More Than A Memory

More than a Memory

1 Corinthians 11:23-26[1]

It seems that a lot of what we call religion involves remembering. We rehearse events that took place long ago. In fact, all of the major religions of the world look to the distant past. They recall founding events that took place centuries ago. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But I think when our faith is built entirely on the memory of times past, I think it can lead many to think of religion as something that is at best old-fashioned and at worst irrelevant. It certainly doesn’t hold any meaning or value for their lives right here and right now. They may have the attitude of “that’s nice, but what have you done for me lately?”

The fact of the matter is that our worship this evening is precisely about something that took place long ago. One of the founding events of our faith is the “Last Supper” Jesus shared with his disciples just before dying on the cross. And it’s true that Jesus commanded us to repeat that meal “in remembrance of me.” The purpose of the meal was to turn the bread and the wine into a very tangible way for us to remember his death on the cross for us all. And so it is appropriate that we recall that original meal this evening in our worship.

In our lesson from the Apostle Paul, we see how important it is to observe the Lord’s Supper “in remembrance” of what Jesus did. Paul recounts the words of Jesus at the Last Supper as something that had “received from the Lord” and was therefore “handing on” to others. St. Paul can use this language when he’s referring to some kind of direct revelation. But I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about here. In this context, Paul is saying that he “received” this from the Lord because it was Jesus who spoke these words in the first place. As we think about our sharing of the Lord’s Supper, we’re talking about an event that actually happened.

But what we do tonight is about more than just a memory of what happened at the original Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples. Paul points to this elsewhere in the letter to the Corinthians when he asks them “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). I think that’s why he calls it the “Lord’s Supper,” not the “Last Supper” (1 Cor. 11:21).  For him, there was more going on than simply remembering when they celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Christ was with them in a special way. And so we believe that every time we share the Lord’s Supper, Christ is present with us as well.

Unfortunately, Christ’s presence with us in the Lord’s Supper been a point of disagreement and division in the church. One of the most significant differences between the Christian churches around the world who are sharing this supper tonight has to do with how they understand the faith that Christ is present with us. Some insist that the bread and the wine are actually transformed into the body and blood of Christ. From that point of view, Christ is literally present in the bread and the cup. On the other side of the spectrum, some believe that the bread and the cup are “mere” symbols that represent Jesus’ death on the cross. Otherwise, they are just bread and juice. As with many theological disputes, it can seem like they’re straining a gnat and swallowing a camel, as Jesus once said.

Importance of the Lord’s Supper is that Christ is truly present with us. We may not be able to explain how that happens to everyone’s satisfaction. There is a sense in which it is a mystery. In the original understanding of the sacraments, there was a significant sense in which they were viewed as mysteries. If you think about it, it’s reasonable to hold onto this idea whenever we talk about the sacraments. After all, we believe they are visible means by which we experience God’s grace in our lives. Why would we think that we could ever fully understand or explain how that happens?

This mystery of God working in our lives right here and right now is an important part of the way the Lord’s Supper serves as more than a memory for us. As Christ is truly present with us in this celebration, God is working to continually renew and sustain us in our faith and service. For that reason, the Lord’s Supper is all about what God has “done for us lately.” Because God in Christ is present with us, right here and right now, our sharing of this meal is more than a memory.

Remembering is an important aspect of our faith. We remember events that took place long ago because we believe that God was acting in history to redeem the human family. We all have our own memories of faith experiences that we cherish as well—Christmas eve services, Thanksgiving meals, Baptisms, Confirmations. Those memories are a big part of what it means for us to continue to believe. But our faith has to be more than a memory if it’s going to make a difference in our lives today. We need a sense that God is working in our lives right here and right now—whether we understand it or not, whether we are even fully aware of it or not! That’s why we celebrate the sacrament of “Communion.” By sharing the Lord’s Supper we are sharing an experience of “communion” or fellowship with the living Lord Jesus Christ, who is truly present with us. Of course Christ is present with us always. But in our observance of the Lord’s Supper, he is present with us in a special way: to renew and sustain our faith here and now. While our sharing of the Lord’s Supper is certainly not less than a memory, because we look back on an actual meal that took place long ago, because Christ is with us here and now, it is also more than a memory.

