Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi
Preached at St Paul's Cathedral on the Feast

“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” John 6.53

Think of all the things that have changed in our world since Jesus spoke those words nearly two thousand years ago.

Some have been shallow changes – hair styles, shoes, music, MacDonalds. They have not greatly affected the world we live in.

Other changes have been deep and far reaching – paradigm shifts – the way we understand the universe, the nature of time, our ability to manipulate the human body and the human mind, the rise of science and technology.

These changes continue to shape our world for better or for worse.

And all these changes mirror what goes on in our own lives.

There are superficial changes over the years: hair styles (if you have any hair left to style) and clothes, putting on a bit of weight, needing glasses to read, voting for Boris instead of Ken.

And then there are the deep changes: learning to accept ourselves for who we are; coming to faith or losing our faith; loving someone so much that it changes the way we live; personal suffering and illness; or the changes wrought by years of loneliness.

Our journey through life is marked constantly by these changes: both the superficial ones, and sometimes without realising it, the deep changes.

And what is true of ourselves, is true of this meal, of this bread and wine, of the Eucharist, the Mass, the Holy Communion.

Since Jesus first took Bread and Wine nearly two thousand years ago, the form of this service has undergone many superficial changes: whether in Aramaic or Latin or English; whether in soaring cathedrals with sublime music or in homes with a handful of believers simply sharing the bread and wine.

But beyond the form of this service, and all the outward changes we can trace back through Christian history, there is the deep change which this bread and wine effects in our lives.

The church has struggled over the years to try and give theological explanations of what is going on.

Transubstantiation was the doctrine developed most fully by St Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. He had been educated in Aristotelian metaphysics, and so he taught that although the elements still appeared to be Bread and Wine (the ‘accidents’ as Aristotle would have called it) they were, in a deeper reality, the Body and Blood of our Lord (the ‘substance’ in Aristotle’s terms.)

Martin Luther re-interpreted this in the 16th century and used the word Consubstantiation: the Body & Blood of our Lord coexist in the Bread & Wine. But there is no transformation of the elements.

At the same time, Ulrich Zwingli was the People’s Preacher in Zurich. He stressed the purely symbolic value of the bread and wine. In contrast to the Anglican ‘harmonisation’ described as the Real Presence, Zwinglianism, or Memorialism as it became known, was caricatured as the Real Absence.

Of course you will still find all these views, and others, represented in the Christian church today.

ARCIC (which is the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission) tried to avoid all troublesome descriptions of process in their report of 1971. They simply referred to ‘the mysterious and radical change’ which takes place at the consecration of the bread and wine.

And this deep or radical change is not just about the physical bread and wine, but about how it deeply changes us.

This was why Jesus used such stark language: “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

He had already, in the earlier verses of this chapter, linked this ‘life’ with ‘believing’: “ Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life”. (John 6.47)

John is stressing that Christian mystery is not like pagan mystery, nor is it like the magic of the many cults around in the first century. There is no hocus pocus, no hoax – both phrases derived from the words of the Latin Mass, hoc est corpus meum - this is my body.

The miracle of this meal, is not in what changes happen to the bread and the wine when the priest says the words of consecration.

No the miracle of this meal, is what changes happen to us as we eat and drink in obedience to Christ’s command.

Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

This meal, this Eucharist is a constant reminder of all that Jesus did so that we can enjoy fullness of life.

And more than that, in a way that we cannot fully understand, we are drawn into the life of God as we take the very life of Jesus into ourselves.

As we shall sing in the recessional hymn: “Faith alone the true heart waketh to behold the mystery.” (Of the glorious body telling.)

This is a deep change. This is being born again. This change, changes the way we deal with all other changes of our life.

We may have very little faith. We may not always believe what we think we should believe. We may think ourselves to be poor examples of Christianity. All the more reason why we should take the bread and wine, trusting in the love God, daring to believe the words of Jesus.

We come to this table not because we must, but because we may.
Not because we are strong, but because we are weak.
Not because we have any claim on God’s blessing, but because we stand in constant need of God’s mercy.

In this Feast, we eat the Bread from heaven, until one day we will drink with Christ and all the saints in Glory.

Thanks be to God for this Most Blessed Sacrament.