Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi  - Pentecost II (Proper 6 A)

A Sermon broadcast on Facebook Live - Sirach 26:10

June 14, 2020

I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.

The last time I had the privilege of presiding at – and partaking of – Eucharist was the Second Sunday in Lent. That was March 22^nd, or 14 weeks ago. But, hey, who’s counting?

I know many of you have also been unintentionally fasting from communion as long as I have. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. I have a craving deep in my soul.

I have great reverence for the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. Which is precisely why I’ve chosen to abstain from presiding over or partaking in Communion during the pandemic. I feel called to stand in solidarity with the sacrifices of the laity vs the sacrifice of the mass.

I’m not out to win an award. It's just how my conscience guides me.

It’s important to remember what our Catechism or Outline of Faith teaches us about the Eucharist. You’ll remember it as soon as I say it  

“The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain signs by which we receive that grace.” (BCP 857).

This means that the bread and wine are symbols that aren’t absolutely necessary for God’s grace and the presence of God’s love in our midst. 

One of my dearest friends, Lindy, an itinerant teacher who is presently in Turkey said, 

“Lots of Anglicans live in places where they have to go for months on end without a Eucharistic service. We are doing just fine, thank you. And I am not the only one to have discovered that the outward signs we sometimes miss turn out to have just been pointers to the kind of sacramental life we crave?”

By a coincidence of the calendar, this past Thursday was the Feast of Corpus Christi, ‘Corpus Christi’ being the old Latin words for “Body of Christ”. Traditionally it is celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday but many congregations – Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches with a high Anglo-Catholic piety as well as some Lutheran churches – observe this feast on this very Sunday.

Today, many churches will be lamenting their inability to have a great, festive celebration with a procession of the host as a prominent part of the celebration.  

The host is placed in a magnificent monstrance – an elaborate golden holder with a transparent receptacle in the center in which a consecrated host is displayed.

The priest wears a white humeral veil, sort of like a shawl, and, covering her hands in it, holds up the monstrance as it is processed around the church. In some places, a rectangular shaped cloth canopy with four poles in the corner is carried, covering the monstrance and protecting it from the elements while creating a sacred space which identifies the head of the procession for the folks in the back.

When I was a child, I lived for the feast of Corpus Christi. I LOVED it. All of it: The joyful yet quiet solemnity. The not-yet-ready-for-prime-time-pick-up band of trumpet, tuba, flute and base drum that played music as we processed. I especially loved it that we went right out the front door of the church and up the street, round the block and back to the church again to the Boom-Boom-Boom of the drum.

Every year, someone from the First Communion Class would get to make a little speech and say a prayer half way through the procession. One year, I was chosen because I could speak in English and Portuguese. 

My parents were so proud. My grandmother was out of her mind with joy and pride. It was the moment I knew that prayers could be answered because I had been praying for this privilege ever since – well, for as long as I could remember. 

It was also the first time I knew that one could cry tears of joy. I was deliriously happy.

I was blissfully unaware of how close we were all skirting to something akin to idolatry. I don’t think it would have mattered if someone had sat me down and told me. All I knew is that this is what we did as Catholics and this year, I was getting to do something that was getting really, really close to something that usually only boys get to do. And THAT mattered. A lot. A WHOLE lot.

So, it’s no surprise that this was the memory that surfaced when, years later, as a priest with 5 years of experience under her belt, I was asked by the rector of a nose-bleed high Anglo-Catholic congregation, to take part in their celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi. I got to chant the benediction before the Lauda Sion. I got to wear the white humeral veil. I got to hold and process with the monstrance.

I was positively dizzy. But, the greater thing was that the rector of this high Anglo-Catholic church had been adamantly opposed to the ordination of women. He was British. Very British. From Australia, British where there were not yet women clergy. Very formal. Deeply reserved. A difficult read under the best of circumstances.

I confess that I had set my sights on him and was relentless in my pursuit to win him over. I worked overtime to be charming, even as I was careful to be subtle in letting him know that I knew church history and liturgics, just nodding at the appropriate moments as he pontificated, and discretely filling in the name of the saint or year or Pope in a rare moment when he came up for air.

