John 13:1-17, 31b-35
On the last night of his earthly life, Jesus gave his friends a gift. Knowing that he would be betrayed by someone close to him this very night, knowing that most of the people in the room would pretend not to know him by morning, knowing that tomorrow the entire world would be changed forever, Jesus gathered his friends for a meal together. Jesus knew these were his final hours, with a certainty we can scarcely fathom. How he chose to spend these final moments preaches to us as much as the entirety of his earthly ministry. With whom he chose to spend them gives us a clear picture of the sort of community we claim to be when we call ourselves the Body of Christ, the Church. And the gift he gave on that final night continues to sustain us as a body to this very day. That gift was bread broken and wine shared. That gift was a promise, and a challenge, and a reminder. A promise that Christ would never truly leave us. A challenge to serve one another with humility and joy. And a reminder to love one another the way we have been loved by God, a love so strong it conquers death.
This gift was so important, so formative, so central to the life of discipleship that it was not limited only to the disciples present around the table on that final night. Paul, the convert and apostle, far from that upper room on this night, would also receive the gift of this final meal. After the trial, after the cross and after the tomb, after the resurrection, Paul received a visitation from the risen Christ, one which changed his heart and mind forever. As Paul puts it, he received from the Lord all that he needs to know in order to spread the Good News, including the gift of the Last Supper. It is that gift Paul writes about in our passage from 1 Corinthians today.
Whenever Paul went to a new place to proclaim the Gospel of the Resurrected Lord, he brought with him the same gift given to the disciples on the night Jesus was betrayed. He taught each new church to gather around a table, to ask God’s blessing upon the food, to break the bread and share it, and to share the wine together. This meal was not simple table fellowship, or a reenactment of an event. This liturgy was one of remembrance, of re-membering. Paul taught the churches how to behave as one Body, how to be put back together when life threatened to pull them apart. Long before the words of the Gospels had been collected and written down, Paul wrote a letter to the young church in Corinth, reminding them what he had taught them. Paul taught each new convert the story of Jesus’s Eucharist, his Thanksgiving, and implored them to observe it carefully. None were meant to be treated as better than others, no one was to receive more or less based on their status, and everyone was meant to wait on and serve everyone else in turn. In times of conflict and in times of peace, the practice of communing in this particular way was to be the central act of faith. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Because that is the gift, the truth that we embrace today and the reality that is encountered every time the Sacrament is celebrated. In giving us the Eucharist, we are not just given a little bread and a sip of wine. We are also given a real presence, a tangible and physical and incarnate encounter with our God. When the bread is in our hands, we are touching Jesus, as truly as he touched and healed so many, as truly as Mary touched his feet as she anointed him, as truly as Thomas touched the marks in his hands. When we ask God’s Holy Spirit to come upon the elements on the altar, we are inviting God to change them, and through them to change us. We take the bread, we drink the wine, all in remembrance of the one who loves us and calls us to love one another the same way. On the night Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and challenged them to love and serve one another, he also fed them. Not just with food and drink, but with his own incarnate presence in their midst. We are offered the same meal, the same presence, at this table. We proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Already, and not yet, he is here.
Mother A Writes 