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[1] © 2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/13/2017 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Recovering Hope

Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23[1]

During this season of Holy Week and Easter, we’ve been examining the fact that faith is not easy. We’ve been talking about how we have some challenges with our faith. I think one of the most difficult challenges we all face is that at some point in our lives we find the very clear, simple and confident faith of our childhood shattered. All of us have had the experience of saying “I had hoped …” with greater or lesser degrees of despair and perhaps even anger. Life is such that just about all of our hopes are at some point dashed. They wind up like “sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground”[2]!

This is perhaps one of the greatest obstacles to faith. Once our hopes have been dashed, what do we do? Once the faith of our childhood is shattered, how do we move forward into a new faith? I think the same thing we said last week applies here as well—just as when we’re learning faith for the first time, re-learning faith in a whole new way is a matter of learning by doing. When we are children, we cultivate faith by participating in worship, by learning the prayers and singing the hymns.[3] I think that applies to re-learning faith as well. We cultivate a new faith as we participate in worship, learning to say the prayers in whole new ways, learning to sing the hymns with a whole new meaning, learning to confess our faith with new substance behind the words. Worshipping with the community of faith is where we learn faith in the first place; it’s also where we re-learn faith after our hopes have been shattered.

At this point you might be scratching your head. You might be thinking that when you’ve lost your faith, the last place you want to be is in church, saying the same prayers that have lost their punch, singing the same hymns that have lost their meaning. And yet, even though a worship service is the last place you’d like to be, it is still the place to re-learn faith. In worship we’re essentially learning how to make all of our lives a believing and faithful response to God’s gift of grace and mercy and peace and joy and love and life to us all. [4]

I’m not saying it will be easy or that it will come quickly or that it won’t be frustrating. Losing faith and trying to get it back again is probably one of the most trying experiences anyone can go through. You feel very much as if God has abandoned you and you find yourself wondering what you did wrong, or why God won’t help you, or even if there is a God at all. Re-learning faith after we’ve lost the faith of our childhood can be one of the most difficult and painful experiences in life. But the plain truth is that the only way to re-learn faith, the only way to recover shattered hopes, is to go back to the place where you learned faith in the first place, and keep going through the motions until the breakthrough comes.

Where else do we have the opportunity to pray the prayer our Savior taught us, looking for God to bring peace and justice into this world? Where else do we have the opportunity to sing the words of faith in the hymns of our childhood? Where else can we experience the sacraments, which remind us of the grace of God, the love of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit in our daily lives? In fact, I would maintain that the sacraments may be one of the most important means of re-learning our faith. As “signs and seals” of what God is doing in this world, they both proclaim the gospel to us, and they also serve as a means of experiencing the grace of God and the presence of Christ again and again.[5] This is especially true of the Lord’s Supper. In Communion we experience God’s sustaining grace—leading us beside still waters, making us lie down in green pastures, restoring our souls.[6] When we come to the table of our Savior, we experience in a way that is like no other the presence of the risen and living Christ.[7] It is truly one of the high points of our worship.

In the previous context where I served, every worship service was supposed to end with an evangelistic invitation. While I understand that this came out of the revival tradition, I always felt frustrated with trying to find some logical or reasonable way to lead into a call to conversion, no matter what the topic of the sermon might have been. On the other hand, I never grow tired of inviting people to the table Christ has prepared for us. As we seek to recover shattered hopes, as we seek to re-learn faith in new ways, we come to the table and find the presence of the risen Savior. We find the gift of God’s unconditional acceptance, God’s sustaining grace, and God’s redeeming love. We come with our community of faith and draw our very life from the one who died for us. And we leave with our hope and faith renewed.

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[1] © 2011 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 5/15/11 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] James Taylor, “Fire and Rain” from Sweet Baby James, Warner Brothers, 1970.

[3] Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 325: “Faith in God is only possible when we live by faith.”

[4] Book of Order W-1.1001; cf. Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans, 426-36. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 109, says that new life in Christ is to be “celebrated as the feast of freedom, as joy in existence and as the ecstasy of bliss.”

