Worship and Eucharist

Douglas Knight

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 Contents

Chapter 1 The Church worships

1. Gathering – In One Place

2. Hearing – The Word of the Lord
3. Singing – Made free
4. Praying – Speaking with God
5. Eucharist – One Bread
6. Whole people – Continuing Service

Chapter 2 The worship of one church

1 Gathering – In this place

2 Hearing – Witnesses
3 Singing – With One Accord
4 Praying – Asking for Forgiveness
5 Eucharist – Offering and Passover
6 Whole People – The Church in the Week

Chapter 3 Many different churches

1 Gathering – Baptised into One Body

2 Hearing – Truth and Judgment
3 Singing – Joyful People
4 Praying – Confession and Release
5 Eucharist – Redeemed Creation
6 Whole People – The People of the Resurrection

Chapter 4 The Church in the world

1 Gathering – Pilgrims and the Nation

2 Hearing – Disciples
3 Singing – The Church in the Street
4 Praying – The Church leads our repentance
5 Eucharist – Creation Redeemed
6 Whole People – Misery and Dignity

Chapter 5 The Church for the long term

1. Gathering – The Unity of the Church

2. Hearing – Servants of the Word
3. Singing – The Church blesses
4. Praying – The Church suffers
5. Eucharist – The Ascension of Man
6. Whole people – Glorified by God

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Chapter 1 The Church worships

1. Gathering – In One Place

Every Sunday morning Christians gather together in worship. What are they
doing in Church? What is happening in these worship services? Why do they
meet and pray and sing? We are going to look at what is going on in Church.

1. The Church comes together

We go to Church. We are called together and we come together. We leave
our homes and offices to join this gathering. We are roused out of our
everyday existence, drawn away from our computer, car and sofa to join these
people. On Sunday morning we leave home and journey through these
streets in order to come together with all the other members of our Church.
We get up the steps and into the church, go down the aisle and take our
places next to each other.

As we arrive we start singing. Our service begins with a hymn or a song. We

are a pilgrim people who sing on their way, and the first hymn is our song for
the journey. We sing because we celebrate as we make our way to the house
of God.
Rejoice, the Lord is King…

The Lord has called us together and gathered us here. He has invited us so
he is our host and we are his guests. As we journey out of our homes, down
the pavement to church, we are drawn into this gathering and we are glad and
so we sing songs of praise that anticipate our worship together:
O enter then his gates with praise
approach with joy his courts unto
praise laud and bless his name always
for it is seemly so to do (psalm 100, NEH 334, William Kethe)

Anyone can come in listen and join in. The invitation is general, so every
church service is public. The whole community around the Church knows that
it can go. Imagine that the Church stands in the middle on marketplace, and
that it has no walls, but takes place in the open air so everyone can watch and
can hear what is going on, or they can keep their distance, as they wish.

2. We come into the presence of God

The Lord has called us into his presence. When we say ‘church’ we do not
mean this building or this institution or its hierarchy. We mean this random
sample of the people from Chapter of town who are gathered together in this

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way by the call of God. We can gather because God is here first. God has
promised that when two or three are gathered in his name, that he will be
present and hear them. We come into his presence. So we sing:
Be still for the presence of the Lord, the holy one is here

The service starts with the words ‘The Lord be with you’. We reply ‘And also
with you’. The Lord speaks to us human beings, and we may hear his voice
and reply. The Lord God speaks, we hear and respond, and he hears us and
responds to us. The whole service is a conversation, between him and us,
between God and man.

Every Christian worship service is the worship and service of Christ. It is not
primarily our work, but the work of God. What we take to be the words of the
Church, and so our words, are first the words of Christ. The songs that we
sing are his. This worship is Christ’s worship of God.

God makes it possible for us to meet one another and for us to recognise and
respond to this summons to come together. The Lord is our go-between, and
it is he who brings us together ‘in Christ’.

God has called these people together and made them his witnesses: his
gospel is revealed by their many voices in worship. God has brought together
these very different people. We are called to meet these people who are not
like ourselves so every church is a meeting of opposites. We might consider
them incompatible with one another. The event is evidence of his power to do
so. Each of us is called out of our isolation and mutual estrangement and into
encounter with people who are not like ourselves. And we make our peace
with them. The peace of the Lord be with you, we say to one another.

3. Worship of God
The Christian people worship God. They do not allow their worship or
adoration go to anyone else. This is the first thing that makes them different.
The Christian community proclaims in its worship that the God of Jesus Christ
is the only God. The community sings:
Glory be to God on high,
and in earth peace, good will towards men…

Why do we give glory to God? By giving our recognition to God, we make

sure that we do not give our recognition to anyone else that it does not belong
to. We do not worship the wrong person.

All human beings give themselves away. We worship and adore, and cannot
help themselves. We are needy, and want recognition and we throw ourselves
on anyone and anything in order to get that recognition. If we do not give
ourselves to Christ, we give ourselves away in some other direction, or many
other directions.

Christians do not give themselves away to other creatures. They do not throw
themselves away to any creature. If you direct all your worship to God, and
not to any other entity, then you are have not given yourself away and you are

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not lost. Your identity is secured, and you are no longer desperate to receive
any recognition from any source or at any cost.

Christians are not giving glory to God. They are simply giving glory back to
God. We are sending the glory that we have received, back to where it comes
from. We are simply acknowledging receipt of from God, and returning it to
him so that it may be renewed by him. The point is only not to hold on to glory
for ourselves and not to pass it on in any direction to which it does not belong.

