This is the first time I have stood before you since I
sent a letter saying that I have been called to be the Dean of Trinity
Cathedral in Davenport. I told the vestry and staff in person, and the response
I generally got was, “How wonderful for you! Oh, wait…that means you’ll be
leaving. How sad for us!” I have to admit that my response is pretty much the
same: excitement at the adventure which will soon begin, regret that it means
leaving all of you. I have said before, and no doubt I will say again, that
without my three years at Christ Church I could not even consider becoming the
dean of a cathedral. I have learned a lot on our short journey together, and
together we have made this a better place. I have always maintained that this
was your parish before I came, and will be yours when I leave. I just didn’t
expect to leave so soon!
Many of you have been coming to this church for a long
time. At our staff meeting this week, Deacon George mentioned that he has
worked with six different rectors. (I’m not sure whether he was bragging or
complaining!) That kind of long-term commitment is one of the strengths of
Christ Church. Another is the fact that it is an Episcopal church, one in which
the liturgy carries a lot of the weight of worship. Who leads the service does
matter; I know that many of you are attuned to the content and especially the
length of the sermon, for instance. But even if the sermon is not to your
liking, Jesus is still here. Jesus comes to us in the people around us. Most
importantly, Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist that we celebrate every week.
At the moment we are smack in the middle of hearing the
entire sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, which is all about Eucharist. “I am
the bread of life,” Jesus says. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and
whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Taken at face value, that sounds
ridiculous. It surely did to some who knew Jesus when he was a boy, crawling
around in the sawdust of Joseph’s carpentry shop. Typically, John refers to these
scoffers as “the Jews,” his term for the religious leaders who rejected Jesus.
Given that Jesus and his disciples were also Jews, it is clearly not intended
as the ethnic term we use today.
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” Jesus
said. What does that mean? What does it mean when the priest asks God to
sanctify bread and wine so they become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?
Anglicans wisely refuse to give a definite answer to that question. “Christ is
really present in the bread and wine,” we say, without spelling out the
details. We treat the elements reverently but we don’t worship them. We know Jesus
is somehow present, and that’s enough explanation.
Trained as a scientist, I like definite answers and
logical explanations. On the other hand, I know when I encounter mystery,
something that is beyond science’s way of knowing. Jesus is both. There is the
human element of his time on earth, something we can relate to through our own
humanity. There is also the divine element drawing us toward the eternal. We eat
bread and drink wine, but we also have something more, something greater,
something that binds us to God and to one another.
That something, that Jesus, transcends you and me. It
also connects us. When we come to the Eucharist, we are connected to all those
who have come before us at Christ Church, and all those who will follow us. Even
when I am no longer present, I will be with you here in the Eucharist, just as
you will be with me at every Eucharist at Trinity Cathedral. It is the blessing
that God has given us through Jesus Christ. Remember that blessing, that gift, in
the midst of this time of transition that we are all about to enter.
[Pentecost 11: John 6:35, 41-51.]
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