I was, in a word, shameless. But, it worked. And, as the crowning glory of my Year of Relentless Pursuit, he asked me to preside at the Feast of Corpus Christi. 

I immediately set about to learn all the liturgical dance steps as well as the music and words of the Gregorian chants. I worked hard not to embarrass myself or to make him doubt his faith in my abilities – and, of course, to make Jesus proud.

Suddenly, the Feast of Corpus Christi was upon us. It was a Sunday evening service. I carefully selected one of my more subdued, gray frocks. It was a simple shirtdress with a very full skirt. It looked appropriately monastic. The rector loved it and complimented me on it. “And who are we wearing?” he asked. “Banana Republic,” said I. “Ah, yes,” he said, in his clipped British cadence, and, without changing expression, said, “Bah-nah-nah Republic. Of course it is. How did I not know?”

As the only woman in the liturgical party, I was determined to do my very best. And, I did. Until I had to kneel before the open tabernacle for Father to put the host into the monstrance.

Unfortunately, my right knee knelt just a little too low on the full skirt of my dress and, when I did – and to my immediate horror – I began to list ever so slowly to the right looking as if I was going to fall. I was later told that it was the most graceful, slow almost-descent into oblivion anyone had ever witnessed. I never let go of that monstrance, however. I could fall, but not Jesus. Not on my watch.

Suddenly, mysteriously, two of the four canopy bearers appeared from out of nowhere and placed their hands under my arms and lifted me up slowly and reverently set me down right. 

My skirt behaved this time and I had plenty of room to kneel without placing Jesus in harm’s way again.

Father never missed a beat and never changed facial expression. He placed the host into the monstrance and, as he did, leaned-in to whisper in my ear, “Did we slip on our Bah-nah-nah Republic?” I continued to hold my own as well as a sense of decorum and said, “Forgive me, Father, for I have slipped.”

At which point, he giggled. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a klutz like me. What else was I to do? Of course I, like Sarah before me, laughed at the sound of Holy Preposterousness – especially when it came from the Holy of Holies.

In today’s Gospel lesson (from Matthew 9:35-10:8(9-23), we hear Jesus commissioning the 12 and sending out them out as his disciples. His instructions to them were to keep it simple. To travel light. To meet people where they are, even if where they are is not to welcome you in peace.

I think we forget, sometimes, that Jesus didn’t call us to be a church. He certainly didn’t call us to be a building. We are called to be a movement. Which is why we need to travel light. 

We are called to think of God not as a noun but as a verb. We are “to God” – to seek out the divine spark in others and to be a divine spark for others who sit in darkness and despair. To nourish and tend to each other and ourselves.

We forget, sometimes, as my friend Lindy says, that

the sacramental signs we sometimes miss turn out to have just been pointers to the kind of sacramental life we crave.

The feast of Corpus Christi is a celebration of the fact that God often comes to us in very real, very tangible but surprising and mysterious ways. Jesus taught us that he would come to us as food – as nourishment – for we're always hungry for something.

Sometimes we need a meal or a drink; other times we crave companionship or affirmation or a word of praise which might just make our day.

What do you crave? What might be missing at this time in your life? What are you hungry for?

These days I find myself hungry for our common good which is supported not just by a few interest groups but by the majority of our people.

I find myself hungry for hope, for news that's uplifting and reassuring.

I'm hungry for health and healing, for the coronavirus to be behind us, and for justice and peace to replace the injustice and turmoil in our country.

I'm hungry for hope for our planet, that it might be cared for by the global community and not just a few "green" organizations.

I'm always hungry for people in our church community who are our future saints, who model Jesus' love and provide inspiration to all of us to see how God is working in our lives.

Especially in this time in our common lives, I hope we focus less on what we don’t have and more on all that we do have.

I hope we open our eyes to see what others do not have and share what we have with others. I hope we stand in solidarity with those who suffer and work for change.

In this time of lessening isolation and spiritual sacrifice, I hope we continue to be the Corpus Christie – the Body of Christ – for others.

After we are allowed to gather, once again, in our church buildings, may we continue to find ways to nourish and sustain each other, ourselves, and all of God’s creatures and creation on this planet Earth, our island home.

And, may the sacramental signs we have missed become the kind of sacramental life we crave.

Amen.