4. Salvation
I cannot establish my identity for myself alone. I may try to tell the world who I
am and what I am worth, but the world may disagree and offer me a lower
account of what I am worth. I may defy the world when it disagrees with me,
and may try to force the people those around me to accept my high estimation
of myself. But I have to find someone who can affirm that I am who I say I am.
We have to receive our name from others, and if this name and identity are
truly ours it has to come from within a relationship of love and freedom and
mutual knowledge. Others tell us what we are worth.

God knows you and loves you. It was he who called you into existence in the
first place. He knows who you are, and has all the recognition and respect
and love for you that you will ever wish for. He has always had this love and
respect for you from the beginning. He glories in you, and gives your own true
glory. Of all the jumble of things you are and might be, he is able to recognise
what belongs to you and what does not.

The glory that God has for you is the identity that establishes you and secures
you finally and forever. It is your salvation. As long as you prefer to fight those
who love you and know who you are, your identity is in danger. But when you
receive your identity from the one who loves you without reservation, you
enter the communion in which you known and cherished. Outside that
communion there are only endless threats, and you are bound to make your
own efforts to secure yourself against them. When you come in to that
communion, you change from being no one to being someone. Your identity is
established, and so you are saved. We are given our identity, and the healing
that enables us to receive that identity, and frees us to acknowledge what we
are given is good and wonderful. Then we are able to be glad and thank God
for this identity. That is why we say:
It is indeed right,
it is our duty and our joy,
at all times and in all places
to give you thanks and praise,
holy Father, heavenly King,
almighty and eternal God,
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord

5. Fellowship
This gathering of people turns up and sing these things together. These
people are fundamental to what is going on here, for they are the Church. The
Christian community is made up of people who turn up. However surprised

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they are to find themselves here, these people gathered here in this worship
are the gathered people of God.

God makes the Church different from the rest of the world. He makes it holy.
God calls these people together and he makes them holy, and so different
from the world. He maintains the difference between the Church and all other
institutions, and does so for the sake of the world.

This community that is not exactly like any other, which means that there is
always a question about its identity. It is not obvious who they are, or that they
are different, or why they should be different. All this is a issue of faith. The
Church is holy, the Church says, in faith.

The rest of the world can see how unholy these people are. We ourselves can
see how unholy we are. But these people are the Church, and the Church is
holy. We cannot look over these people to find the holiness of God elsewhere.
These people have the promise of the resurrection, indeed they are the
pledge of the resurrection, for hidden in them is the indelible mark of God that
says that they are holy. God has assembled this company of people to pass
this recognition and love on to you, so you can receive it.

We may well feel uncomfortable when we say that this people is different or
that this people is holy. Who is comfortable about saying that they are one of
the holy? We may well want to play down this difference between ourselves
and the rest of the world. But we are not allowed to do so. The difference
between the Church and the world, is fundamental. Because the Church is
distinct and different from the surrounding world, it is visible and it is therefore
the witness of God to us. He dedicates them to this purpose and prepares
them for it. They are being sanctified, that is, made holy, in order to be his
witnesses to the world.

The Holy Spirit brings us into the communion and love of God. Communion
and love are one and the same. We are brought into a circle of love, and
within this love we are opened up to love, and this love enables us to
subordinate ourselves to one another. Since we have received the love of
God, which is without end, we can afford to love each another. We do not
need to drive hard bargains and calculate pay-offs because in this communion
we can find forgiveness, release and new starts.

This single fellowship is the communion that we know as the community of the
Church. Of course it takes time to discover any of this for ourselves, but then
that is what time is for. The love of God comes to us in the form of a specific
fellowship of those being made holy by God. For us this fellowship starts with
these specific people gathered in this congregation. Salvation is a place in this
fellowship, with them.

2. Hearing – The Word of the Lord

Christians are gathered together in order to hear the Word of God.

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1. Scripture as address
When we are together in Church the bible is read. God has promised to speak
to us through Holy Scripture. Every time we meet, the bible is opened, read
and the gospel is heard. It is read out, loud and clear, so we can all hear it.

God addresses us. God calls and Christ answers this call. We can hear God
because Christ has heard him for us: he is the one who hears God. Because
Christ heard and has answered, Abraham was able to hear and to answer.
Abraham’s yes to God brought into being a whole people, the people of God
who could hear that call and answer the same way. Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, and Moses and David could answer because Christ had heard God
and given their answer for them. Peter and John and the other disciples were
able to answer because Christ heard and answered for them and enabled
them to hear and answer too. God has called and man has answered.

2. Scripture is read
The lesson is read slowly and clearly. Week by week Scripture presents us
with the whole dealings of God in Jesus Christ. There are three readings, from
the Old Testament, and from an epistle and from the Gospel.

In the Old Testament we hear the testimony of the people of Israel, through
their patriarchs and prophets who anticipated God's action in Christ. We
respond to this first testimony from this first group of witnesses, or to the voice
of God which they bring us, by singing a psalm of praise to God.

Then comes the epistle in which we hear from the new churches that came
into being as the witness of Israel spread across the gentile world. These first
Christian communities give us their testimony, and we greet this second
reading from the epistle with a hymn.

Then comes the Gospel. Jesus Christ himself is the gospel, the fulfilment of
the promise made to Israel and then to the world. As we read from three
Chapters of the bible we hear from three groups of witnesses. In the words of
these witnesses, passed on to us as these the words of Scripture, God
speaks to us. God’s Word comes to us whether or not the bible has been well
read; it comes to us through the clear and confident or the stumbling and self-
conscious delivery of the reader or minister. Scripture, read in Church is the
act of God, speaking live to the world, and making himself heard here and
now.

