Maundy Thursday Communion Meditation

April 13, 1995

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We call the disciples saints now, but they were a long, long way from sainthood that night in the Upper Room. 

Oh, they had taken the first steps down the road, maybe, they had started, they had begun the pilgrimage that would eventually bring them to spiritual maturity. 

But that night in Jerusalem, in the house of John Mark, probably...upstairs, when they ate that final meal together, what we now call the Last Supper, they weren’t full-blown saints by any stretch of the imagination. 

Remember? Just before, a couple of them had been quarreling, almost got into a fight, over who would sit where in the Kingdom configuration.... “My brother will sit at your left, and I’ll sit at your right....” 

Ecclesiastical preferment and bad feelings over appointments...My gosh, what a long and sordid history these things have. 

And more. Some had recently wanted to destroy a Samaritan village---“Just let us zap it, Lord...wipe it out. That’ll show ‘em who the good guys are...That’ll teach ‘em a lesson.” 

And Simon Peter, not long before, had blasted Jesus to his face, rebuked him sharply, about making this stupid trip to Jerusalem. 

Soon they were all to demonstrate their fickleness---one would turn him into the authorities, betray him for a handful of coins....another would deny even knowing him.... 

And under the stress and pressure of Gethsemane, just a little later that very evening, with the soldiers on hand to make the arrest, every one of them with him then would, in Mark’s words, “forsake him and flee.” 

No, these are not saints yet, not by a long shot. They were still a long way from the attainment of any kind of demonstrable sanctity, 

AND YET...here’s the remarkable thing....JESUS BELIEVED IN THEM. Isn’t that amazing? JESUS BELIEVED IN THEM....in people like that, frail, imperfect, inconsistent, people of wavering allegiance, certainly people of limited talent....IN PEOPLE LIKE THAT JESUS SAW ENORMOUS POTENTIAL. 

Old Archimedes, in Syracuse, 200 or so, B.C., had said, “Just give me a place to stand, and with a lever and a fulcrum properly placed, I can move the world.” 

Jesus that night in the Upper Room was saying, “Just give me a handful of people who really care, who really love me, who are really serious, and whether they’re talented or not, whether they're clever or not, if they’ll make themselves available to me, I’ll make it possible for them to transform the world.” 

This rite of Holy Communion, instituted that evening with 12 not very saintly men, is that supply line, that link with the unlimited heavenly resources. That’s what it’s all about. 

I don’t understand all I know about this Holy Communion business. I really don’t! Eveleyn Underhill wrote a little book, a classic about the intricacies of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. It's astounding all that’s involved... 

This is a complex rite, with layers of meaning---The more you study it, the more you find...the more you live with it, the more you bump into. 

The more you get into it, the more it means----eucharist, thanksgiving, offering, oblation, memorial, anticipation of the heavenly banquet....There are levels of meaning here that are virtually inexhaustible. It’s a brilliant symbol. 

But what it says at the simplest level of all, I think...maybe a level so simple that we often pass over it, is that GOD BELIEVES IN US---here’s how much---God believes in us. 

We don’t have to be perfect, or talented, or clever to have Him in our lives. We don’t have to do anything to qualify to have him present with us....for comfort, for guidance, for strength. 

That’s Gospel, isn’t it? GOOD NEWS. This old, venerable, historic rite of the Church is the re-enactment, the re-presentation of that fundamental truth. HE GAVE HIMSELF FOR US....PAID DEARLY, TO BRING US LIFE AND WHOLENESS. 

It’s important not to approach Communion from the wrong direction. You don’t straighten up your act and then come to God. I hear people say that a lot, I hear preachers say it a lot, in essence---Straighten yourself out, shape up, get your act together, GET RIGHT, and then come to God. 

I remember the old story about the man who was speaking to a group down at the Salvation Army center, and as part of his sermon, he quoted that famous poem written by Rudyard Kipling, the poem “IF”. 

It starts, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you.....”He quoted it eloquently, and then came to the concluding lines: 

“If you can fill the unforgiving minute 

With sixty seconds worth of distance run--- 

Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, 

And—what is more—you’ll be a man, my son!” 

And one, dirty, bearded alcoholic, sitting on the front row, looked up sadly at the speaker, and said, “But, what if you can’t?” 

That’s the human predicament. There are some things that can’t be achieved by the exercise of mere human will. 

The Good News has turned the whole thing around. It’s taken the sequence and reversed it. That's what makes it good news. You don’t get right first and then come to God. GOD COMES TO US...just as we are, and gives us by his grace the power to “get right”. 

And this is the meaning of these elements, at least part of it. There’s nothing magical about the elements themselves, nothing special about them, in one sense. They are what they are, ordinary elements of bread and juice. IT’S WHAT THEY REPRESENT THAT MAKES THEM SPECIAL. 

They represent His life...given, freely, for us...for you and for me...because He believes in us. 

You don’t have to qualify to receive them. If you were already qualified, you wouldn’t need to receive them. Frail, imperfect, inconsistent, even fickle in your allegiance though you may be, HE BELIEVES IN YOU...He believes you can be more, and He wants to be in you, with you, a part of you to help you become. 

Holy Communion that first night in the Upper Room was not administered to saints. And it never has been since...NOT, at least, to completed saints, because there are none such. 

It’s administered to ordinary people who want to become more saintly in their lives, to people whom God loves and is seeking to change and strengthen for the journey. 

He’s always available, He’s always there; He’s always faithful to Himself...of course. But somehow He’s especially present in this marvelous ritual instituted long ago by His Son. 

And on this night when we commemorate afresh the events of the weekend that literally were to become the hinge of human history, how meaningful to celebrate it by kneeling at His table to take into our bodies the gift that makes Eternal Life possible. 

Come and meet Him here at the altar of the Church....Let Him find you and make you whole.