Just What Do We Remember?

Sermon by James W. Crawford

Maundy Thursday, March 27, 1997

From First Corinthians 11

When Paul writes to the Church in Corinth he takes on the issues blowing the church apart. Paul founded that congregation and feels a strong tie to them, but in his absence things tend to go haywire. The bulk of his letters to them tries to get them back on track, working with one another, regaining a sense of their mutuality and solidarity within the grace and mission of Christ.

One of the issues facing this Corinthian congregation lies in what we might call a class conflict. There exists a disparity of power and status between the well-to-do and the working poor, the white collar and the blue collar, the aristocrats and the indigent; and like most class conflicts they tend to walk right in through the church door. They carry over into the life of the congregation. And this conflict is no more evident than when the Corinthians gather to celebrate the Lord's Supper together. You see, the rich, because their working hours differ from the poor's, come to  supper early. They eat first and best. And when the so-called lower classes, the ones with a different work schedule, arrive, there is nothing left but the crumbs. The divisions and economic differential of the larger society show up vividly and shamefully at the Lord's table.

Paul is mortified. So, among other things calling to them to unity, he uses the table as one of the symbols and tangible evidences of the bridging of gaps evident in the urban life around them and chipping away at the integrity of the congregation. He prescribes a way of doing things and then urges them to eat in remembrance and to drink in remembrance of Christ until Christ returns.

So, as we gather tonight from our many different callings and life-styles, our neighborhoods, work places and religious roots, what is it we remember together? What binds us at this table? What is larger than our individualism, our partisan politics, the degrees we hold, the income we take home, the genes we bear, the religious claims we make for ourselves or our friends? In what remembrances do we discover our unity around this table?

I

In the first place, we find ourselves bound at this table with what we call  "all the faithful in heaven and on earth." We come here not simply as a gathering of men and women from the streets and precincts of Boston and vicinity on this Maundy Thursday eve, l997. We come as part of a long parade of men and women gathering not only in this room, but that room next door, the room at the meeting house down town; indeed, we come as part of a vast and infinite congregation stretching nearly twenty centuries, including the Augustines, the Theresas, the Luthers, the Monicas, and yes, our mothers and fathers, our grandmothers and grandfathers in the faith who received, sustained and handed the story on to us in this room.

You cannot see them now, but these windows, so beautiful in the daytime, were given to this church by members who wanted to tell us the story in stained glass. Their names include Harriet Bayley and Alexander MacComber and Rubie Webster and Stella Atwood. Tonight we bind ourselves to them, to those whom we know and love who preceded us in the faith, to those who celebrate this sacrament in churches across the Back Bay, the City of Boston, our country and the world tonight. At this table, we celebrate the gift of Christ to each of us and stand shoulder to shoulder with the Saints of all the ages.

II

Secondly, at this table we offer our gratitude for the root confidence of our faith and hope: that in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, the love of  God surrounds, undergirds, reaches out to us, and however isolated and estranged we might feel, that love embraces and hangs on to us, never letting us go.

We look around our city and world tonight and we see plenty of evidence of the worst things we can do to one another--indeed, we see powerful illustrations of how fear and hatred, in our city and world seem to call a lot of the shots. There is a terrible religious mystery haunting us all this evening from the West coast. Surely a most powerful and vividly ironic image in the failure of love takes place tonight right where Jesus first celebrated this supper: in Jerusalem itself. What do we see there within the range of the Upper Room? A city divided, a people at war with one another, the Upper Room itself perhaps under siege. The love of God mocked, trampled, held hostage while force, revenge and fire power threaten to turn the city into chaos.

And surely, if that conflict seems far away, some of us come tonight with a similar conflict going on with someone we know, or perhaps within our own souls. We may come to this table feeling out of kilter with someone we love, or even feeling, for whatever reason, abandoned, isolated, a wreck inside, no less chaotic than the threats we see surfacing on the streets of our city or among the cultures, religions and nations of the world. Where is the love promised our world by the Gospel?

I pray you remember the two elements we bring to this table and share tonight are bread and wine. Bread and wine. And what do they represent?  They represent the body and blood of Jesus Christ. A body broken, we say.  Blood poured out, we testify. What do they mean? They tell us, in faith and in hope, that right where that body was broken, right where that blood spilled out--the Cross of Jesus--right there we ask our question about the absence or presence of God. When we wonder whether God can be around when everything seems to be going down the drain, our insides a ruin, the world going to pieces--remember tonight we share this sacrament born of the Cross, where, if the love of God can be questioned, it can be questioned there. Love at the execution of the likes of Jesus? No Way! And yet--yet--by heaven, in a mysterious, inexplicable, marvelous paradox our faith tells us if the love of God was anywhere, it was at the foot of the Cross. We come to this table tonight believing that nothing is beyond the reach of the love of God to bear, to stand beside--yes, to bleed with, and in grace and power in some way to transform. We come to this table, my friends, convinced by this sacrament received in the shadow of the Cross in a world where love seems in short supply, convinced Love has the last word.

III

And lastly, we come to this table remembering that the word and work of this table belongs to us as well. We see here that love takes a chance in this world: it risks brokenness, it puts itself on the line. It is not a matter of feeling good, nor of simple pleasure and contentment. Love is something to be exercised in ministry and mission

We are privileged to be located here at this wonderful urban crossroads. Like those Corinthians we find ourselves at the heart of a great city, struggling with all of the personal and social issues tending to tear us apart and separate us into our little niches of residence, or status, or race, or religion. We are given the opportunity to bear to this city and to the world the reconciling mission of the dangerous and risky love we receive at this table. It was George Macleod, spending much of his life working in the impoverished neighborhoods of Glasgow, who, in a marvelous and memorable reminder of our mission at this or any corner, insisted:

We Christians need recover the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a Cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin, and Greek [or shall we say in English and Spanish, and Creole] at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse and soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died. And that is what he died about. And that is where church people should be and what church people should be about.

My friends, come then, all of you, to this Holy Table. Come with the saints of the ages; come confident you rest in God's everlasting love and care; come prepared for a life resembling the Cross itself; come in remembrance of the grace, the peace, the power of Jesus Christ.