In his sermon on the 14th June, Bob Edy reminded us of two sentences that open and close the Eucharistic services in Ordinary Time. As we gather: “We come from scattered lives to meet with God”. As we leave: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”.
We are scattered not just because we spend most of our week in different places with different people doing different things. It is also a description of our personal lives, fragmented by different priorities and different tasks, each competing for our time and attention. No wonder we sometimes come into church weary from the week behind us.
At the end of the service we scatter back into the world, in situations we don’t always choose, amongst people with different expectations and needs.
I am left pondering what might be happening between the coming and going. What difference can an hour make?
Each week when we celebrate the Eucharist we enter a story that is very different from the one we encounter in our daily lives. For some the pace of life is exhausting. For others it is boring. For most it is rarely satisfying or fulfilling. The story we celebrate in our Sunday worship tells a very different story.
The climax of the service comes when we receive the bread and wine. In this act we both remember Christ’s death and resurrection, and we re-member Christ, we take into ourselves his life. He is resurrected in us. I use the 1st person plural “we” and “us” on purpose. In receiving the bread and wine we affirm that we belong to Christ and so to one another.
Each part of the service builds towards this moment. We begin with a time of preparation and a reminder that although we have failed in many ways we are forgiven. We hear the Word of God read and explored. We bring the needs of the world into our worship in intercession. We affirm our common life as the body of Christ as we exchange the peace. And we bring ourselves and our gifts as an offering.
As our liturgy sometimes reminds us “this is his story … this is our story”. Week by week we re-live this story and in so doing we find peace in the turmoil and trouble around us, and the courage to live out this story wherever we may be scattered.
