Even though it’s almost 20 years since his death, and much, much longer since his heyday as an entertainer, I’m sure most people will have heard of Bob Hope. And if you have, you’ll no doubt also know that Bob Hope’s signature tune was a song called Thanks for the Memories. He first sang that song in a film in 1938, but it became one that he sang at every performance he gave, usually with the lyrics altered to suit the particular occasion or venue of his show. I’ve decided to start my sermon on this feast day of Corpus Christi, this day of thanksgiving for the gift of Holy Communion, by talking about Bob Hope, because I think there is a sense in which some people in the Church, many people in the Church in fact, reduce this great gift of Holy Communion, to something akin to Bob Hope’s signature tune, Thanks for the Memories.
For some people in the Church, the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Holy Communion itself, is simply a memorial; it’s nothing more than a way of remembering what Jesus did at supper with his disciples on the eve of his death. And we remember it in the way we do simply because Jesus told us to remember it in this way. And, for those people, that’s all there is to it.
It’s true that memory, and remembrance do play a very big part in what we do at every service of Holy Communion, every Mass, every Eucharist. In the Scripture readings and the Eucharistic Prayer, for example, we remember and call to mind the things that God and Jesus have done for us. And, in the way that Bob Hope changed the lyrics of Thanks for the Memories to suit the occasion, the first part of the Eucharistic Prayer, the part we know as the preface, or proper preface, the things we remember change according to the time of the Church’s year or the particular day we’re celebrating.
What we remember especially at every Eucharist of course, is the Lord’s Supper, the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples the night before his death. And we do this by taking, breaking and eating bread, and drinking wine, in obedience to Jesus’ command to do this in remembrance of him. But, whilst remembrance, thankful remembrance, is a very important part of what we do in the Eucharist, the Eucharist itself, and especially the sacrament of Holy Communion, is about much more than simply remembering what Jesus did at supper with his disciples on that night in Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago.
So why do we have these two very different understandings of Holy Communion? I think that, yet again, the problem is largely one of language. It’s a problem caused by words that don’t translate directly from their original language into another language and, because of that, when they are translated, the meaning of the words is changed, and the original understanding of the words is lost. And that problem’s compounded because people take the meaning of the translated words, try to impose that meaning on the original language, and so on to people to whom the translated meaning didn’t apply, and into situations and events in which the translated meaning didn’t apply. And Jesus’ word that we translate as ‘remembrance’ is a prime example of this.
For us, 21st Century English speaking people, remembrance is a purely mental exercise. What we mean by remembrance is a mental picturing and recollection of past events. We may mark the remembrance in some way by holding an anniversary event or some such thing, but to us, what has happened in the past, can’t be made present again, in the present. But we always have to remember that Jesus didn’t speak English, he was a Jew, and he lived a long time ago. He was steeped in the ritual and religious understanding of his time and his people. The Passover meal, which it’s usually thought Jesus’ last meal with his disciples was, is a ritual memorial of the events of the first Passover in Egypt, it still is amongst Jews today in fact. And for Jews, including Jesus and his disciples, remembrance in this context, wasn’t that mental recollection of past events that we mean by remembrance, but what the Old Testament refers to as zikkaron.
Zikkaron, and it’s Greek equivalent anamnesis, don’t have equivalents in English. In fact it has been said that these words are all but impossible to translate into English. What zikkaron and anamnesis refer to is an understanding that, through ritual memorial, especially communal ritual memorial, God can cause the events remembered to be made present, in the present, for the people who remember them. That’s not to say that the original events are repeated, but that when they’re ritually remembered, the people who remember them in the present, become included in and part of the original events. It’s not unlike an understanding that we find in many ancient cultures, and even in some still today, that even though a person may physically die, they’re not really dead and they can still play a role in everyday life, as long as their name is remembered.
It’s an understanding of remembrance that’s very strange to us. It’s much more than a simple mental recollection of an event in the past, but it stops short of being a repetition of the original event itself. So, in the Eucharist, whilst, as part of our ritual remembrance, we are repeating what Jesus did at supper with his disciples, we’re not sacrificing Christ again, as some in the Church erroneously claim we do in the Eucharist. It’s rather that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God allows us to be included in the original events of Christ’s sacrifice, themselves. By God’s power and grace we become part of these events, even though they happened so long ago. In the power of the Spirit, we are there, at supper with Jesus. And Jesus is here with us, because through zikkaron, through anamnesis, his sacrifice, made once for all, is made present for us again, here and now, whenever and wherever we obey his command to ‘do this in remembrance of me’.
There are, of course, other disagreements between Christians about the Eucharist and the sacrament of Holy Communion. People disagree about the sacrament itself, whether it is the body and blood of Christ or simply bread and wine that symbolise his body and blood. Even when they agree that the sacrament is the body and blood of Christ, they can, and do, disagree about how Christ is present in the sacrament. Is Christ present by transubstantiation, that the substance of the sacrament is entirely the body and blood of Christ with only the outward appearance of bread and wine? Is Christ present by consubstantiation, the sacrament is both the body and blood of Christ and bread and wine? Or is Christ present in the sacrament in a spiritual rather than physical sense?
Whatever people’s views on these things are, I think that if Christians would simply take the time and trouble to consider what Jesus meant when he said ‘do this in remembrance of me’, instead of imposing their own understanding of remembrance on him, then the Eucharist, the Mass, the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, call it what you will, would be regarded with more of the reverence and respect it deserves, rather than as something akin to a Christian version of Bob Hope’s Thanks for the Memories. Perhaps then too, this day of thanksgiving for the gift of Holy Communion, Corpus Christi, would be given the status it deserves and would become a day that’s celebrated by all Christians, with great thanks, for the wonderful gift that Jesus himself gave us when he took and broke bread, took wine, gave them to his disciples and said to them, and to us, ‘do this in remembrance of me.’
Amen.
The Propers for Corpus Christi can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 