Here we are again. Another Lent. Another wilderness wandering. Another start to reflecting on the world via my very sporadic writings. It seems Lent has been the time I feel most compelled to write. Perhaps because of the introspective nature of the season. Maybe it’s just the experience of taking the United Methodist Photo-A-Day challenge and turning it into a post. All I know is here we are again and here I go again.
Day 12: Sacrifice
I have been thinking a lot about Communion lately. How do I understand the mystery of this meal? Am I effectively communicating how important I view this means of grace? Have I helped others experience Jesus in the sharing of the sacrament? Can I, and do I, mess it up?
These may be good questions to wrestle with during this season of self-reflection and repentance we call Lent. Coming face-to-face with my sin naturally draws me to consider whether such a state infects not only my presiding over the sacraments, but truly all aspects of church leadership.
My seminary professors would be pleased to know, I remember I am not the first to wonder about such things.
Do a quick search on St. Augustine and the Donatist Controversy and you will find leaders of the early church concluded the efficacy (effectiveness) of the sacraments were not dependent upon the holiness (or lack thereof…there was concern about priests being ordained by a “traitor” Pope) of the one presiding over the sacraments. In other words, the sacrament is a means of grace not because of the person administering the sacrament, but because of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Somebody shout “Amen!”
There is something more here though in Communion specifically.
This is the meal Jesus shared with those who sought to become like him. As we still repeat in our liturgy today, Jesus makes the connection between the common, ordinary elements of bread and wine (unfermented in the case of The United Methodist Church I serve) and his life. The bread is broken as the body of Jesus was broken. The wine is poured out as the blood of Jesus was spilled. This is the sacrifice we were unable to make with all those burnt offering, and grain offerings, and all the other offerings, including our own lives.
“A holy and living sacrifice.”
I worry about messing it up, but that would give me too much power, wouldn’t it? Not that how I live or the words I say are unimportant. They are just not more important than the self-sacrifical love of Jesus literally broken open and poured out for us.
The beautiful truth is none of us are worthy of this sacrifice. None of us deserve this grace. None of us have or could earn it. Still it is given for us all, with the assurance that Jesus’ gift is sufficient, it is enough. Through the sharing of his life, death, and resurrection, a sharing we participate in every time we eat this bread and drink from this cup, we are restored and made holy.
How? I don’t really know. Why? Because God loves us. And no matter what I do or don’t do, God will keep on loving us and inviting us to share the life Jesus has made possible for us. In the light of this sacrifice, I pray I may live a worthy of the calling I have received (Ephesians 4:1). I pray this for us all.
Life is better together,
Shawn
Big Rubber Band Ball 