Sunday
February 4
A Winter Communion
By Marsh Chapel
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Preface
‘Different are the languages of prayer, but the tears are all the same’.
So, Abraham Heschel, whose mighty labors to interpret the Hebrew Prophets were drenched themselves in tears—the joyful tears of adoration, the bitter tears of confession, the heartfelt tears of thanksgiving, the worried tears of supplication.
Prayer is at the heart of communion, especially a winter communion, and its languages are the tongues of adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication.
‘Pray without ceasing’, we are taught in the 5th chapter of the earliest document in our New Testament, 1 Thessalonians. Without ceasing.
We pray in silence before our worship begins, come Sunday. Here, in this sacred hour, we set ourselves for the week to come, and set before ourselves what we hold dear, and all in which we are dearly held.
Then: Monday noon in meditation, Monday evening in Compline, Wednesday morning in theological community, Wednesday evening in communion, Thursday noon, both in sanctuary silence and then over an outdoor common table, and privately, meal by meal, morning by morning, we pray.
Prayer is to sit silent before God. Prayer is to give utter attention. Prayer is to think God’s thoughts after God. Prayer, like a poem, is ‘a momentary stay against confusion’ (Frost). Prayer is our winter communion.
Adoration
A language learned in prayer is that of adoration. Here is the tongue of aspiration, delight, hope, imagination, wonder and praise. In the dim-lit daily world, adorational language can be hard to hear, hard to find, for it is the exuberant utterance of ‘why not’?, of ‘how about?’, of ‘oh my’!, sentences concluding in question marks and exclamation points, more enchantment than disenchantment
Our gospel reading, at heart, is an aspiration, a high hope about human being, human loving, and human life—especially about healing.
Here in Mark 1, the early church remembers forty years later a very high view, an aspirational hope for human healing. A prayer in aspiration that demons–begone! That upon this earth there yet might be—real friendship, real fellowship, real love, real marriage, the reality of the union of hearts, for which we are made. For a hint of the eternal, a glimpse of the divine, a glimmer of joy without shade. How we need that hint in our time of humiliation. How we need that height in our culture of degradation.
All this takes time and practice. Our aspirations take the support and help of a community to last.
So, in the same breath, and in the same paragraph, the Jesus of Mark’s gospel, and the Lord of Mark’s community, heals the sick, and offers their innocence (not their ignorance) as aspiration. Innocence is not Holiness. Holiness comes after Innocence, in the aspirations known both in celebration and in defeat. Behold Jesus lifts them, lifts us, in his arms.
Hence, a few weeks ago we did sing, ‘Come Let Us Adore Him’. There is a prayer, a prayer in a wonder-land. What do you adore? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also.
Our January preachers, with their manifold winter gifts, foretold it: remember your baptism, behold plenty good room, save what you love, adore restoration not destruction.
So we sing a hymn each Sunday.
Adoration. A language of prayer.
Confession
A language learned in prayer is that of confession. Such a dialect is much needed, in our time, in our generation. Contrition, compunction, regret, and lament. “I am sorry”. “Forgive Me”.
You probably one day suddenly realized the power of confession. Bishop James Matthews once said, in a memorable sermon, that he came to a day when he just wanted to write down in a list his most memorable shortcomings. (I was thinking of him the other day, visiting our own C Faith Richardson, now 102 years of age, who was his secretary). He wrote down his mistakes and his regrets. His regretful mistakes and his mistaken regrets. That he did, and tossed the list into the fire, and resolved to live a great good life unrestrained by what was past. “I gave the list to God and to the fire”, he said, “and I headed out into the future”. Then he added: “I’m sure you all have done the same, one way or another”. I wasn’t so sure we all had, but I basked in the confidence—in the living pardon—of his confidence in us.
We depend on this reminder of our fragility. It keeps us from becoming naïve about the fragility all around us. Especially the disguised fragility of beloved institutions. Many churches are one decade away from demise. Some countries are one government away from demise. Our schools, halls of government, businesses, families—all these are far more fragile than they sometimes seem. They take constant tending, mending, and befriending. They take daily, careful leadership. And when over time the fabric begins to fray, devastation may ensue. Institutions, like people, are nourished by attention to small things. ‘Yard by yard, life is hard. Inch by inch, it’s a cinch’.
So we offer confession, KYRIE ELEISON, each Sunday.
Confession. A language of prayer.
Thanksgiving
A language learned in prayer is that of thanksgiving. My friend says that all birds are either robins or non-robins. Well, the prayer book of the Bible is the Book of Psalms, and in that same oversimplified way, the psalms are either laments or thanksgivings, and there are more of the latter. So today the psalmist is singing aloud a song of thanksgiving.
