This is the 6th version of my alternative communion service. This version explores more fully than the others the exploration of the Biblical text.
A significant development in this version is that it offers a suggestion of how to account for the missing verb in 'this is my body ... for you', and perhaps how the 'broken' may have arrived in later centuries.
Communion Service
|Breaking and pouring version 6: for
an unfolding Service|
N.B. the 'Unfolding' service is a small reflective
evening service that explores theology in an experiential way.
This service is best done as a meal with the
congregation sat around a single table
Presider: Jesus and his disciples came to Jerusalem to celebrate the
festival of the Passover.
The Passover was a weeklong celebration in the capital city,
where they remembered the time when, through God's guidance, Moses brought them
out of captivity in Egypt, the sacrificial lambs were brought to the temple,
because, in the time of the Exodus, the blood of lambs was used as a marker on
the doors so that the angel of death would pass over those houses.
As part of the celebration Jesus and his disciples joined
together in a traditional meal in an upper room that they had hired for the
occasion; a meal of thanksgiving for their freedom. Tonight, instead of
just expecting this experience to come to us, we are going to do a little bit of placing ourselves
at that meal, to try to hear some of the words through the ears of the
disciples as they sat around that table.
Raising a cup of water, the presider says;
And so in that spirit Let us raise the
cup of freedom;
To Freedom
We proclaim good news to the poor;
Freedom for prisoners
A vision for those who have not seen,
And a lifting of the burdens of the
oppressed Amen
Song: STF 410 (H&P 774) Lord Your Church on Earth is Seeking
A brief talk about personal experience of
acceptance & togetherness at communion. This may be one individual who has
prepared what they are going to say or it may be in the form of an open
conversation. It may be helpful here to talk about the Methodist 'open table'
policy here.
Song: Lonely people ©1974 Dan and Catherine Peek (of the
band America)
Presider: The Israelites celebrated their
freedom, but their freedom was not complete; it was temporary and rooted in
earthly promises.
A new promise was to be made there in that room by Jesus.
Moses, great though he was, was only a man, speaking the words of God. But
Jesus was God in human form;
When, just a few decades later, the Apostle Paul wrote about
this meal just, and how it continued to be celebrated, he said that people need
to discern the body before sharing the meal. What does that mean? Well, perhaps
he was talking about the Church as the body of Christ and the need for us to
get things sorted out before we eat together, but also in this act the bread
represents the body of Christ. The Greek word we translate as 'discern' literally
means 'through separating.' So perhaps, just as the bread needs to be broken
and shared, so we need to be broken and our hearts remade. There is some
controversy about a word that turns up in later manuscripts that wasn't there
in the early ones. See if you can guess what the missing word is and how it got
there as we share the bread.
Here in this place, just as Jesus did there in that upper
room on the night before he died, we break bread together. Jesus said
"This is my body which is...
(The bread is broken)...for you" (The bread is shared around the table)
In the breaking of
this bread; we are broken;
Like the body of Christ; we are
broken
And as we share in his self
sacrifice; so we are remade in the image of God Amen (the bread is eaten)
Song: STF 556 Just as I
am without one plea
Presider: From the days of Leviticus right up
to the time of Jesus, when the priests made animal sacrifices, the priests
would say that no one should drink the blood, because it contained the spirit
of the animal. The spirit of the animal was poured out for the sins of the
people and the aroma from the fire on the altar would carry the spirit back to
God. Sin was seen as a burden, a weight to be carried, a weight that took its
toll on your life, perhaps even taking the whole of your life. So it was
thought that this spirit; that this life force, could be recycled, through God
to make up for your loss of life, through the sin that you carried - this is
atonement.
When Jesus offered himself as
sacrifice on the cross, he declared an end to the sacrifice because his spirit
was poured out for the forgiveness of all sins for all time. This was not the
spirit of one of God's creatures, but the spirit of God himself being poured
out for all people (The wine is poured from the
central cup into individual cups) and there in that upper room he
poured out the wine as his spirit would be poured out to all people.
Knowing what was about to happen, at the end of the meal he
took the cup gave thanks and gave it to his disciples, asking them to drink
from it, as he asks us to drink from it today - and as you do, imagine that
this is his life force which is about to be poured out for you, to seal the new
promise which God is making with all people.
This is
God's spirit poured out for all for the forgiveness of sins. Amen
We all drink from the cups.
And Jesus told them to do this whenever they meet to remember
him.
John's Gospel tells us that after the meal Jesus washed their
feet, and insisted that they washed each other's feet, a humble act of service.
It is above all things our call to serve each other as Christ has served us and
to serve those who have not yet known Christ, just as once we did not know
Christ.
We can serve each other and the world in the breaking down of
things in our lives, churches and communities that have become stuck in wrong
ways, or unable to move and grow like they should. And in that breaking down,
God's spirit is once again free to be poured out to all people.
This is what we are called to do in the remembrance of Jesus
Debs: Prayer
Song: STF 272 (CMP 162)
From heaven you came
Presider: It may well have been customary to end such a meal with the
agreement to meet again in Jerusalem next year at the Passover, but having
previously told them that he was the vine and they were his branches, he simply
said 'I won't share in the fruits of this vine until I see you again in the
Kingdom.'
Interestingly, all the written accounts of this meal use the
same vague language about the bread and the wine. The word used for the bread
is 'artos', which is a generic term for bread that can also be used to
talk of food in general. As in 'give us this day our daily bread'. The specific
word for the kind of bread used in this meal would have been 'azumos', which
Luke uses as an alternative name for the Festival of Passover. Wine is never
mentioned, only the cup. Maybe the fruits of the vine referred to the drink in
the cup but maybe it referred to the people in that room, or maybe both. Either
way, the vagueness of the language may imply that the emphasis was not so much on
the bread and wine as how we live out our faith in community, as a people prepared
to be constantly broken and remade so that the spirit of God can flow out from our
gathering.
So, until we meet again, we do this in remembrance of Jesus
who awaits the opportunity to share this meal with us in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Amen
Share the grace
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