition and goes back to long before the major divisions of the Church. Our Baptism reminds us that we are all of us “sinners” that's—we all of us in ways great and small fail to live to the full Christ’s command to love God and love our neighbour. Also Baptism speaks of our mission, our discipleship of Christ—that we have been buried with Him and are alive now in His service.

The word “Eucharist” - a Greek word meaning “thanksgiving” similarly speaks of the ancient church before any great divisions –and hence has become a very popular word for Anglicans.  We gather to be equipped for this week’s service as a baptized member of Christ’s community; we gather to give thanks; we gather as part of God’s mission from the very start of time: God’s mission to bring in the Kingdom of God for which we pray daily in the Lord’s Prayer. These thoughts should help us prepare to offer Eucharist together. As we come into the Church porch we should be able to answer  3 simple questions; What have we come to say sorry for? What/whom have we come to give thanks for? What/whom have we come to pray for?

Every week –and every major Festival—the Eucharist has a different “flavour”. This is most easily seen, for example, in the great festivals of Easter, Christmas, Pentecost and so on. When we gather to make Eucharist on Christmas day we know exactly why we are here ; to give thanks for Christ’s birth; when we gather on Easter Day we are giving thanks for Christ’s Resurrection Victory. Of course we all come with our own “private” needs and prayers too but we are all of one mind on those days because we know what we are about. There is a sense in  which we should be able to say at least something of the same on all the Sundays of the year but let’ face it: when we come through the church porch on “Trinity 17” most of us have little clue about the themes and readings of this particular Sunday. How might we improve on this? In our community we use the ancient rite of the Sunday Vigil. Like the structure of the Eucharist itself (which dates back to Greek speaking congregations of the third and fourth centuries) the Vigil is an ancient way of gathering to prepare for Eucharist. On Saturday evening we gather in church; we give thanks for the light of the Risen Christ as we light candles; we read the readings, psalm and Gospel of the Sunday meditatively together and briefly reflect on them; then we pray for ourselves and all who will gather to make Eucharist the next day.

Beginning to give Thanks

Every Sunday if possible, we gather as Christ's community to make Eucharist—to give thanks, to confess our failures, to hear God’s Word, to pray for others, to receive the gift of Christ in the bread and wine, to go out in hope and trust to serve God’s mission in the world.

As I walk down to church on a Sunday morning I am mindful of the thousands of  churches across our country—and even more around the world—who are gathering to obey Christ’s command: Do this. In our own Diocese a hundred or more faithful little communities gather. This is not to count all the Methodist, Roman Catholic and other communities that also are gathering for worship. God is at work. I hope its right for me as an Anglican to be especially thankful for other Anglican churches across Northumberland. They gather faithfully. Some  gather in large numbers—many are much smaller communities in deeply rural parts of our diocese or   in the inner city or in former mining towns and villages along the coast. So often the dear old “C of E” is taken for granted— its  just always there. Thank God that, thanks to generous giving by larger congregations, we are  maintaining  a sustaining (and sustainable) parish presence  in all our parishes across Northumberland  where Aidan and Cuthbert first proclaimed the Gospel of the Love of Christ.  Its all too easy to forget the huge amount of quiet good done by the Church in many , many ways: the elderly and sick being befriended and visited, schools maintained and staffed by Christian teachers, the homeless fed, the arts celebrated, community brought together. All this and much more is what God is doing through Christ’s Church—through ordinary faithful people (not just clergy) who week by week are fed by Christ in the Eucharist and then go out to daily work, to their homes, to their local communities to notice, to care, to serve, to help, to love, to value, to pray.

And so we make Eucharist: “In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” That is how we so often begin—because it is in God’s Name that we meet. And then we pray for one another. The priest prays for all of us that we may worthily offer worship : “The Lord be with you” -and we pray in turn for our priest: “and also with you” . We confess our sins—and if we have prepared properly we know just where we have made a mess of things this week –and we know that God understands and forgives—but at great cost: Christ dies on the Cross for us. So at once we praise: Glory to God in the Highest the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Then in a brief silence we gather our prayers together: “let us pray” - not a sign to fall to our knees but to be aware of all the people and needs God has asked us to intercede for this week. Our prayers are collected  together in the “Collect” - and we are ready to enter the first main part of the Eucharist: the Liturgy of the Word.