We know gratitude in hindsight. Thanksgiving is the gift of the rear view mirror, of real retrospective. We learn, and we grow. But as Ralph Sockman repeated, and we now with him, ‘The larger the body of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of mystery that surrounds it”.
Eucharist is a word that means thanksgiving. It is the marrow this morning of our winter communion. Our Eucharist is a thanksgiving in remembrance and in presence. Eucharist is a thanksgiving in remembrance of our Lord Jesus, his ministry of preaching, teaching and, today, especially healing, his death upon the cross, and his radiant resurrection, our beacon and life. Our Eucharist is a thanksgiving in presence, an announcement of the divine presence, the real presence of God, here and now, in the humblest of forms. Eucharist means thanksgiving.
In the humblest of forms.
In the winter of 1982 the Maundy Thursday Holy Communion service was scheduled to occur in the sanctuary of the larger of the two churches, a two-point charge on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, two churches that shared a minister. And perhaps not too much else. In fact, to gather the two into one, in communion, was a rare event, with or without the sacrament. But Maundy Thursday was generally lightly attended, and, for once, all agreed to share the service, one congregation as host and one as guest. Notice the closeness, the kindred etymology of those to words, host and guest.
Well. The boiler died in the host sanctuary sometime that day, or perhaps the day before, though its demise was not noticed until about an hour before the service, noticed by freezing choir members there to practice. In those ancient days there was no mode or media to announce the dilemma, and relocate. So, after some consider, it was decide to move the service next door into the Methodist Parsonage. You knew this was the parsonage because of a sign on the porch saying so. This was an expansive if drafty country house, with two large living rooms, one a parlor with the piano, and the other with couches and chairs, and a large dining room and big country kitchen. Putting the coats on the porch and the children upstairs, we conjured that we could fit the light Lenten attendance. Sometimes you generalize, sometimes you specialize, and sometimes you improvise. A Trustee sat on the piano bench to turn hymn pages for the pianist. It was crowded. The children behaved upstairs, at least at the start. Later you could hear them rustling to run from east to west, giggling as their feet sounded like a small airplane landing nearby. Then quiet again.
Two churches of people who did not regularly sit together, of an evening, by historical accident and the ingenuity of some lay leaders, sat cheek to jowl. There was good close singing, in four parts, with the choir dispersed into the community. There was a warmth quite welcome at 10 below zero outside. At the time of communion all slowly moved from parlor to living room to dining room into the kitchen to serve and be served. And at the end a long full silence filled the house. A long silence, that is, full of thanksgiving.
Thirty-eight years is about the distance in time between the ministry of Jesus and the writing of Mark. The memory sifts to hold onto what matters, counts, lasts, has meaning. Of all the worship services in those years, from Christmas to Easter to Confirmation, the one most remembered is the crowded household communion, and the silence, and the thanksgiving.
If you are wondering how to pray, start with a word of thanks, a thanksgiving, a generous recognition of a cause of gratitude. You will not have far to look.
Sing to the Lord with Thanksgiving, Psalm 147. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. 1 Corinthians 9.
So we read a psalm each Sunday.
Thanksgiving. A language of prayer.
Supplication
A language learned in prayer is that of supplication. We name what we need. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will open. Ask and it shall be given. Not always. Not frequently. Not in a timely way. But…
You don’t easily get what you don’t name as needed.
In supplication, today, we feel or murmur or mutter, perhaps through clenched teeth, a prayer of supplication. How will this happen? We see no easy way.
In supplication, we are reminded of who we are and whose we are. Supplication, the honest statement of what we need, the honest desire to return to a deep personal faith and an active social involvement, against all manner of winds blowing against, helps us build the future, a good future. Prayer is a kind of prop.
Emily Dickinson had her occasional happy moments and happy thoughts and choice, true words of thanksgiving (amid darker hues aplenty to be sure):
The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Auger and the Carpenter-
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life-
A past of Plank and Nail
And slowness-then the Scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul.
So we offer our common prayer every Sunday.
Supplication. A language of prayer.
Coda
‘Different are the languages of prayer, but the tears are all the same’.
Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.
Ye that do truly and earnestly repent, and are in love and charity with your neighbor, and intend to lead a new life, following after the commandments of God, come, draw near in faith, and take this Holy Sacrament, this prayerful winter communion, to your lasting comfort.
– The Reverend Doctor, Robert Allan Hill, Dean.
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