The Real Presence

One of the Ministers we stayed with was unexpectedly also a soccer coach ... something we hadn't anticipated in the States.

In one service he asked the question, what's going on in communion

As we gather togethr around the table today to break bread and to share the cup it's good to pause a moment and ask what Communion means to us.

What's going on as we break the bread and share the cup?

Something very personal for each one of us to reflect on.

Tom shared many things, but one thing stood out for me.  I'm not sure it's something that I have grown into in the way Tom has, but it is something that resonated with me.

Words alone cannot capture the mystery of the presence of God.

When words are not enough we do some ritual.

I am now a more sacramental person than I was.

What's going on for me in communion starts with that simple observation;.  It is something we are DOING.  What we are doing, though it may be in a stylised way is effectively what has been DONE over the last 2000 years.  It is special to me that as I preside at the table I use the words that were first handed on to me by my father 50 years ago.  They were handed on to him by the Rev Ben Davies, Minister of his church in Abersychan in South Wales 40 years before.  Just a couple of people and it takes me back 90 years.   Startling to think how few links in the chain back to the time of Christ.

I have received from the Lord that which also I have deliverred unto you ... that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it saying, This is my body that is broken for you, this do  in remembrance of me.

And after the same manner also, he took the cup saying, this is the cup of the New Covenant - this do as oft as ye drink  it in remembrance of me.  For as oft as you eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord's death until he come.

Something I find always very moving that sense of doing the very thing Jesus did and all those who have gone before us have done.

But there's more to it than that.

There's very much a presence of Chrsit with us as we break the bread and drink the cup.

But where it the real presence of Christ to be felt?

Is it in the bread and in the fruit of the vine that we drink? This is my body, this is my blood?   In some maasure, but that has not had that ring of truth for me.

Is the bread the wine simply symbolic of the body broken and the blood shed for us.   Yes ... but again that's not enough it is more than a symbol.

Is the presence somewhere else?

Is it in that promise of Jesus: where two or three gather together in my name, there am I in the midst of them?
That's something special to me.  The real presence is there as we gather together to break bread and share the cup - it is not something to be done in solitude it is as we meet together that the presence of Chrsit, the risen Christ is there.

And one more level comes home to me ... it is the thought of the unseen yet very presence of the HOly Spirit with us - it iis the Spirit that makes real the presence of Chrsit with us.

Just as we eat the  bread and it is real, so the Spirit's presence is real within us.

Just as we drink of the cup and it is real, so too the Spirit's presence is real within us.

It is the Spirit that makes all the differnce,

The Spirit that brings the light of Chrsit's presence into our hearts and into our lives.

Let the flame burn is the prayer at the heart of that book of promises we have received from our fellowship of churches, the Congregational Federation.

There is a power in teh presence of the Holy Spirit with us.

He is the comforter, the strength, the fortification alongside us and with us wherever we go.

When we are all too conscious of our weakness the Spirit it is that lifts us when we are down.   Taking Communion at someone's bedisde there is a very sense of the touch of Christ reaching out in healing and in blessing and in peace.

It is the fact that  even at home or wherever it is we share in the bread broken and the cup that we sense we are part of teh body of Christ.

Drawn to be one with him and one with each other.

It is the Spirit that brings hope in the midst of despair.

The Spirit that brings light into our darkness.

So it is that we gather in the name of Christ Jesus to be touched by the Spirit at the point of our deepest need and sense the healing, the blessing, the light of Christ's presence shining in the darkness.

We have a very real sense of the darkness in our world at the moment.

As we moved into our prayers of concern, I reflected on tthe things that trouble us in the news - the plane in the Ukraine, and it comes home having been on a flight recently.

The news from Mosul, having over the years of the wars in Iraq made the connnection with Nineveh and the oldest Chrsitian communities some still speaking the language of Jesus.

And Gaza.  1.7 million people walled into an area that stretches from here to this side of Oxford with just a couple of miles on each side of the road.  350 killed, so many of whom are women and children, 50,000 displaced from one small part of that area to another.

On Saturday I received an email and attached letter from Robert Pestell, now the Chaplain at the Sue Ryder Home.  We shall meet on Tuesday morning, not Wednesday this week at 9-30 to have a time of prayer for the world and its many needs.  And again at 7-00 pm in the evening.

Leading into our prayers of concern I shared Robert's letter.

A Call to Pray

It seems to me that we are at a very significant moment in the life of our world. A moment that demands a response, with the voices of moderation, reconciliation, forgiveness, healing and compassion being heard. Perhaps even the voice of common sense that says ‘enough is enough’, for we can no longer sit back and allow evil and barbaric acts to happen in a world that we have a part in

.

The downing of MH17, the continuing crisis in Israel, the conflict in the Ukraine and the unresolved situation in Syria all point to a world where things are going very badly wrong, with many people suffering terribly and unnecessarily.

This is not a world that I intentionally want to be part of and so I am calling upon you all to come together in prayer, meditation, reflection so that there may be a movement of the human spirit that brings a positive and powerful influence upon those who exercise authority and responsibility so that inhumane and destructive decisions and acts can be challenged and changed.

To this end I am asking that you join with me in setting aside half an hour each week on a Tuesday morning at 9.30 a.m. so that together we can lift the sufferings of this world and our fellow human beings in our prayers and reflections, asking that the needs of all people become a joint responsibility so that lives may be changed for the better.

My prayers will be shared with others in the Chapel at the Hospice where I serve as Chaplain. Will you join with me in adding your prayers and reflections to this ground swell of the human spirit so that together we may try to make this world a better place for everyone?

If Tuesday at 9.30 a.m. doesn’t work for you then find another time, preferably with others, so that there is a shared experience and desire for change.

As a Christian the words of 2 Chronicles 7:14 come to mind,

‘If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land’. (NRSV)

I believe that the situation is so serious that people of faith or not need to come together and openly declare their support for change to happen in this our world.

Action needs to happen and together we can make a difference, please help to make this world a better place for us all.

Revd. Robert Pestell

Chaplain,

Sue Ryder Hospice,

Leckhampton Court, Cheltenham

robcpestell@gmail.com

0750 424 0238