3. The words of God

God speaks and man hears. He knows us and can tell us who we are and
who we may become. He asks us if we are ready for the identity of the people
of God, as this is set out for us in Scripture. All Scripture, and nothing else but
Scripture, gives us this vast account of the identity of the people of God. This
Particular passage that is read out to the assembled people, is the Word of
the Lord for today. The words of this Particular reading is what the Lord says
to us now.

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As Scripture is read, we hear the words of Christ. We hear:
Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest
(Matthew 11.26) and ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me. (John 14.6) and Do not let your hearts be
troubled and do not be afraid (John 14.27) Take heart! I have overcome the
world (John 16.33)

Christ calls us, summons and invites us, encourages and warns us, and we
are the people who may hear him. The Word of God has gone out into all the
world. This Word is the seed sowed, each word dropping into the earth. Now
the farmer, the Lord, waits to see what harvest he will get (Mark 4). The Word
goes out and will not return to him empty but will accomplish what he desires
(Isaiah 55.11). The word dwells with us.

4. Judgment and Forgiveness

The Word knows us. He knows us truly, loves us without reservation and so
he is our best judge. He speaks directly and specifically to us. He tells us that
our place is both lower and higher than we imagined. He tells us not to be
panicked by our situation, not to lash out to make ourselves enough space, or
to take for ourselves the resources that we judge that we need.

From Scripture we learn that we are not masters and may not make others
our servants. Christ is Lord, and it is good news for us that he is so. He tells
me that you are not my servant and that I am not your master, and that I may
not subordinate you to my purposes. He releases us from the burdens we
place on one another, and from our panicked grip on one another. No matter
who has imposed it on us, he can cut us free of our load, and so we can put it
down. Christ tells me to get off your back. He tells me that I have acted like a
little tyrant, and that I may do so no longer. He tells me that I know this but
have been in denial but that I may not deny it any longer. I must concede that
it is so, and that my abuse of others and negligence of them, and my self-
delusion about this, may not continue. I must acknowledge that this is so.

The poor are released. The harsh and uncaring masters are taken off their
backs. This is a relief, for both the poor and those who have been their
masters. But it is also a traumatic event. The Word of God comes to us as
judgment and so as a shock.

5. The sermon
The gathered community of the Church hears the word of God as it is given in
the reading of Scripture and that Scripture is opened to us by the sermon.

After Scripture, there is a talk or a sermon. This tells us what we have heard
in these three readings of Scripture and shows us how they are connected.
We learn that Christ is the fulfilment of the promise made to the specific sets
of people who appear in those Old and New Testament readings. The sermon
reminds us of last week’s readings, so that through the weeks we see the
continuity of the Word of God. We are following the people of Israel in the Old
Testament, and following Christ and his apostles in the New Testament. The

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people of Israel point forward to him and confirming that he is the one that
they were waiting for.

Scripture gives us the narrative of the events that make up life of Israel, that
are now integrated in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that we may now take our
place in his narrative, so that this is not just a story about other people set in
the past, but also about our own future life with Christ. The sermon tells us
that we may become Chapter of this new testament, which is the ever-new
testimony of God to man.

The sermon may tie in other elements of the service, by pointing out here a
verse of the hymn, there a sentence or response. It points to what we have
said and sung in the service in order to show how they all give us our identity
within the people of Christ. It can point out events in the life of our community,
in the Church year, in the parish and the borough, and events at national and
international level. By integrating these into the narrative of God's people it
shows us how we may also become witnesses of God to the world, and of the
world to God.

6. The name of God

We have heard Scripture and Scripture opened to us by the sermon, and in
affirmation of all this, we say the Creed. We stand and say:
We believe in one God
the Father Almighty
Maker of heaven and earth
God has called us. He has given us a name and he calls us by it. He calls us
‘my people’ and each of us ‘my beloved’: we receive our Particular Christian
name from the Church in baptism. ‘Father’ is a name. It is the name that
Jesus uses in addressing God. For us it is Chapter of the longer name,
‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ which refers us to the whole event of Jesus, and
the whole people of Israel, with God. Jesus reveals this name which is both
complex and simple.

It must always disturb us that the name of God is strange. All the pressure is
to look round for another less unilateral and controversial name, one on which
we can all agree. But the only name that can protect us from one another is
‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’. This name has been secured in the Creeds. It
has to be taught and learned, just like all the rest of this faith. Not everyone
knows this, or agrees with it or likes it. It is not too obvious to need saying and
that is why we have to say it, and that is why we gather here, to be faithful
witnesses in our turn, who give thanks to God for all that exists. We who
confess it in public worship do so with our hearts in our mouths, and this is
just as it should be. We are the community that, by God’s grace, is able to
say:
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God

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3. Singing – Made Free
When Christians come together they sing and give thanks to God.

