(7) The Breaking of the Bread and the Communion

The priest breaks the bread and says,

We who are many are one body, (1 Cor 12.27)

for we all share in the one bread. 

(Prayer Book has various options.)

 Come let us take this holy sacrament
 of the body and blood of Christ

in remembrance that he died for us,
and feed on him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving.

The sacrament is given to individuals with the following words,

 The body of Christ keep you

in eternal life.

The blood of Christ keep you

in eternal life.

 and the communicant replies, AMEN.

(6b) The Great Thanksgiving

NB The Great Thanksgiving has been divided into two in this blog post for convenience but is one liturgical whole in the Prayer Book service.
This part of The Thanksgiving homes in on the Holy Meal itself.

---Merciful God, we thank you

for these gifts of your creation,

this bread and this wine, (just normal bread and wine)

and we pray that by your Word and Holy Spirit, (note, not by the action of any human)

we who eat and drink them

may be partakers of Christ's body and blood. (1 Cor 10.16 'communion' or 'participation')

--On the night that he was betrayed Jesus took bread;

and when he had given you thanks

he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying,

'Take, eat. This is my body given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.'

--After supper, he took the cup,

and again giving you thanks

he gave it to his disciples, saying,

'Drink for this, all of you.

This is my blood of the new covenant

shed for you and for many

for the forgiveness of sins,

Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'

[The memorial acclamation is used here or after next paragraph.]

Christ has died,

Christ is risen,

Christ will come again.

--Therefore we do as our Saviour has commanded:
proclaiming he offering of himself
made once for all upon the cross,
his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension,
and looking for his coming again,
we celebrate, with this bread and this cup,
his one perfect and sufficient sacrifice
for the sins of the whole world.

--Renew us by your Holy Spirit
unite us in the body of your Son,
and bring us with all your people
into the joy of your eternal kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
with whom, and in whom,
in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
we worship you, Father,
in songs of never-ending praise:
Blessing and honour and glory and power
are yours for ever and ever. Amen.  (echo of Rev 5.13)

Next time we will look at The Breaking of the Bread and the Communion and also consider the meaning of Sacrament.

(6a) The Great Thanksgiving

For All Your Blessings, O Lord

The Great Thanksgiving is preceded by the sharing of peace and the bringing of the gifts of the people to the Lord's Table at the front of the church building.

The offering reminds us that we are one body who are called to be a forgiving body of Christ-believers and in the offering, the onus is on any who are out of fellowship with another in the congregation to make peace before taking Holy Communion (see Matt 5.23).

The present 1995, Prayer Book (A Prayer Book for Australia -APBA) has five different forms of The Great Thanksgiving. Some priests use them by rotation each week, using the fifth one when there are five Sundays in a particular month; others use Thanksgiving 1 predominantly which is the one with which I am most familiar; however, each one of the different forms brings out a different emphasis found in the Scriptures.

Again what is noticeable is the call-response structure of this Thanksgiving and the number of allusions to or direct quotes of scriptural passages in the liturgy. The congregation stands during this prayer which is the Hebraic-Jewish stance taken while praying.

§26 The Great Thanksgiving
One can say that The Great Thanksgiving takes its cue from the scriptural record that Jesus Himself gave thanks (Matt 26.26-27) twice in the last supper before the bread and before the wine.

And saying 'thank-you' is one of the first social graces we try to instill into our children from an early age and thanksgiving is at the heart of the Christian life because our lives are completely dependent on the grace and mercy of God.

It is not only our duty to give thanks to our Creator it is our delight and privilege to be called to do so.

(The priest begins:)

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks for the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

[If the church is passing through a particular season (e.g., Lent, Easter-tide, etc.)
then a Seasonal Preface may be substituted for relevant parts
of the following.]

[In these next 4 paragraphs (denoted by --) we first ADORE, THANK the Father for the incarnation of His Son, AFFIRM the meaning of his sacrificial death for sin and its power to rescue/deliver us from realm of sin forever, PRAISE the Father's Name with all the hosts of heaven.]

-- All glory and honour be yours always and everywhere,
mighty Creator, everliving God.
-- We give you thanks and praise for our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who by the power of your Spirit was born of Mary
and lived as one of us.
--By his death on the cross
and rising to new life,
he offered the one true sacrifice for sin
and obtained an eternal deliverance for his people.
--Therefore with angels and archangels,
and all the company of heaven,
we proclaim your great and glorious name,
for ever praising you and saying [or singing]:

[Anglican worship forms these days are highly flexible and can accommodate small gatherings where no organist or pianist is present to accompany in singing what follows or larger places of worship which have a choir for singing such parts with/without the congregation.]

