PreacherRhetorica
  • Home and to sermons
    • Year B frontispiece >
      • Proper 5B
      • Seventh of Easter
      • Sixth of Easter
      • Fifth of Easter
      • Fourth of Easter homily
      • Third of Easter
      • Second of Easter
      • Easter Day
      • Maundy Thursday
      • Palm Sunday
      • Lent 5
      • Next Before Lent
      • Presentation (Epiphany 4)
      • Third of Epiphany
      • Second of Epiphany
      • Epiphany (2)
      • Epiphany
      • Holy Innocents
      • Christmas
      • The Reign of Christ (Proper 29B)
      • Christ the King (Proper 29B)
      • Proper 28B (2nd Bf Advent)
      • 3rd Bf Advent (CofE)
      • Proper 27B
      • All Saints Sunday
      • Proper 26B
      • Proper 25B
      • Simon and Jude
      • Proper 24B
      • Proper 23B
      • Proper 22B
      • Proper 22B homily
      • Proper 21B
      • Proper 20B
      • Proper 19B
      • Proper 18B sermon
      • Proper 18B performance poem
      • Proper 17B
      • Proper 16B
      • Proper 15B
      • Proper 14B
      • Proper 13B
      • Proper 12B
      • Mary Magdalene homily
      • Proper 11B
      • Proper 10B
      • Proper 9B homily
      • Proper 8B
      • Birth of John the Baptist
      • Proper 7B homily
      • Proper 6B
      • Trinity Sunday
      • Pentecost
      • Lent 4 Mothering Sunday
      • Lent 3
      • Lent 2
      • Lent 1
      • 2nd Before Lent
      • 3rd Before Lent
      • 2nd of Christmas B homily
      • Christmas Day
      • Advent 4B
      • Advent 3B
      • Advent 2B
      • Advent 1B homily
      • Year A frontispiece >
        • Proper 28A (2 Bf Advent)
        • Proper 27A (3 Bf Advent)
        • Proper 26A (4 Bf Advent)
        • Proper 25A Last after Trinity
        • Proper 24A
        • Proper 23A
        • Proper 22A
        • Proper 21A
        • St Matthew
        • Proper 20A
        • Proper 19A
        • Proper 18A
        • Proper 17A
        • Proper 16A
        • Proper 15A
        • Proper 14A
        • Proper 13A
        • Proper 12A
        • Proper 11A
        • Proper 10A
        • Proper 9A
        • Proper 8A
        • Proper 7A
        • Trinity Sunday (Homily)
        • Pentecost
        • Seventh of Easter (Sunday after Ascension)
        • Sixth of Easter
        • Fifth of Easter
        • Fourth of Easter
        • Third of Easter
        • Second of Easter
        • Easter (Poem)
        • Maundy Thursday
        • Palm Sunday
        • Lent 5
        • Lent 4
        • Lent 3
        • Lent 2
        • Lent 1
        • Next Bf Lent (Epiphany last)
        • 2 Bf Lent (Proper 3)
        • Epiphany 7 (RCL)
        • Epiphany 6 (3 Bf Lent)
        • Epiphany 5 (4 Bf Lent)
        • Presentation of Christ
        • Epiphany 3
        • Epiphany 2
        • Baptism of Christ (Epiphany 1)
        • The Epiphany
        • Second Sunday of Christmas
        • First Sunday of Christmas
        • Christmas Day
        • Advent 4A
        • Advent 3A
        • Advent 2A
        • Advent 1A
        • Christ the King Yr A (2)
        • Christ the King Yr A
        • Remembrance Sunday
        • All Saints' Sunday
        • Harvest Homily
        • Harvest
        • Admission of Pastoral Workers
        • Saint Thomas homily
        • Corpus Christi
        • Trinity Sunday
        • Pentecost
        • Pentecost: another example
        • Year C frontispiece >
          • Christ the King (Next bf Advent)
          • Proper 28C (2nd bf Advent)
          • Proper 27C (3rd bf Advent)
          • Proper 26C (4th bf Advent)
          • Proper 25C (Last after Trinity)
          • Proper 24C
          • Proper 23C
          • Proper 22C
          • St Michael & All Angels (homily)
          • Proper 21C
          • Proper 20C
          • Proper 19C (story sermon)
          • Proper 18C
          • Proper 17C
          • Proper 16C
          • Proper 15C
          • Proper 14C
          • Proper 13C
          • Proper 12C
          • Proper 11C
          • Proper 10C
          • Proper 9C
          • Proper 8C
          • Proper 7C
          • Proper 6C performance poem
          • Proper 5C
          • Proper 4C
          • Trinity
          • Pentecost homily
          • Seventh of Easter
          • Ascension Day
          • Sixth of Easter
          • Fifth of Easter
          • Fourth of Easter
          • Third of Easter
          • Second of Easter
          • Easter homily
          • Easter (story sermon)
          • Maundy Thursday
          • Palm Sunday
          • Lent 5C
          • Mothering Sunday
          • Lent 4C homily
          • Lent 3C (story sermon)
          • Lent 2C
          • Lent 1C
          • Ash Wednesday homily
          • Next Bf Lent/Last of Epiphany
          • Epiphany 4 (RCL)
          • Second Before Lent
          • Presentation of Christ
          • Fourth of Epiphany
          • Third of Epiphany
          • Baptism of Christ
          • The Epiphany
          • First of Christmas homily
          • Christmas Day homily
          • Christmas Day
          • Advent 4C
          • Advent 3C
          • Advent 2C
          • Advent 1C
        • Non-lectionary sermons >
          • Plough Sunday
          • Advent and Christmas ideas
          • Christmas Day homily
          • A Christmas Tale
          • Remembrance 2013
          • Remembrance Sunday
          • Harvest homily 2
          • Harvest
          • Harvest homily
          • Harvest Water
          • New Pastoral Ministry
        • Ascension
  • Homiletics
    • A Definition of Preaching
    • Speaking locally
    • Notes from a masterclass
    • Design analysis 1
    • Design analysis 2
    • Encouraging feedback
    • Preaching in an amnesic society
    • The Aldi bag syndrome
    • Blog
  • Disciplecraft
  • Recommended
    • Preaching Fools
  • Second of Epiphany