1. Singing
Christians sing because they can. We have been freed to do so. God has
addressed us and so opened the lines of communication. Like calves let out
of their stalls after a long winter’s confinement we kick up and frolic about,
enjoying our new freedom. The whole Christian body feels it, and song is how
the whole body expresses our joy at this release. We sing:
This is the day that Lord has made
Let us rejoice and be glad in it
From the Prayer Book we sing:
O Lord open thou our lips
And our mouths shall shew forth thy praise
We sing sentences and acclamations:
The Lord be with you
And also with you
And
Christ is risen
He is risen indeed, Alleluia
And
Let us bless the Lord
Thanks be to God
These Christian acclamations have come down to us from the beginning.
They are our sound bites. So if you ask us to say in the simplest terms what
we stand for, we can do so. We can confess the whole mystery of faith in one
line:
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again

2. The Lord sings

We sing because Christ sings. Every Christian worship service is the worship
and service of Christ, so what we take to be the words of the Church, are his
words. This service and worship is Christ’s love song to God. The hymns and
songs we sing echo the songs of the Father and the Son. With these songs
and hymns we are able to join in the Son’s worship and hear the Father’s
reply. In our worship we overhear their duet and even participate in it.

The service is the service of Christ. It is his service to God, and it is also his
service to us. Christ stands at the front, while we stand behind him and sing
along with him. We are the column that follows along behind him, and what he
sings this column picks up and repeats. Christ not only leads us, but he
carries us. The Holy Spirit is the power that enables us to participate in
Christ’s worship and so to be carried along behind him. So Christ takes us
with him.

Christ sings and prays for those who cannot do so for themselves. He sings
the songs of lament for mankind. He sings them so we can hear and sing
them too. So we have the privilege of lamenting with those who lament, of

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crying with those who cry, and of singing songs of gladness with those who
rejoice when their laments have been heard.

3. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit

Jesus is Christ. ‘Christ’ means anointed. Jesus has been anointed king and
lord. The Holy Spirit does this anointing, making Christ king for us, so that he
is our king and our Saviour.

The Holy Spirit makes Jesus known, as our Lord. He also keeps him beyond
the reach of our knowledge and of our power. In the incarnation, the Holy
Spirit put Jesus into our hands as this man, first as this infant and then as this
man who is our Lord and our servant. But then he raised him, taking Christ
out of our power again, so that the meaning of this anointing becomes clearer.

Now we have been put into Christ’s power, so that he knows us, but we do not
know him, at least not on our own terms. When the Spirit gives him to us, we
may know Christ and confess that he is Lord; but when the Spirit does not do
so, Christ is absolutely beyond us and unknowable to us.

The Holy Spirit brings us into the presence of Jesus Christ and makes us
Chapter of his company. He always glorifies Christ, so that in this company
we may know Christ, and know him as Lord, and as our lord. The fellowship of
the Holy Spirit is a communion of love: in it each of us subordinates himself to
every other. The Spirit brings all opposites and all rivals together and brings
them together around Christ, in love and in mutual service. In the holy
communion of this fellowship, the Holy Spirit, who always glorifies Christ, and
allows us to do so to.

The Holy Spirit teaches us to pray, sing and make our response to God. The
words of the Son and the breath of the Spirit become our breath; their speech
and life animates us and enables us to ask for what we need and give thanks
for what we have received, and to pass it on to one another, so teaches us
how to speak to one another. So we sing:
Be still for the presence of the Lord, the holy one is here… Be still for the
power of the Lord is moving in this place. He comes to cleanse and heal, to
minister his grace…

The Holy Spirit brings us here before all these other people and holds this
community together, making it one body.

4. The gifts of the Spirit

Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire; thou the
anointing Spirit art, who dost thy seven-fold gifts imChapter (NEH 138)

The Holy Spirit brings us Christ and reveals Christ to us, bit by slow bit. He
conceals Christ from us so that we may receive only as much of him as we
are ready for. He gives Christ to us in the form of intangible packets of
holiness. We know these as those various characteristics that we call the gifts
of the Spirit. These are ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

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faithfulness, gentleness and self-control,’ in the list that the Apostle Paul gives
us in his Letter to the Galatians (5.22).

As we are brought together by the Holy Spirit, our character is redeemed and
transformed so that we are changed from in-turned beings to people who can
love. So we sing:

Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me

Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me

Altogether these gifts relate to this communion, that is, this entity of love into
which we are drawn around Christ. We are being made members of a holy
communion. We love, and therefore we are able to exercise patience or long-
suffering – because Christ is patient and long-suffering with us, and we forget
how to be anything but patient with each other. Altogether these gifts of the
Spirit describe Christ. They also describe us we will be, joined with him, and
bound together in love in this holy communion that is the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit. I suppose we could as well call it the ‘fellowship of Christ’ or the
‘fellowship that the Holy Spirit gathers around Christ’. For this reason we say:
Through him you have sent upon us your holy and life-giving Spirit, and made
us a people for your own possession.

We sing: Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost,

taught by thee we covet most,
of thy gifts at Pentecost,
holy heavenly, love.

Love is kind and suffers long,

love is meek and thinks no wrong,
love than death itself more strong;
therefore, give us love.

The gifts of the Spirit build the body of Christ. That is, the gifts the Spirit gives
you are to be exercised by you in service of the rest of us – so the fruit of your
gifts may be shared by us. Bound together by this love we are together
equipped and prepared to be servants of the world. And we say:
It is right to give him thanks and praise

We give him this thanks and praise when the whole congregation, made up of
all the most contrary and unlikely elements, this and that age-group, class,
ethnicity and lifestyle, is present. When the whole congregation is present it is
Pentecost, and we are animated by the Spirit to sing and pray. But it is for the
sake of the world we are being made this public event of the gathering and
reconciliation of all Chapters of the world.