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.    (Isa 6.3)
Hosanna in the highest.        (Matt 21.9)
[Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. (Ps 118.26; Mk 11.9-10)
Hosanna in the highest.] 

[5] The Greeting of Peace

I was raised in a Pentecostal Church (AoG) where we used to practise (sometimes with American preachers) the 'turn around and tell at least five people that God loves them!' ritual with variations. (I never much liked this 'carry on' but then I was socially introverted so that may account for my attitude.)

However, one good thing about the Pentecostal American ritual was that it was limited to five or so people. Anglicans who are usually conservative in their approaches to other things seem to go overboard at the Greeting of Peace for some reason. Unfortunately, the Greeting has degenerated into a 'hello' session in services when it was never intended to be so.

Some congregants seem to think that it's the right thing to try and shake hands with as many people as possible. Others while doing this don't even look at the people they are shaking hands with! Still others are a delight to receive the Peace from because they do it with a focussed joy. Because the Spirit is with us, because we have been reconciled by One Spirit into one body of Christ we have peace with God and therefore, we can joyfully extend this peace (shalom) to others.

See here for a well-written article on the nature of the Greeting and its foundation in the early church.

In my humble opinion, I think Anglican congregations need to be taught about the purpose and nature of The Greeting to avoid its becoming a social fellowship time.
 
§24 The Greeting of Peace

We are the body of Christ
His Spirit is with us.
or
Christ has reconciled us to God in one body by the cross.
We meet in his name and share his peace.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.
And also with you.

Congregational members then exchange a sign of peace: handshake, kiss, and say, Peace Be With You.

A hymn is then sung while the Offering is received.

§25 Gifts of the People brought to the Lord's Table

These gifts may be presented in silence or the following prayer used:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation,

Through your goodness we have these gifts to share.

Accept and use our offerings for your glory

and for the service of your kingdom.

Blessed be God for ever.

For those of you who are still with me I hope you can hear in the cadences of the Liturgy echoes of the Holy Scriptures for the Liturgy is said to contain about 80-85% Holy Scripture.

However, as I have said before and here repeat, you can have all the most doctrinally pure liturgy in the world and faithfully say it service after service and yet your heart be far from God.

That was exactly the problem with Israel over which the Lord said: 'This people honour Me with their lips but their HEARTS are far from Me' (Isa 29.13; Matt 15.8).

Next Time: The Great Thanksgiving (which is a precursor to the Breaking of the Bread and Communion, and the Sending Out of God's People [into the world]).

Uprooting Our Idolatries

To introduce this topic I mention again that idolatry is part of every person's life, every community's life and every nation's life. In fact, the whole human race is involved in a struggle between worship of the living God and worship of dead idols. Worship is natural to the human condition. In the beginning man turned his worship away from God to a god-substitute by changing the truth about God into a lie and resorting to the worship of the creaturely. 

Christians cannot imagine that they are exempt from the ravages of idolatry (see 1 Cor 7.14; Col 3.5; 1 John 5.21). 

Idolatry involves putting our TRUST in something that is created which can never bear the load of our full trust. 

Only the Creator of all things seen and unseen is worthy of our trust.

How can our idolatries be uprooted?

First they are uprooted in principle by the powerful grace of the gospel to effect salvation 'to every one who has faith' (RSV)(Rom 1.16). For in the gospel of salvation is revealed how God 'rightwises' by faith 'first and last' (NIV, 1.17). Idolatry is dealt a mighty blow by the salvation of God as we read in 1 Thess 1.9 where members of a young church are commended for their turning to God from idols to serve 'the living and true God'. The sin of idolatry pervades the OT and also to a lesser extent the NT but more directed to Gentile believers.

The Grace of Repentance

Idolatries can't be completely uprooted in this life but they can be weakened and subverted by the grace of repentance. We repent when we first become Christians (Acts 2.38; 11.18) but repentance is a life-long practice which isn't just about specific sins but also about the idolatries that lie behind our sins.

The first part of repentance is receiving a word from the Lord about the nature of our idolatry. This revelation itself begins to break the power of the idolatry IF we accept it as the word of truth exposing our condition.

