The Living Eucharist

I was asked earlier this week to give the "mini-sermon" before Communion today at church, and I immediately knew what I would talk about! I love it when God just places something in you head or heart, and it all fits together! I've been reading a couple books lately by Rob Bell..."Velvet Elvis" and "Jesus Wants to Save Christians." Both excellent books, and easy reads, but not about easy stuff. They are both thought-provoking and challenging, and he really lays it all out there for us. I appreciate his honesty and simple words he uses to describe Jesus and what He did, and what our response should be.

Back to today...I had just finished reading a chapter in the latter book, and it was all about the Eucharist. I never knew that Eucharist was the Greek word for thankful. And if you break it down even more....charizomai means "to grant or give", and eu means "well or good." Jesus is God's good gift to the world. He gave us His body, broken and poured out. Then I started thinking more about that word, Eucharist and thinking of it in terms of "the good gift." Too often, I feel like taking Communion is a ritualistic thing, or it can be. We take Communion here every Sunday. So it can easily become a ritual....we know after we finish singing the last worship song, we get up and take Communion. But it should be more than just a ritual. It should be a way of life. Jesus is not here in human form anymore. But I feel like what He is reminding us everytime we take his body and drink his blood, is that WE must now be broken and poured out for others; for the world. We are the living Eucharist. The living good gift to the world. And WE means the Church. Bell says the Eucharist is ultimately about what we do when we leave the church building; what we do in the flow of everyday life.

2 Corinthians 4:10-12 reads, "We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."

I really like the idea that WE are the Eucharist. WE must be the ones who leave the building and are broken and poured out in our communities. Our joy is to be this Eucharist...to live out every blessing we've received, whatever resources, talents, skills, and passions God has given us, to make the world a better place. I love this quote from Bell, "The Eucharist is about people with the power empowering the powerless to make a better life for themselves."

When Jesus says, "Do this in rememberance of me," maybe the "do this" part is about more than just drinking and eating. The "do this" part is about our lives. Allowing ourselves to be broken and poured out, as the living Eucharist. That's what we can do in rememberance of Him.

Christ has no body on earth but yours,
no hands, but yours,
no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion
for the world is to look out;
Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good
And yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.

~Saint Teresa of Avila