September 3, 2023

“When We Gather at the Table”

The Rev. Deborah Hawkins

To paraphrase St. Augustine – make me good but not yet. He was having fun and he wasn’t sure he would still have fun if he walked the walk God was showing him. He wasn’t yet ready to open himself completely to the God who knew his name. He did get there, though. He got to yet.

‘Yet’ comes when we stop trying to keep from getting too close to God. Moses got there. He had to take off his sandals. There couldn’t be anything between him and holy ground. Peter got there. He had to decide to give up earthly things, as Jesus called them. He couldn’t hang on to the way things were as a protection from what was to come.

Both Peter and Moses were invited to give up the comforts they knew for trials and dangers and sorrows they could clearly see in the hope that what was on the other side was worth it. And they took up the invitation.

We are invited into that same place of decision every time we gather as Christians and especially every time we come to the table. Each time we gather here we are each invited, in a metaphoric way, to take off our sandals, take up our cross, and enter into a sacred mystery. I am going to briefly talk us through some of what we are doing when we gather at the Lord’s table.

The first half of our Sunday service of Holy Eucharist is called the Liturgy of the Word. The second half is the Liturgy of the Table or the Liturgy of Holy Communion.

That begins with the offertory sentence, often from scripture – walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:2)

 (Bottom of p. 5 or middle of p. 5). OR let us with gladness present the offerings and oblations of our life and labor to the Lord

Then our gifts are brought to the table: bread, wine, water, collection plates. All tangible signs of our life and labor. When you pass the plate you might want to say a prayer, “Lord, I offer myself to you,” before passing it on. This is when the choir sings something extra special as an offering. Technically we should be standing as the offerings are brought to the altar as a sign that our whole lives are being offered to God. While all this is going on the Deacon sets the table.  It is not something being done for us back in the kitchen – we are all of us part of this, this whole big thing.

Let’s set the table. Credence table. Stack. Corporal, pall, paten, purificator, chalice.

Wine, water – reminder of the dual nature of Christ. Fully human and fully divine.

Bread

As the gifts are brought to the altar we all stand. We are going to the altar too.

Now we are ready to begin the prayer we call The Great Thanksgiving and we stand as we are able.

In the Episcopal church a priest can not celebrate Holy Communion alone. There has to be at least 2 Christians gathered. The only way to make Eucharist, is together. And there is no special part of the prayer where wine is turned into blood. We need the whole prayer. And it is not just remembering what happened long ago. Something happens now, but we try not to define it too closely. It is a mystery, but it happens.

We begin with an invitation called the Sursum Corda which means lift up your hearts. (At 8am p.6) then the proper preface is said. The preface is specific to the occasion. Christmas, Easter, thanksgiving, funeral, Sunday during ordinary time. We are currently using the preface ‘of God the Holy Spirit’ and it reminds us of our baptisms.

Then we join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven to sing or say the Sanctus. That is the song Isaiah said he heard in the throne room of God. They sang Holy, Holy, Holy. And so do we. And as the angels covered their faces with their wings as they flew around God’s throne (wonder how they did that? Seraphs have 6 wings) so do we often make a deep reverent bow with our faces to the ground as we sing.

Toward the end of the Sanctus, when we say, “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” (that’s a quote from psalm 118 but when Christians say it here we are thinking of Jesus) when we say that some Episcopalians cross ourselves. It is an Episcopal thing. No one is exactly sure why we do that although it is thought to have started as a superstition: send Jesus not the devil. So some Episcopalians don’t do that any more. But some of us think, ‘but it is an Episcopal thing, and besides I am glad God sent Jesus.’

After the Sanctus we remember how God has loved us since the beginning of creation, how we have turned away and how God came to save us in the person of Christ Jesus. We remember the last meal Jesus shared with his friends and the words he spoke when he took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, and when he took the cup of wine, said the blessing, and shared it with them. When we say these words the priest is to touch the bread, and touch the cup. Those are the only actions the prayer book requires. All the rest, bowing, sign of the cross, holding hands in a particular way, some places ring bells, all of those are local custom and piety. This doesn’t mean they aren’t important, they are, and they all have meanings attached to them, but they are not writ in stone. They vary. When you visit other Episcopal churches you notice the variations.

There are different Eucharistic prayers and each has a slightly different focus. Using A today: crucifixion. B: incarnation. Last week the prayer focused on God’s creation of the cosmos – sun, moon, and stars.

Most Eucharistic Prayers include a memorial acclamation. The words speak of the past, the present, and the future.

We offer our gifts to God and we ask God the Holy Spirit to come down and make them holy. In the version of the prayer we are using today first the bread and wine, to make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, and then ourselves, our souls and bodies. We ask the Holy Spirit to sanctify us, too.

The we say the great AMEN. Amen means “Yes I believe that. Those words are my words, too.”

The way I was taught to say the prayer, after asking the Holy Spirit to be on the gifts of bread and wine and ourselves the paten and chalice are lifted up and are not put down again until the people say AMEN. And then we give a deep solemn bow before the mystery of the consecrated Sacrament.

We say the Lord’s Prayer. Here we say it both in Spanish and in English as a sign we are part of God’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

The bread is broken, also called the fraction. When we break the bread we remember Jesus at the last supper, Christ’s body broken on the cross and the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognizing the risen christ when he broke the bread. We keep silent. The silence echoes the great silence the gospels say came over the whole earth in the moments after Jesus died. 

The Fraction anthem: varies with the season. Summation of what has happened and another way we claim our part in it. Today connection between God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt, the last supper, and what Christian’s consider the final Passover – the passion of Christ.

The bread and wine are divided up for sharing and the words of invitation are said. ‘The gifts of God for the people of God.’

Receive communion. Common cup. We all share from one cup.

After put away the dishes. Bread and wine are reverently consumed or placed in the Ambry to be taken to those who can’t be here. See the candle – it is always burning except between when it is extinguished on Good Friday and re-lit at the Easter vigil.

Post communion prayer of thanksgiving for what we have received.

Blessing

Dismissal

Postlude

Or not. You can just go through the motions. Sometimes that is the best you can do. If that is you today, don’t worry. One of the reasons we gather to worship and share in the body and blood of our redeemer in a bunch is so we can take turns holding each other up when that is needed.