We all go to dentists and feel them poking and prodding around in our mouths to see if they can uncover decay. We hope against hope that they won't find the decay--at least, as a younger person that was always my wish--but unless the tooth decay is brought into the light, it will cause pain and suffering in the future.

Sometimes, the Holy Spirit can be likened to the divine dentist probing the health of our spiritual being to see 'if there be some wicked way in me' (Ps 139.23-24).

Second, we allow ourselves to see how our idolatry is ruining our lives before God. It robs us of greater intimacy with God when our hearts are whoring after other gods. We may come into God's manifest presence but our hearts are far from him (Isa 29.13; Mark 7.6).

Third, allow the Lord to give a true lamenting for our sins, a godly sorrow that works repentance (II Cor 7.10). Repentance is typified in the publican in Luke 18 who says while beating his breast, 'God be merciful to me a sinner' (Lu 18.13).

[4] Preparation For The Holy Communion

Participation in the Holy Communion (also known as The Eucharist, The Lord's Supper) is the sacrament offered in the service of Holy Communion. Anglicans gather around Word and Sacrament, two highlights of their churchly service to God.

The Nature of The Holy Communion

The Holy Communion is a contentious subject within Anglicanism (as it is in the broader Church itself) although to be an Anglican no one is required to accept a certain doctrine/practice concerning Holy Communion.

How the sacrament is viewed carries with it certain practices: for example, for an Anglo-Catholic who subscribes to the belief that the words of institution bring about a changing of the Communion elements into the actual body and blood of Christ, bowing or genuflecting to the aumbry (a small, lockable safe on the wall of the sanctuary) which holds the reserved sacrament (bread that has been blessed) is common.

Evangelicals, on the other hand, would rarely reserve the sacrament and do not usually bow to the reserved sacrament or the sacrament as newly consecrated, though practices will vary from person to person.

Anglicans regard the Communion as a sacrament, as a means of grace (and not just an ordinance or command Jesus gave us to remember his death). Some would say that the sacrament 'works' regardless of the heart of the recipient while others (notably Evangelicals) would contend that it conveys grace only through the medium of faith.

Preparation

This Preparation section §20-21 refers to each congregant taking time to prepare him/herself to take the Lord's Supper in response to Paul's call to 'eat in a worthy manner' (1 Cor 11.27-32). It's important that this latter phrase is emphasised because some have erred in not going forward because of believing that they are not worthy; but the Apostle's words have nothing to do with being worthy inherently but of partaking in a worthy fashion.

All Christians can only partake at His Table on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ AND because of His present advocacy on our behalf at the Father's right hand!

§20 A selection of sentences of Scripture (five are given as examples) may be used at this point (e.g., Matt 11.28; Jn 6.35; Jn 13.34; Mark 11.25; Jn 3.16) and any other suitable scriptures.

§21 Prayer of Preparation

This prayer is justly famous from the prayer books of 1548, 1549 and 1552, and then in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) of 1662. It is also known as the Prayer of Humble Access. It is thoroughly reformed in its emphases on the Mercy of God and our trust in that mercy rather than our own goodness.

The notion of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus is based on John 6.53-68 but as Jesus pointed out his words were 'spirit and life' (i.e., spiritual life). We don't eat the actual flesh and drink the actual blood of Jesus but our feeding on Him is done 'in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving' (APBA, 1995, p. 142). A spiritual feeding on His words is what is meant.

We do not presume

to come to your table, merciful Lord,

trusting in our own righteousness,

but in your manifold and great mercies.

We are not worthy

so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.

But you are the same Lord,

whose nature is always to have mercy.

Grant us therefore, gracious Lord,

so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, 

and to drink his blood,

that we may evermore dwell in him,

and he in us. Amen.

Some doubt whether Jn 6 has any reference to the Holy Communion at all (and they may be right). The subject of John 6 is clearly about Jesus as the Bread of Life (Jn 6.35) and his superiority to the 'manna in the wilderness' (Jn 6.30-35). In the context of the whole Gospel account a contrast between the old Mosaic covenant time and the New Covenant's coming with Jesus is common (See Jn 1.17; 26; 51; 2.6, 20-21; 3.14; etc). The call to his hearers is to believe on Him (Jn 6.29).

 

The whole of §20-§21 has been designated as '[o]ptions which would normally be omitted' which is interesting because I've never been in an Anglican Holy Communion service using the APBA which has omitted this section! The reason I've drawn attention to this omission is that many Anglicans would believe I think that personal preparation for the Lord's Supper is very important.