The Lord God creates this universal Spirit-filled gathering that we call the
Church, and this service of true worship. This worship starts before we arrive
and continues after we have left, and it goes on uninterruptedly out of our
earshot. For Christ lifts the world to God. We are caught up into this act of

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his, so we are involved in this lifting up of the world to God. It is an
extraordinary thing, that we are the people who may say:
Lift up your hearts
We lift them up unto the Lord

4. Praying – Speaking with God

Christians gather to pray and intercede. Since God has spoken to this
people, they may now speak, and purposefully. God is expecting us to speak.
We may say what we like and we may ask him for what we want. We may
speak on behalf of others, and we may acknowledge our own insufficiency
and neediness. Christian worship makes us an articulate people, who pray
and speak up for one another.

1. Jesus prays
All our prayer is formed by the prayer of the people of God that we have
received in Scripture. We learn the story and songs of the people of Israel in
order to know what to say when things go wrong. They passed on to us the
psalms and prayers to use for every eventuality, the psalms in Particular give
us the prayers, the survival skills, we need. We learn how to pray by reading
Scripture and repeating the words we find there.

Jesus prays. Luke tells us that he ‘withdrew to deserted places to pray’ (Luke
5). His disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ He said to them, ‘When
you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.’ (Luke
11.1-2). This has been the form of our prayer ever since.

Jesus speaks up for us and says what we do not know how to say for
ourselves. He carries our prayers to God. This makes him our spokesman
and representative, that is, one of us, speaking for us. Jesus prays to God as
to his Father, and teaches us how to pray, so that we may also pray ‘Our
Father’ with him. He prays so that we can hear and follow. Jesus looked
upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you
always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here,
so that they may believe that you sent me." (John 11.4-42) Jesus has come to
teach us to speak to God with all directness. ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will
be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for
you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and
for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.’ 11.9-10. ‘Give, and it will
be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running
over, will be put into your lap.’ (Luke 6. 38) In Christ, God is in conversation
with man, and as a result, man is in conversation with God. Bringing us into
the conversation so we may speak with God is what the incarnation of Christ
has made possible.

2. Praying people
Because Jesus prays, we may do so too. We can pray because have been
given the name to call and have the promise that God will hear us when we
pray. The whole Christian service of worship is prayer. Nonetheless, one part

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of it is called ‘the intercessions’, in which we pray for the Church and the
world, and thank God for his goodness.

We pray together and for ourselves. There is nothing sophisticated about this.
We may pray for success, at school, at exams, at work, for success and
promotion, for love, health and wealth, for all our worthy and unworthy desires
together. There is no reason to be self-conscious. God hears, but no one else
does. We pray for those who are most important to us. Perhaps we start with
our families, then friends, then the people we know at work. Then perhaps we
pray for the patience or courage to sustain us through the challenges we face.
We may pray for those gifts of the Spirit, so that we may have discernment to
make the right decisions in each of these places, for example. We ask the
Lord what we should do within each of these relationships.

3. Man hears God

Jesus prays. And he teaches us the prayer which we call the Lord’s Prayer.
We pray to God whom he calls Father. This is the one we pray to, and this is
the name we have for him – Father. God has spoken to us, and now, because
he has spoken, we can speak. God does not simply speak to the world but
having spoken, he listens and waits for it to answer. God listens, for he is our
Father.

We may speak to God. We can ask him whether he is faithful, to us. We may
raise prayers and petitions. We speak up for those who are unable to speak
for themselves. We speak for those who only know how to place the blame or
who are consumed by resentment. We may indeed blame God for everything
that is wrong. We protest, but we do so in hope, and so we hope and to
expect more from others than it so far occurs to them. We are embarked
together on an apprenticeship in love, and we are able to accept that this love
is accompanied by difficulty and pain.

The Lord listens. He speaks gently and patiently to the world and so to us,
and he waits for us to answer and to become his Chapterner in conversation.
He intends that we not only hear him but that we hear each human creature.
God intends that we should hear one another. We are to be listening
creatures, who can respond to the prayers and requests that we make of one
another. We must learn how to give a hearing to everyone who calls us.
Anyone, no matter how humble or far away, may expect to call anyone, no
matter how important, and get a hearing from them.

In our intercessions we are learning to pick up the many voices of the world.
We amplify in Particular the voices of those not heard by any one else. We
are learning to represent and speak up for those who get no other hearing.
We speak for them and pray for them until they are able to speak for
themselves and to join us in prayer. We are the people who represent others
and this representative function is what is meant by the priestly office of the
church.

The Lord expects us to tell him what is wrong, and what is unfair. To point out
to God that many people await justice and that there is great evil is a faithful,

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not faithless, thing to do, and it is what God waits for us to do. We may, and
must, identify what is not yet good. In our prayers we ask God why things are
the way they are, and we lament when things are not right. So the Church
laments, and it can only do properly in faith hope and love. Our prayers and
protests are quite different from resentment. We can ask God how his project
of life with mankind can possibly work. We can do so in faith. That is, we can
ask, because we are certain that he is worth asking and that there is an
answer worth having.

4. Learning how to pray

We learn to pray. Prayer has structure. We may praise God, look forward to
the kingdom in which we will share. We may ask for his provision. We may
ask for the forgiveness of sins and release from all trouble. The most obvious
structure is given by the Lord’s prayer:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.

5. Eucharist – One Bread

Christians gather together, hear God's Word, pray and worship God. These
four elements are Chapter of every Christian service. Every service in which
Christians gather and worship God, is Chapter of the one eucharist in which
God gathers and redeems man.

