First in a series on the Eucharist

By Ralph McMichael

The life of the Church seems like the promotion of one new thing after another. Every generation, year, week, day, and even hour brings an announcement of a new way to act, think, speak, or experience what it “means” to be a Christian and how the Church is to be or do. Each new thing arrives with its array of consultants, conferences, and publications. The faithful gather for the new rite of the Power Point presentation! Well-intentioned leaders chase after the latest wave of the new and better way for the Church to do (finally?) what it always was meant to do.

The zest for newness even reaches back into the past to repackage the old thing as the new — as a latter-day meditation or mission. A survey of the upcoming conferences of our dioceses and educational institutions, as well as of other denominations, will find that they all are bringing the same people to say the same things to different groups. Why? Because this is the new thing, and we want it too. In this way, vision is looking around to see what other people are doing, rather than looking toward a future that only God can give.

Contrast all of this with the word of “the one who was seated on the throne” who said: “See, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). This verse appears as part of a vision: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” In this perspective, we see that newness is fundamentally not a result of human action but a property of the active presence of Jesus Christ in the Father’s mission through the Holy Spirit. God is always new to us because we are not God. The mystery of God’s presence is an abiding newness, a stability that is fresh, and a tradition that creates new generations of fidelity. The point is therefore not so much to focus on doing new things but rather on being made new. The presence of Jesus Christ is God’s theme, conference, and slogan, God’s innovation for the Church and the world.

The Christian vision is not, after all, a piecemeal plan for progress: one more human view of what it takes to be better people working for a better world. It is the vision of a new heaven and a new earth gathered around the throne of Jesus Christ at the center of his Father’s kingdom, breathing the life of the Holy Spirit. And the resurrection of Jesus is the arrival of God’s gift of the new creation, not a method for our self-improvement.

Indeed, newness is a sacrament of God’s freedom. We inhabit the risen and new life of Christ when we are willing to sacrifice our plans and efforts, above all in the Holy Eucharist. For “here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.”

In Lent we prepare for the resurrection by focusing on the basics of Christian life. It is the season for us to receive God’s offer of life in the risen Christ by starting over where we are already. And where are we? We are baptized into the Eucharist. This life is characterized by the dimensions of the Eucharist that constitute the whole celebration. From beginning to end we are involved in an array of actions that transform us into the Spirit-filled Body of Christ.

The Eucharist begins with the gathering of the baptized; we gather as the Body of Christ for the Body of Christ. The opening acclamation — “Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. /  And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever” — reminds us of our baptism and our entrance into God’s order of authority, economy, and politics. The gathered then listen to the proclamation of Scripture; we listen to the Word of God so that we might speak it for ourselves in word and deed.

In our recitation of the Nicene Creed, we confess a faith that is common to those visibly gathered around us and to all gatherings of Christians — past, present, and future. We pray for ourselves, for others in need, for the Church, and for the world; we take up the vocation of priestly people as intercessors.

Next, we enter into God’s work of reconciliation: confessing sins, receiving forgiveness, and sharing the peace of Christ. And before there is consecration, there is offering: we offer our gifts on God’s altar in order to receive anew our own lives as consecrated to God. Then the eucharistic prayer begins with dialogue and ends with doxology: a transition to the praise of God by thanksgiving for God’s acts of salvation, by remembering Jesus, and by invoking the Holy Spirit over our offering and over ourselves. We thus leave our own places to go to the place of God’s communion. Finally, we are dismissed: sent into the world on the eucharistic mission.

Each action of the Eucharist is thus part of the economy of God’s offer of salvation, to share in Christ’s life of communion. Our gathering — leaving the homes we have chosen and arranged for ourselves — is the beginning of our offering to live in the place God has prepared for us to dwell. Listening to Scripture is the ascetic practice of laying aside our own opinions and viewpoints for the sake of the silence where only God’s Word is heard. We thus listen before we speak, and are acted upon before we act — formed and renewed by what we believe, rather than by what you or I might think at any given moment on an issue du jour.

The movement outside of the tomb of our concerns is moreover animated by interceding on the behalf of others, so that reconciliation may take place not so much through the negotiation of conflict, or recognition of mutual interests, but through approaching God together as sinners seeking forgiveness. Likewise, the Peace of Christ is a sign of God’s act, not of human well-wishing; and the common eucharistic prayer enunciates our journey to meet the risen Christ and live from this encounter in the Church for the life of the world.

For the remainder of this Lent, let’s give up our anxiety for the new and practice the newness of Christ’s eucharistic presence. It’s not too late to gather with other Christians to listen to Scripture and pray for one another; to devote ourselves to faithful reflection upon the meaning and truth of even two or three lines of the Nicene Creed (rather than trying to be informed about every other issue); to take on the ministry of feeding others or providing a place of welcome and love; or to commit ourselves as a congregation to setting aside our own plans in favor of the form of eucharistic life that is our common confession and celebration.

Let us receive the gift of the one who says: “See, I am making all things new.”

The Rev. Dr. Ralph McMichael lives in St. Louis, Mo.