†   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †

 

 

 

 

 

November 2007

A monk once told me that when he returned to his monastery from his many preaching and speaking engagements, he often found small signs that his absence had been noted: his napkin ring would be missing from the refectory, or his name had disappeared from the mailboxes. On one hand, such gestures were petty and mean-spirited, but on the other hand, their point was valid: the life of any human community relies on participation and constancy. Our knowledge of, and affection for one another is built on familiarity; our shared decision-making presupposes a level of commitment and perseverance. The monk acknowledged that for as long he continued to spend more time away from his community than in it, he would have to settle for ‘guest status’.

Recently I heard of two Vermont clubs that are pruning their membership, removing the names of people who pay their dues but never show up. We don’t do that in the Episcopal Church! Our conditions of membership are minimal and hardly taxing, and we are much more given to welcoming than banishing. True, there is a procedure for ‘excommunication’ in the Prayer Book, but it is little known, and rarely invoked: more often we close the door behind ourselves, rather than having it shut by someone else. It’s seldom deliberate, but what begins with a fissure becomes a chasm, and we discover that just as we cannot step into the same river twice, we cannot step into the same community twice: parishes are living organisms, for whom remaining the same is simply not a possibility. New members arrive, fresh voices are heard, and creative possibilities emerge; together we propose and imagine, we listen and reflect, we weigh and ponder. We attend meetings, we study and pray, we are shaped by the liturgy and the Word of God, we take the time to learn names and faces and stories, and gradually we discover new ways of being and doing ‘church’. A parish is always a work in progress, something never mastered, and never finished. It is not a packet of information, or an historical profile, but a lived experience.

At the very center of our common life, constantly re-integrating and energizing it, is the Eucharist. Week by week, the Eucharist forms, and re-forms us, into a people: by praying for those who cannot be with us, we “re-member" them, intentionally keeping them before our minds and in our hearts. Every time we take Holy Communion to our sick and aged, as when we distribute the Sacrament in church, we say “The Body of Christ”. We don’t say “This is the Body of Christ” because we’re not just referring to this host: we are making a statement of faith that, in the Eucharist, we are the Body of Christ – this host certainly, and this communicant, but also this assembly, people present and absent, known and unknown, living and dead. Our “Amen” affirms that in receiving the Body of Christ, we are becoming the Body of Christ.

“One body we, one Body who partake,

one Church united in communion blest;

one Name we bear, one Bread of life we break,

with all thy saints on earth and saints at rest.”

TPG+

 

 
†   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †   †