1. Thanksgiving
He took bread and gave you thanks
Eucharist means thanksgiving. God is with man. We receive our life from him,
and when we are able to acknowledge this we give thanks. In Christ we are
able to see that God is our God. Each event of worship is given to us by God,
and all our worship is a giving thanks. The eucharist is the whole Christian
worship service, nothing left out. In each service Christ ministers to us, so we
express our surprise and our delight at finding ourselves served by him. The
eucharist is the event in which we are in his company, in fellowship with the
Lord, and so in this communion that is holy. In Particular it is the fellowship for
those who have been given no Chapter in any other fellowship.

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2. Bread of Life
As the service has proceeded we have heard Scripture, sung songs of praise
and prayed. Now the bread, wine and water are carried up to the altar. When
he has received them, the minister prays the eucharistic prayer of offering:
Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation, through your goodness we have
this bread to offer which earth has given and human hands have made. It will
become for us the Bread of Life.

The minister prays that, whatever we bring, the Lord will take it from us; that
is, whoever we are and whatever condition we are in, the Lord will receive us.
Christ lifts man to God and God receives man from Christ. God has taken
hold of man, holds him now, and will hold him finally in an eternal relationship.
In this eucharist Christ offers all mankind back to God and sustains man in the
communion of God. Our eucharistic prayers celebrate the past, and the
present and future action of Christ for us. At the same time Christ offers all
creation back to God, and God receives it and affirms it so that all creation is
sustained within their holy communion. In this prayer and act of elevation we
have a snapshot of the eternal relationship of man to God: we are lifted up to
God and we are received by God.

The eucharist is an offering from Christ to God, and in communion with Christ,
it is also our offering, of ourselves. We offer ourselves as his body, that is, as
Christ, to God. These elements of bread and wine represent all creation, and
they represent us in it. Since they come from Christ they are received by God.
As we are received we are redeemed and made holy. We are being offered to
God and made present to him. In the eucharist Christ is making us present to
God, and presenting us to God, and God receives us from him.

The eucharist is also an offering made, and a gift given, to us. At the Passover
supper celebrated with the disciples in that upper room, Jesus took bread,
gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them. So here and now, he brings us in,
sits us down, breaks this bread and gives it to us. He feeds us and waits on
us. The food he offers us comes from this creation that he has prepared for us
and placed us in: creation is this garden which he has laid out for us. Piece by
piece he gives us this creation, breaking it and opening it for us, and serves
us himself. And he not only serves us at this table, but he also eats with us,
and by this act he makes us his equals. We are not left out, but invited to sit
down at his table, so that, though unholy, we are made whole simply by being
near him. He gives us these instalments of this creation, he gives us his
service and he gives us his own company. In all this, he gives us himself. So,
as we say in the eucharist, happy are those who are called to his supper.

3. Our Passover
The words of eucharist remember the past event of the passion of Christ. We
remember that our Lord, in the same night that he was betrayed, took bread
and gave you thanks; he broke it and gave it to his disciples

In the eucharist we remember the incarnation, the passion and death of

Christ. We remember the Last Supper in the upper room and the chain of

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events that followed it. Supper with the disciples was followed by the Garden
of Gethsemane, Jesus’ arrest and trial, his being scourged, stripped, dragged
out of the city, out of all human society, and put to death on the cross. We call
all this the ‘passion’. The passion tells us how deep the incarnation is: it goes
down all the way to the bottom. It shows that God really has met man and is
with him, and that since not even death can undo it, this is irrevocable. The
passion is the unchangeable fact of God’s being with man and therefore of his
dedicating and giving himself to man. The incarnation is the meeting of God
with man, and the passion is the incarnation in miniature.

Jesus is about to be handed over. To show that in this way God is handing
himself over to man, Jesus hands this bread over to his disciples. As this
bread is in their hands, so the Son of God is in the hands of man. Christ is
about to be broken and divided up, so he breaks and divides this bread. He
performs this handing over and being broken up in miniature, in this way
showing that this happens only with his knowledge and consent. With the
bread and cup of the Last Supper Jesus demonstrates what is going to
happen. It looks as though it is by his own power that man is taking Christ into
his hands to do something appalling to him in which Jesus is simply the
victim. But, by playing this all out before hand, Jesus shows that though man’s
violence is let loose, man is not master of this event at all. It is Christ who
gives the instruction to ‘go and do what you are going to do’, to Judas (John
13.27). He took this role in it for himself, so in these events in which he seems
most passive, he is also entirely willing and active: he is actively passive. It is
not man who is in charge – not Judas, not the crowd, not the Sanhedrin or
high priest or Pilate – but Christ.

Christ breaks open this bread, tears pieces off and so divides it and hands it
over to his friends. He breaks and divides and hands over. He opens, hands
over and shares himself. What we are handed here is not this or that thing,
but Christ himself. God places himself in our hands, so God is really given
and man really receives him.

Our time here and now in this eucharistic service, is superimposed on that
moment then. All the events that follow the Last Supper, the Mount of Olives,
the garden, arrest, passion and crucifixion, are played out in that supper. The
entire incarnation and passion of Christ are on display in this meal. The
eucharist is the events of the passion, and the eucharistic service
superimposes these events of Christ’s passion on our time. These two times
are playing in parallel for, in the eucharist, our time and the time of that Last
Supper are both brought into synch with the master fly-wheel which is Christ’s
time. As a result we are able to follow Christ, and watch this offering and
giving of God to man, from a distance. His passion is the frame into which all
the events of our life fit, so that included within the events of his life, the
events of our lives are raised and redeemed. As we say in the eucharist:
Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ
Dying you destroyed our death
Rising you restored our life
Lord Jesus come in glory

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4. One body
Christ has opened himself for us. He is the bread that divides and shares itself
out. But this division and opening is not the only thing going on. He gives
himself because nothing else in all creation can give him to us. Nothing else
can break him open, for nothing in all creation can even leave a mark on this
indivisible loaf.