 “This is the Word of the Lord”.

Holy Eucharist is made up of two main “Liturgies”. Liturgy means “the work of the people”. The word stresses the truth that the Eucharist is something the whole people of God do together. The Eucharist is something we do—not something in which most of us are passive. This may not always seem the case at first sight. Take, for example, the  sermon. Anyone dropping in to Church for the first time could be forgiven for thinking that the sermon was an exquisitely designed piece of boredom for the majority who simply have to sit and listen to a self-opinionated man (I use the term advisedly!) drone on. Those old enough to remember Joyce Grenfell’s songs and monologues may remember one where a bored housewife in church allows her mind to wander everywhere during the sermon only to realize that she has failed to turn off  a pan on the stove so that her house is in imminent danger of catching fire! Well, it can be like that—but it shouldn’t be!

The Liturgy of the Word is based, in origin at any rate, on the Jewish synagogue morning service. Even today synagogue worship can only take place when there are sufficient numbers to be “quorate”. This is because worship is primarily a corporate, community activity. Worship, prayer, praise, intercession is not primarily about “me” and “my needs” or even “God speaking to me” its about “us” and “our” and our shared vocation and mission as the Body of Christ. As in the synagogue there are always a number of readings in the Eucharist.

Normally at Parish Eucharist we have three readings. (Actually we should have a psalm in which we all join—but many feel that the worship is quite long enough thank you—a pity because the psalms take us deeply into the heart of God.) First a reading from the Old Testament. These writings were gradually collected together to form the Hebrew Scriptures and date roughly from about 1000—300 BC. We hear readings that Jesus himself knew– readings that inspired Jesus to know his vocation as Son of God and Messiah. Then a readings from the New Testament—the letters written by St. Paul and others, sometimes a passage from the Acts of the Apostles or the Revelation to St. john the Divine. These writings were collected by the early church and date from about 40—120 AD. They form a precious link with the very first Christians. After each of these readings we respond (at Eucharist—NOT at Evensong) “This is the Word of the Lord”. This does not mean “This is directly spoken to us from God with no need for interpretation and to be taken literally” but rather ”Through this passage  generations of people have come to know God—so lets attend to what God may be saying today.” Then comes the Gospel for which we stand because through the Gospels, read formally in Eucharist,  Christ himself is speaking to us today as we attend to the record of the Good News of his life and words.  

How to listen to a sermon! 

The word “Liturgy” implies “working together”. The first part of the Eucharist is the Liturgy of the Word. In this first part we  reflect together on the  Holy Scriptures. Sometimes the sermon is referred to as “breaking open the Word” because the sermon’s task is to help us all “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” Gods’ Word through Holy Scripture so that we can hear God speaking to us today. “Breaking open the Word” is a shared activity.

 Let me offer a story from when I was a teacher. You may remember yourself the days when lessons seemed interminable, the afternoon hot, the temptation to doze, write notes in the back row or whatever almost impossible to resist—especially when its a Latin lesson tackling the Ablative Absolute.  Well, think how it feels for the poor teacher! The point is that teaching of any sort is a shared activity. If a child or even  whole class refuses to listen and join in then there is little to be done—other than to try new tricks to gain attention. It was on such an occasion when I remember saying to a class “My dears, this afternoon you are choosing to be professionally bored!” We all agreed that there was no point in pursuing  the planned lesson—it was just too hot and we all went outside and listened to the Test Match—something teachers cannot get away with today!—though interestingly long remembered by former pupils who went on to read Classics themselves at university.

 How might that relate to a sermon? Well my experience suggests that it can be helpful for us all not to worry overmuch—maybe God allows us to hear what we really need to hear from readings and sermon even if we don’t get it all. I don’t suggest willful inattention—just that sometimes a particular Bible reading or sermon can seem to have very little to say to me—but it may well be saying something hugely important to someone else (as can hymns or whatever). In which case we need to be mature enough to recognize that such is the case – and simply to gather the little bit that we can from today—maybe just one sentence, one thought, one prayer. Next time we hear this particular reading may be quite different. Our own situation may have changed and what seemed quite irrelevant now becomes alive with importance. What matters, as the old Collect puts it , is that we not only “read’ learn and inwardly digest” but do so with patience. God will speak—when we are ready. That said, I believe we can prepare ourselves better. Perhaps we could come to the Saturday Vigil sometimes when the readings for Sunday Eucharist are first read and a very brief homily is offered as a way into them? Perhaps over night we can think about them? Or, could we come to church 5 minutes early so as to have time to read through the readings before the Eucharist? Or what about taking this leaflet home and reflecting on the readings in the coming week? All ways in which we can hear God’s Word together.

