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READING: John 6:48-58 and I Corinthians 11:23-29 SERMON : "Whoever Eats My Flesh" b-or02su 865000 Rev. Richard J. Fairchild We have frequent requests for sermons about Communion. The following is a cohesive service for the celebration of, and teaching about, the meaning and significance of The Lord's Supper". This means the children's story, the hymns, and the prayers focus on this Sacrament. There is some "United Church of Canada" specific material within the sermon - namely quotes from our "Articles of Faith" but this should not prove difficult for those in traditional protestant communities since similar quotes can be found in their confessions, faith statements and catechisms. The actual Eucharistic prayers are a traditional form - with the preface being adapted from that of Nathan Nettleton "Eucharistic Preface" as sent to the PRCL List Server on January 11 2000. GATHERING AND MUSICAL PRELUDE (* = please stand) * WORDS OF WELCOME AND CALL TO WORSHIP L The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. P And also with you. L God is with his people. He dwells in their midst. Listen and hear him speak. P Our hearts long for his word. We wait upon the Lord so that we may renew our strength. L God is our help and our support. His spirit moves among us to lead us in holiness and in righteousness all our days. P With joyful hearts we sing God's praise. With rejoicing we call upon Him. The Lord is our hope and our salvation. * INTROIT: "This Is The Day" (VU 412, verses 1) * PRAYER OF INVOCATION Let Us Pray: Loving and creative God - most holy and wise Lord - we open ourselves to receive your life-giving Spirit, to hear your guiding word, and to see your signs and feel your touch in our midst. Forgive O God, those things which we have done or failed to do which have hindered our communion with you and with our brothers and sisters. Forgive us and bless us that we might be blessing to you and to your world. Come, Lord, and make us new. We ask it through Christ Jesus our Lord, he who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, both now and forevermore. Amen ANNOUNCEMENTS AND SHARING JOYS AND CONCERNS - Announcements - Birthdays This Week - Gathering in of Prayer Joys and Concerns * HYMN "We Gather Here" - VU 469 CHILDREN'S TIME: "Eating Together" Theme Family Made Stronger At The Table Object The Table of The Lord Source Self Good morning. I want to talk to you today about eating. Who here likes to eat? What kinds of food do you especially like?? Eating is a very important thing - it helps to keep us alive. Without food - we die. But how we eat - and who we eat with is also an important thing - it can bring us great joy, it can make our lives richer and fuller. Can you think of special times - of special meals you have had? Who was there with you? In our home the best meals are the ones where our whole family is gathered. Times like Christmas and Thanksgiving when the whole family gathers and we can spend time with one another. Times when friends have come to eat with us. Times when visitors and strangers have sat down with us to eat. In Halifax where I used to live, during the last World War, people used to invite Sailors and Soldiers who were separated from their families for months, even years at time to dinner. It was very good for them - it made them feel loved - it helped them remember how much goodness there is in the world. During the great depression it was the same. Men travelled on the trains looking for work where-ever they could find it - and often families would go down to the railway yards and invite them to have a meal with them - to have a taste not only of the food they needed to eat to live - but of the love of God. Meals are things that are best shared. When we share our table with others - when we eat together with friends and those whom we barely know - we not only nourish our bodies - we nourish our souls. Today in our church, we eat together a special meal that we call the Lord's Supper. We have bread and wine as one family. We have it with Christ Jesus and with one another. It draws us closer together to him and to his family around the world. It reminds us of his love. So, like the meals we have with our families, the bread and the wine nourish us not only in body, but in soul. Jesus told us to always remember when him when we eat together - he commanded us to have to have this special meal with one another. We believe that Jesus is specially present with us in the bread and the wine - that it is his body and his blood - that he gave for us so that we might have our sins forgiven and join him in heaven when we die. Let us Pray: Lord Jesus - we love you -- We thank you for how you bring us together - for how you make us one family - for how you feed our bodies with the bread of earth - and our souls with the bread of heaven. Help us to remember your love - whenever we eat and to share your love - whenever we sit down at table together. Amen. * HYMN: "All Who Hunger" - VU 460 A READING FROM JOHN 6:48-58 (NIV) I am the bread of life. {49} Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. {50} But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. {51} I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." {52} Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" {53} Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. {54} Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. {55} For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. {56} Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. {57} Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. {58} This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." L This is the Gospel of our Risen Lord. P Praise be to you, Lord Jesus Christ. CHOIR ANTHEM: Amazing Grace A READING FROM I CORINTHIANS 11:23-29 (NIV) For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, {24} and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." {25} In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." {26} For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. {27} Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. {28} A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. {29} For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. L This is the Word of The Lord. P Thanks be to God. * HYMN: "Here, O My Lord, I See You" (verse 1-3) - VU 459 SERMON: "Whoever Eats My Flesh" Let us Pray - Creator and maker of us all - bless the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts - grow thou in us and show us your ways and inspire us to live by your truth. Amen The Hymn we just sang, one of the old communion hymns of our tradition, speaks of seeing here, at this table, in this place, the Lord Jesus. It speaks of communion as a touching and handling things unseen of grasping with firmer hand eternal grace, of this table being a heavenly banquet spread for us of our eating together as being a fellowship of living wine and bread. It is a holy mystery that we participate in today. Christ is not only in this sanctuary - where we as his people gather, he is not only a guest at this his table, he is in the bread and the wine that we bless and then take and eat and drink. The table that is spread for us today is more than a memorial meal, it is a life giving meal, a meal that, in Jesus' own words, causes us to remain in him, and he in us. "I tell you the truth," said Jesus, "that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. {54} Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. {55} For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. {56} Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him." The table of the Lord spread before us today is a holy mystery - a mystery that we are called to take part in;. - a mystery that gives us life. In the Basis of Union which is the foundational document of the United Church of Canada, there are twenty articles of faith which the founding members of our denomination agreed summarized our faith. I quoted last week, from article fifteen where it tells us that Christ calls us to be part of his church - part of the visible and sacred brotherhood he established and where we, as one body in him, have communion with him and one another. I also quoted from article sixteen on the sacrament of Holy Baptism. That Article goes on from speaking about Baptism to say this about the Lord's Supper: The Lord's Supper is the sacrament of communion with Christ and with His people, in which bread and wine are given and received in thankful remembrance of Him and His sacrifice on the Cross; and they who in faith receive the same do, after a spiritual manner, partake of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to their comfort, nourishment, and growth in grace. It has ever been the teaching of the church that the Lord's Supper is not only a participation in the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ - a communion with him - but also a communion with the church that Christ died to save - a communion with the saints - both those present with us today and those who have gone before us to God's heavenly kingdom. In today's epistle reading, where the very first written account of the Lord's Supper is recorded, Paul calls us all to discern this communion with Christ and with one another when he writes: Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. {28} A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. {29} For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. Truly these are words that should give us pause - words that should cause us to reflect on what it is we do when we come to the table of the Lord. In the church at Corinth to which Paul wrote these words there were divisions among the people. There were unresolved issues - and this was reflected in how people ate together how they shared the bread and the wine - how they shared in and participated in the body and blood of Christ. Some came to the table - and ate and drank great amounts - so much so that some became drunk, while others found at the table little or nothing for their physical and spiritual nourishment. In Corinth there was little consideration for the meaning of the sacrament - it was treated as being simply food to eat and wine to drink and there was little consideration for those who might come to the table with you, - in fact some came early and went ahead and ate and drank before others could join them. In my father-in-laws house - when a family meal was being held, this kind of behaviour was called eating for eating's sake - and it evoked, and still evokes, a strong - and rather forceful reaction from him. In his home, those who are present are expected to eat together, not in shifts, so that one can watch TV and another read or talk on the phone, and still another run around serving folk without actually being able to sit with them. And in eating together those at the table are expected to come closer together through their conversation with one another and through the attitudes of their hearts. There is no place at the table of my Father-in-law nor is there a place at the table of the Lord for disputes and arguments - these are to be settled and peace to be made before dining together. Every meal is meant to be shared and enjoyed by all. Every meal is meant to nourish one in both body and in soul. Every meal is meant to be a time when God is blessed and thanked and where the family draws together. Today we are called to discern the body of Christ in the Sacrament we celebrate - we are called to receive the life that is found in the body which is broken for us and in the blood that is poured out for us - and to share that life with one another and all who gone before us. We are called to communion - to peace - to intimacy - with God and with our brothers and sisters in the Lord.. Paul writes in the 10th chapter of First Corinthians concerning the Lord's Supper: I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. {16} Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? {17} Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. We are one. The body we eat, the blood we drink, makes us one. The Lord Jesus died so that we might be one, one with him and the Father and the Spirit and one with each other. The Lord's Supper, my brothers and sisters is not just a symbolic meal - though it is full of symbols it is not just a memorial meal - though in it we recall Christ's death till he comes again. It is a sacrament of the Lord - one that conveys his grace and love to us. It is a participation in the body and blood of Christ a communion with God and with one another. May you discern today the body which you eat and the body to which you belong. Amen Let us pray.... PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE: Gracious God as we prepare today to receive the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, help us to discern the mystery of this most Holy Sacrament. Unite us ever more deeply with Christ's suffering that we may also be united ever more deeply with him in his resurrection power. Draw us closer to him and to each other in the fullness of his grace and love.... Lord, hear our prayer.... Lord, your table is set for us so that we might remember your death until you come again and so that we might be nourished and comforted and grow in grace. Grant that as we receive your most precious body and blood that we might indeed be strengthened in our faith and that your people might be one as you and the Father and the Spirit are one... Lord, hear our prayer.... Merciful and forgiving Lord, we pray today for those who struggle to forgive the sins of others, but who cannot. Help them to know the fullness of how you have forgiven them and in that knowledge to be likewise forgiving. Indeed, O Lord, we ourselves now offer up to you any of the pain and the resentment and the anger that we may have because of the actions of others towards us.... Lord hear our prayer.... We pray, O Lord, for those of us and of the larger community who suffer in body or in soul, those in need of the bread of earth as well those in need of the bread of heaven. We remember before you - intercessions as shared - We thank you, O Lord, for taking our burdens upon yourself and for giving to us your yoke and your burden. Help us to walk with you and with one another in peace and in love, both now, and forevermore. Amen. * SHARING GOD'S BLESSINGS: As the Offering is presented all stand for the Doxology (Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow - VU 541) and Prayer of Dedication Lord, as we share at this moment a portion of what we have received, help us open our lives to you and to all to whom you send us. Make us and all that we do and say a blessing to the world so that these offerings may be made holy and complete by our obedience to your will. We ask it in the name of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen * SHARING THE PEACE: We greet those around us with a sign of peace and words like "The peace of the Lord be with you". This ancient tradition is an appropriate response to the peace that God gives to those who hear and do his word. * COMMUNION HYMN: "Let Us Break Bread Together" - VU 480 COMMUNION LITANY: L The peace of the Lord be with you. P And also with you. L Lift up your hearts. P We lift them up to the Lord. L Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. P It is right to give him thanks and praise. EUCHARISTIC PRAYER L Father, all powerful and ever-living God, we well always and everywhere to you give you thanks and praise through Jesus Christ our Lord. Out of love for sinners he humbled himself and become one of us. Born of Mary, he spent his days among us, laughing as we laugh, weeping as we weep. At the Jordan your Spirit descended upon him, anointing him to preach the good news of your kingdom. Anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power, he went among his people feeding the hungry, giving sight to the blind, curing the lame, and healing all who were under the power of the devil. Finally, in fulfilment of your will, he suffered death upon the cross to free us from unending death. Therefore with all the saints and with the angels in heaven we praise you , saying: P Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might, Heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. L Blessed indeed, Father, is the one who comes in your name. Blessed is your son, Christ Jesus, and blessed are they who believe in him and call on his name. P Dying he destroyed our death, rising he restored our life. L Before he was given up to death, a death he freely accepted, he took bread and gave you thanks. He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Take this, all of you, and eat. This is my body which will be given up for you." When the supper was ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to his disciples, and said: "Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me." P When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory. L Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith: P Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. L Loving God, we pray thee to send thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon this bread and this cup that they may be for us the body and the blood of your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. Give us, as we eat and drink, the mind of Christ and help us to follow his example as we await his return in glory. We ask it in his name, praying together as he taught us, singing P Our Father... The Breaking of Bread and The Distribution of The Elements (We receive the body and the blood of our Lord today in the traditional manner of our Presbyterian heritage. The bread and wine will be brought to us where we sit. As you serve the elements to your neighbour say "the body/blood of Christ broken/shed for you" and as you receive say "Amen" or "And also for you". We will eat and drink at the same time. As we wait for the time of eating and drinking the choir and all who desire will sing "Eat This Bread" VU 466) "Eat this bread, drink this cup; come to me and never be hungry. Eat this bread, drink this cup; trust in me and you will not thirst." Departing Prayer L Let us pray: P Lord, you have nourished us with the bread from heaven. We thank you and we bless your most holy name. Fill us with your Spirit day by day, and make us one in peace and love. Amen * DEPARTING HYMN: "O Jesus, Joy of Loving Hearts" - 472 * COMMISSIONING (Unison): In the power of the Holy Spirit we now go forth into the world, to fulfil our calling as the people of God, the body of Christ. * BENEDICTION Go in peace; love and care for one another in the name of Christ; and may the blessing of our crucified Redeemer be with you, may his resurrection power settle upon you and transform your days may his eternal love enlighten your souls and bring you at last to the fulness of his everlasting glory. Amen * THREE FOLD AMEN & CHORAL BLESSING: "Go Now In Peace" - VU 964 copyright - Rev. Richard J. Fairchild - Spirit Networks, 2000 - 2006 use only with proper acknowledgement
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