This eucharistic bread, the ‘host’, is a larger version of the wafer we receive
individually at communion. But imagine that this ‘one bread’ is a large
unleavened Middle Eastern loaf, a giant round pitta bread.

Each of us brings something to the eucharist, whether we are aware of it or

not. Imagine that as we reach the altar each of us empties our pockets of
whatever fragments have accumulated there during the week, each crumb
representing some relationship or event in which we have been involved. We
are these fragments. Now imagine that we put them together in a bowl and at
once these fragments turn into a single loaf of bread. The power of God that
brings them together and combines them into that single loaf. When this
eucharistic bread is held up by the priest, it gleams, so that you can see it
even from the back of the Church, perhaps even from outside the Church.
God has called us from all corners of the world, and gathered together to
make this one bread. The priest who stands at the altar holds up this single
loaf. This loaf is us, in Christ. We are the first batch of the new creation. As we
say in the eucharist:
Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.

5. The indivisible divides himself

Two things are going on at once. The first is that that loaf is that community,
and that community is the indivisible Christ: we are him and he is us. The loaf
is the Church, that is to say, all the other Christians. We must grasp them and
cling on to them. Joined to each other, we are integrated into this body that is
Christ’s.

The second thing is that this bread has to be opened for us so that we can
also receive it. We cannot open it by ourselves. So Christ, the loaf himself,
breaks it open for us. The indivisible shares himself out and distributes himself
to us. As we eat from it, its strength floods into us, and makes us pure,
indivisible and unbreakable. The Holy Spirit, the indivisible and indestructible,
divides and distributes himself to us, making us one and making each of us
united and distinct persons. He gives us many gifts and packages, which
both make us a single indissoluble people, and increases the holiness and
uniqueness of each one of us. These two things have to be said about the
bread of the eucharist. As we say in the service:
We break this bread to share in the body of Christ

6. The gateway
Now there is a third thing that must be mentioned. This loaf is our way into the
future world. This loaf is the ‘eye of the needle’, so small that no created thing
can get through it. But the Holy Spirit passes through it to us. Of course the
Holy Spirit brings this loaf into being into the first place: God made it, as he

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makes all things, for us. Since we cannot pass directly through them, all
created things are barriers which we can only pass by going around. But for
the Spirit who created them, all created things are a mesh through which he
may freely pass. Any and every material thing is a doorway of the Spirit. But
for our sake it is only these specific things, bread and wine, that have been
nominated to be this doorway, because Christ used them in this way at the
Last Supper and commanded us to follow him in using them in this way.

Secondly, the Christ passes through these eucharistic elements and out to us,
and passes into us and percolates around within us. Some of that future world
comes to us through this gateway now, and empowers and accompanies us
now. These specific elements of creation through which the Spirit comes,
bring Christ to us, and identify him for us. We meet Christ here, where this
Scripture and this worship, and that eucharistic elements of bread and wine
are. So we pray: Gather into one in your kingdom all who share this one
bread and one cup

We have said that every act of worship is God's gift to us. We are invited to
share in Christ’s worship of the Father and so to share the experience of the
whole company of heaven. Secondly, in this service Christ ministers to us.
The Lord gathers his Church around him and serves them. When we
celebrate the eucharist, we are gathered by Christ and he waits on us at this
table.

We become his holy people. We now participate in this prayer, so we are able
to pass the whole world back to God who will redeem it and renew it for us.
This is the reason why With angels and archangels and with all the company
of heaven we proclaim his great and glorious name.

6 Whole People – Continuing Service

The Christian people is gathered to be the Church of God. It asks for
judgment and it receives it, and it receives mercy and it gives thanks for it. It
prays and sings. The process of our sanctification does not happen in
isolation from the Church, so the service of worship is not a prelude to a more
real private process going on in the individual Christian. This Particular
community is, for our sake, Chapter of the communion of God.

1. The whole service

Let us take a look at the service as a whole. As the people arrived they were
greeted by the gospel. Christ led them up the aisle of the church to the altar
where they were received from him by God in the eucharist. Then Christ leads
them down the aisle of the church and out into the world, in order to travel
through the world as envoys of Christ.

To see this action at its very simplest, just imagine that a large round loaf is
raised above our heads, and that we all move towards it and become Chapter
of it. This is the first movement that we see in the service. At the climax of the
eucharist the minister holds up the loaf as Christ lifts up his people. In his

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hands we are that loaf, the body of which he is the head. There our future with
him is made briefly visible. Then in a second movement, this people stream
out from that loaf into to world.

2. Sending out
At the end of the eucharist the priest turns to the congregation and says:
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord
The last stage of the service is the ‘dismissal’, which means simply
‘commission’. We are made the envoys and apostles of Jesus Christ. We are
given a mission and sent off to carry it out. We have to speak to all in the
person of Christ, exercise his mercy, judging for ourselves where gentle words
and where hard words are needed.