[5] Cf. The Study Catechism, question 69: “add water, or bread and wine, to the word of promise, and it becomes a visible word. In this form it does what by grace the word always does: it brings the salvation it promises, and conveys to faith the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Cf. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.14.17.

[6] In the Lord’s supper, Christ may be said to “feed” us—that is he confirms and nurtures our faith, and he renews and sustains us in our service (W.2.4004).

[7] This is the distinctive Reformed view of the sacrament; cf. Weber, Foundations II:618.

“Remembering Who We Are”

Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22[1]

The animated film “Finding Nemo” is about a clown fish named Marlin. He lives on the Great Barrier Reef with his son Nemo, who has a stunted fin. Because of his own fear of the vast ocean and Nemo’s “handicap”, Marlin is to say the least overprotective. One day, Nemo ventures out too far from the Reef and he winds up in a fish tank in a Dentist’s office in Syndey, Australia. Despite his fears of the ocean, Marlin launches a heroic quest to find and rescue his son. Of course, the tagline for the film is, “There are 3.7 trillion fish in the ocean. They're looking for one.”

Along the way, Marlin the clown fish encounters Sharks in a 12-step program to recover from their addiction to eating fish, sea turtles who surf a great underwater current, and a regal blue tang named Dory who suffers from short-term memory loss. Now, Dory gives meaning to the word “ditzy”! At their first meeting, Dory tells Marlin that she saw a boat go by, and so they take off looking for it, but after a very short time, Dory begins to meander, and suddenly turns and tells him to quit “stalking” her!

They survive dangers and Dory’s chronic forgetfulness and make it to Sydney, only to be told that Nemo has died (don’t worry, he really hadn’t). In his grief, however, Marlin decides to just go off by himself and try to forget Nemo and Dory, and everything else that he’s been through. But Dory pleads with him not to go. “No one's ever stuck with me for so long before. And if you leave... if you leave... I just, I remember things better with you. … It's there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And-and I look at you, and I... and I'm home. Please... I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget.” Of course, in the end, Nemo and Marlin are reunited and Dory joins them in their home on the Great Barrier Reef.

I think that we in the church are a bit like Dory. We have a kind of spiritual “Attention Deficit Disorder.” We come to church and worship with great hymns and are reminded of the great truths and promises and hopes of our faith, and then we get distracted by traffic, kids, jobs, money, etc. etc. And before long, we have forgotten who we are and what we’re doing.

The prophet of Isaiah addressed a people in a similar situation. Israel had been exiled to Babylon, where they found it too bitter to sing the songs of Zion and to hold out hope that God would redeem them. And right into the midst of that despair, the prophet calls them to remember who they are. They are the children of the God who created them. They are the chosen ones of the God who redeemed them. They are the beloved and precious people of the God who called them. And because that is who they are, the prophet promises them that God will be with them, through floods, through the fire, no matter where they go.

I sometimes think that we, like those forgetful people of old, tend to think that if God promises that we will not be overwhelmed by the flood or burned by the fire, it means we won’t ever have to suffer loss or go through grief or endure hardship. And when we do get overwhelmed and we do get burned, we fall into despair and pass our faith off as childish wishful thinking. At least that’s what I did.

But the promise is not that we will never get burned, it’s that we will not be consumed. When you go through the fire, at least some of your hair is going to be singed. And when you’re in the middle of the flood, you’re going to be overwhelmed with fear and exhaustion. But the promise is that the waters will not take you under for good.

I find it interesting that the story of Jesus’ baptism has a similar connotation. It’s almost as if Jesus needed to be reminded and reassured of who he was and what he was supposed to be doing. All of us who have been baptized have been claimed by the God of the angel armies and the vast reaches of the universe. We were claimed even before our baptism in that the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ sent his son to redeem us through his death on the cross.

I think it’s important to remember who we are and what we’re doing. But if you’re like me and you get distracted like a ditzy regal blue tang fish named Dory, you share my need to be reminded continually. That’s what worship is for. For me, once or twice a week doesn’t cut it. I need to be reminded once or twice a day! Without that, I can easily lose myself, my faith, my confidence in the midst of all the waves that pound me and the flames that sometime surround me on every side.

But when I take the time to remind myself that God created me, God chose me, God called me, God loves me, I go away refreshed and renewed—I feel “home” and I remember better when the flames get turned up.