Thanksgiving for the Institution of Holy Communion.
Corpus Christi. 1 Corinthians 11.23-26; John 6.51-58

Picture
She was so outraged, indeed scandalized, that she wanted me to refuse to present her nephew for confirmation by the Bishop. He was about eleven years old and I was the person taking the preparation classes.  What had so outraged her?  Well, the lad had let slip that his sole reason for wanting to be confirmed as to be able to taste the wine!  His aunt, his godmother, was outraged.

We celebrate Corpus Christi - thanksgiving for the sacrament of the Eucharist; the feast of bread and wine; the Holy Communion; sometimes called the Holy Mysteries, and mysterious it certainly is.  How can a wafer thin fragment and a sip be a feast?  How can bread and wine be body and blood?  How can an itinerant first-century preacher be present in a twenty-first century action?  Mystery indeed.  None of us can fathom it; yet in another sense it is as plain as plain can be.  Like the play acting that comes so naturally to a five year old, we play act; we play act what God does, what God is doing, in this world.

Did you know the consumption of ordinary, standard bread can be predicted by the state of the national economy?  The more people there are out of work and the more business that close, the more white bread is eaten.  As unemployment declines and shopping and consumer credit increases so the consumption of white bread declines.  Bread is common stuff; stuff to see you through hard times.  So too wine.  Yes, it can be flash, expensive and fashionable, but at heart it's simply made and for much of humanity's existence safer to drink than easily contaminated water.

It's not hard to see what these two things signify: a fertile world and the bounty of nature; production and the skill of grower, baker, wine maker; the things of enterprise, good and bad, - grain that could have been bread for many fed to cattle to fatten them for the rich, luxuriated wine when so many can't even get clean water; staples that keep us going - bread to meet our hunger, wine to gladden our lives.

Common stuff of living and God through Jesus takes them and transforms them into the new things of his kingdom.  Like any good craftsman, he takes ordinary things and shapes them into something wonderful.  He is not jealous with his skill.  He shares it.  He takes, he blesses, he breaks, he gives.  And he is generous enough to call us his body that through us his action might be known in the world.  Bread and wine are taken of the tables of our daily lives and put into Jesus' hands to be transformed into what he meant all things to be - a direct means of contact between humankind and God.

This bread and wine are samples of us; our lives and personalities summed up in them, that through Christ's action our lives may be given back to us, no longer simply our own but his Body - part of the redeemed and redeeming community, bound in life and death to our Lord.  So the material that is really being worked on in this craftsman's shop is really our selves.

The Eucharist is the workshop of a new world.  Here and now our Living Lord comes to his own as he promised and eats bread and drinks new wine with us in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Here we have a foretaste of the heavenly banquet prepared for all humanity.  Here in the old order we taste the power of the new order.  Here we experience the transforming power of Christ to turn common things into holy things.

His aunt was scandalized that his only reason for being confirmed was to taste the wine.  But is it so scandalous?  Don't we all yearn to simply taste the wine of God's kingdom?


Photo used under Creative Commons from khrawlings