The Offertory

The Liturgy of the Sacrament—the “second part” of the Eucharist begins with The Peace. In the first part we have listened to God’s word through scripture and sermon and offered prayers for God’s world. Originally this first part would have been open to all; the second part, the actual Holy Communion, was not for the first several hundred years  of the Church’s life open to everyone. It was felt that this was too holy to be shared or even seen by anyone who had not been baptized and confirmed (remember this was one rite for adult believers) . Even today in the Orthodox Rite at this point the deacon is heard to sing “The doors, the doors!” -a  sign to the “order of doorkeepers” (once a minor order of ordained ministry) - now sidespeople– that only the gathered , faithful church community were able to be present. Its for this reason that the Peace comes  at what for us feels like the midpoint of our worship. Really, as we can now see, we are at the start of a whole new act of worship. Hence we greet each other—more than that we do so as fellow members of the Body of Christ.

When the New Testament was being written and for some centuries after that, Christianity was classed by the Roman  Empire as a religio illicita—an illegal religion. Being Christian carried with it the very real threat of exile (as happened to St. John the Divine—see Revelation 1) , hard labour, or even death in the arena. Consequently greeting your fellow sisters and brothers ion Christ was not a matter of merely saying “good morning” but quite literally a matter of life and death. You needed to know who you could trust. You needed to know on whom you could rely. You needed mutual encouragement to keep the faith and to bear witness to the Risen Lord Jesus. Why, it was only last week when one of our elderly priests was dragged off to jail  for several years—as actually happened to St. Nicholas. So we are glad to greet one another –and happy to pray for one another. Maybe in our own culture we need to rediscover some of this sense of trust, mutual support and encouragement in faith and evangelism?

After the Peace comes the offertory. Again a  bit of history can help. The  early church had to be entirely self-supporting—no investments, no historic monies. No clergy were paid—though some were given a “stipend” i.e. a living allowance to enable them to minister full time. Many others  (e.g. St. Paul) were self supporting but this had obvious limitations. These first Christians were encouraged to give a tithe (10%), as did their Jewish cousins. This weekly church income was divided into 4: one part for the clergy, one for the poor and sick, one for fellow Christians in prison, one for the upkeep and development of the Church. The money given was understood to be a generous offering and each giver gave not just a statutory amount but what could really be afforded when using all income for God.  

Bread and Wine

Very early on the first day of the week the Christian Church gathers. Each carries a small bread bun and a small flask of wine. As they enter the hose where the Church meets to make Eucharist the Christian Church greets one another in genuine affection and prayer: “The peace of the Lord be with you”. The bread and wine are placed in bowls and trays ready to be offered at the altar. So too money and practical gifts for the poor (clothing, food) are collected for the deacons to distribute later. At the point in worship that we would now call The Liturgy of the Eucharist all those who are not both baptized and confirmed are required to leave and the doors are shut—partly for security but mainly because here in the Eucharist we experience the creativity of resurrection and while all are welcome it is not felt fitting that those who have no understanding of faith should be permitted to see God’s glory. The deacons bring the offerings of the people to the altar to the Bishop. (Each church community in a town had a bishop—one in overall pastoral charge, assisted by deacons and “elders” - presbyters). The Bishop bless the gifts and then gives thanks (Eucharist) over the bread and wine recalling the Last Supper. The bread is broken as Christ’s body is broken on the cross. The wine is poured out as Christ’s blood is shed. This is the heart of Christian faith. It is not that Christ is offered “again” - Christ’s sacrifice is once for all—but all our prayers, all our thanks are offered “through” Christ crucified and risen. We pray and live through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. The Bishop prays that God’s Holy spirit come upon bread, wine and all who worship—so that all may be signs of the Resurrection—the new creation of  the Kingdom of God. All eat and drink –and take consecrated bread and wine home to share during the week, to know Christ’s Risen love, power and glory in the coming Kingdom present even now  in the Eucharist in Christ’s Church during the working week.