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[1] A sermon preached 1/7/07 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX

“Spirit of Life”[1]

Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27, 16:4-15

I think it is especially fitting that we are observing both of our sacraments on this day of Pentecost. And yet, sad to say, it is precisely the ongoing dispute over the sacraments that continues to divide the church today. Roman Catholics insist that there are seven sacraments, and that the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus. “Free Church” groups like Baptists insists that there are no sacraments, only ordinances that are “mere symbols.”

In one respect, this dispute is understandable. But in another respect, it is regrettable in that it misses the point. It seems to me that the witness of Scripture and the testimony of our revered spiritual guides throughout history has been that all of life is to be viewed as a sacrament! If we understand a sacrament as the experience of the grace of God in the Word, incarnate and proclaimed, through the Spirit,[2] then what part of our lives doesn’t fall under that grace? We may recognize the acts of baptism and communion as special instances of the experience of grace, but in a very real sense the outpouring of the Spirit on that first Pentecost had the effect of making every experience of life at least potentially sacramental.

The Work Of The Spirit. Talking about the Spirit makes some of us uncomfortable. Others embrace the spirituality at the core of life by any and every means. Either way, everything we are and do as Christians is defined by the Spirit of God.

In our Psalm text for today, the Spirit is the one who brings life, the one who renews creation, the one who promotes the glory of God (Ps. 104). I’m not sure how radically we are prepared to take that, but in Scripture there is nothing that falls outside the purview of the Spirit. The Scriptures affirm that the Spirit is constantly present in everyone and everything that lives (“all flesh” in Acts 2:17/Joel 2:28). Indeed, the Spirit is said to sustain the whole of creation (Ps. 104:29-30)![3]

I think it’s all too easy for us to take the marvelous gifts of the Spirit for granted. Life, breath, the created order, new life—all of that and more is due in a very real sense to the continuous life-giving presence of the Spirit (that’s not a scientific statement, but a theological one)! The ability to praise God in song, or to proclaim the promise of the Gospel, or to teach the Bible, or to build up the body of Christ—all of that and more is a demonstration of the work of the Spirit. The church lives by the presence of the Spirit of Life, or it does not live at all!

Everything that Jesus offers us with the gift of salvation—new life, love, hope, joy, freedom from everything that binds us, the restoration of all things—is the work of the Spirit of Life (Rom. 8:11, CEV).[4]

Presence Of The Spirit. One of the most bewildering aspects of the Spirit’s life among us is that the Spirit seems to “hide” more often than not (this seems to be God’s nature in general!). But if we will open our hearts, we will find that the Spirit is the loving and life-giving presence of God in all things.[5] In one sense, it’s a matter of looking at things from a different point of view—from the perspective of Scripture. The outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost opens the relationship of love and joy shared between the Father and the Son for all people to experience![6] It may seem hard for us to imagine or explain, but the Spirit of Life really does open the way for us to have the kind of relationship with God that Jesus envisioned when he prayed, “As you Father, are in me and I am in you, may that also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn. 17:21).

Conclusion. In another sense, however, like everything else in the Christian life the experience of the presence of the life-giving Spirit is something that comes as a result of intentional, habitual practice. As Calvin said, we have to “get outside ourselves” in order to experience the presence of God![7] But we must also go deep within, to the place that some have called the “inner sanctuary of the soul” or the “Divine Center” within. The only way to experience the Spirit of Life within us is “by quiet, persistent practice in turning all of our being, day and night, in prayer and inward worship and surrender, toward him who calls in the deeps of our souls.” [8] When we do that, we will experience the presence, the new life, the healing, and the freedom of the Spirit in everything we do. When we do that, we will find that all of life is a sacrament of God’s grace in Jesus the Christ through the Spirit of Life!

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[1] A sermon preached 6/4/06 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX.

[2]Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 199-206.

[3] Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation, 9-10, 96, 98-103.

[4] Moltmann, Church, 204-5; Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 296

[5] Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 34-35.

[6] Moltmann, Spirit, 289; J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 72, 95-96.

[7] Calvin, Institutes 3.7.1-5; Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 299;

[8] Thomas Kelly, Testament of Devotion, 38.