But we also have to say that the service does not come to an end. The
service is carried out into the world. Each Christian is the Christian worship
service, live, and in the person of each Christian, the worship service is
carried out into the world. Each Christian is the whole worshipping assembly
in miniature. In the week the members of the body take the service and
communion of God out through the world. So we pray: Send us out in the
power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory

At the end of the service the congregation gathers around at the back of
Church to talk through forms of ministry that this service now takes us to. It
takes us visiting, bringing communion to people in their homes, taking people
to visit other members of their family. It takes us to school, to the night shelter,
to hospital and prison visiting, fair trade campaigning and to the youth group
and summer camp. This is what we are talking about over the coffee and
biscuits. All of these are out-workings of the service. Each Particular form of
service teaches us something about the service of Christ, and in each case
we have to thank whoever we encounter for being Chapter of his service to
us.

Each of us is the Church, and speaks for the whole Church. We speak by
blessing, thanking and talking talk up whatever we possibly can. In the offices
in which we work we ask our colleagues to act with as much generosity and
imagination as they can, to judge well, for the widest good and for the long
term. We intercede and petition for those who have received no hearing. We
do not complain, but we lament when sections of this society remain
unheard, and we point out that when some are unheard our society as a
whole is impoverished.

3. Uninterrupted service
We have said that we are brought together to take part in the one celebration
that takes place uninterruptedly before the throne of God. When we come
together, we are brought into the unbroken time of God. This week’s service is
not ultimately separated from next week’s service by six weekdays, for
secular time does not divide what the Spirit holds together: Christ does not go
off-duty, but is forever our servant, always here for us. The six weekdays are
an out-working of the unbroken service of Christ and his body for the world.

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I have set the service out through this pattern of gathering, hearing, singing,
praying and eucharist. There is a logic to those stages which reflects the way
in which Christ comes to us and takes us to the Father. But the eucharist is
not always the explicit climax and end of the service. The service may build
up to a time of healing ministry, in which there is an extended confession,
people are prayed for and there is a process of identifying our wounds so that
the healing process can begin. Or the service will end on the sermon which
either teaches the Church, or if people have been invited to hear the gospel
for the first time, which may call people to repent and be converted to Christ.
All these praying, healing, teaching and preaching ministries are aspects of
the eucharist, that is, of the one indivisible ministry of Christ to us. In all these
different forms of service, Christ serves us and ministers to us.

4. The people of the resurrection

In Christ God comes to man. God has anointed Christ with man and crowned
man with Christ. This is what has happened in the resurrection. Man is with
God, and God is with man.

Christ is always accompanied by the Holy Spirit who keeps him just the
beyond the threshold of our vision, so that Christ is not available to us as the
single individual of Jesus until we are finally made holy and ready to receive
him. Jesus of Nazareth is ascended, and now, just as the whole glory of God
was poured into the single body of Jesus, that same glory of Jesus is being
very slowly poured into us, the people gathered together as this Church. Just
as the head has been raised, so the whole people will be raised, and this
community is already the anticipation and the pledge of the resurrection. So,
as we say: ‘We look for his coming in great glory’.

When Christ comes, all mankind will arrive with him. Now Jesus sends us
these people. They are his first gift to us. We have to receive from him and
take them as those he has chosen to give to us. These people are Christ’s.
They are not separate from him, and Christ does not allow us to grasp them
without him. There is no way to him except through life lived with these
people. We must be humbled by receiving Christ with every single one of
these people whom he sends ahead of him. They have all have something to
give us which they received from Christ. So we sing:
Unnumbered they
whose candles shine
to lead our footsteps after thine (Common Praise 217).

We receive one another from Christ. Christ waits for us to consent to receive
all those he gives us. The Holy Spirit humbles himself before each one of us
and waits for us to drop our resistance. His patience will outlast us. Christ’s
resurrection comes to us in this hidden way, one person at a time. As we are
ready, our refusal of one another is stripped off us. When we cease
experiencing all these other persons as a burden, but are happy to receive
and delight in all others, we will share the freedom in service of Christ.

5. Worship and delight

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In these talks I have been pointing out what the whole Christian Church says
in its worship. It is the Christians who offer this very high view of man in
communion with God and with all men. They do so publicly every time they
meet. We not only say these things, we sing them. The agreement of our
individual testimonies is evidence of the truth of what we saying. In the
Christian worship service we are watching the Lord at work. He is working,
and we have been appointed his witnesses. We are able to wonder at man,
the creature of God, and wonder how we are going to receive him.

We are being called into a great company. The whole world is invited to
participate in this great assembly and both to watch and take delight the world
but also to take Chapter in his work. Before us the Lord reconciles the
apparently irreconcilable, and brings all things into communion so that they
become willing, ready for each other. Our particular congregation is Chapter
of the communion of God. It is that Chapter of the communion of God that is
visible to the world, and which is therefore witness to God for the world. We
sing:
Ye saints, who toil below,
Adore your heavenly King.
And onward as ye go
Some joyful anthem sing;
Take what he gives
And praise him still,
Through good or ill,
Who ever lives! (Baxter)

Jesus Christ is calling, gathering, ushering all humanity along towards the
Father. He overcomes all rival masters to bring the whole human body
together. In Christ, each of us joined to every other. So we are brought
together in one place, and so made present to one another. The Church is the
companionship of God making itself felt here visibly, audibly and tangibly. This
is a huge claim. It does not make us comfortable to make it, but we cannot
not make it. If this community does not make it, our society is left exposed to
many other destructive claims. The holiness and distinctiveness of the Church
from the world is the great gift that God gives the world. We are being built
together into a holy fellowship with a holy people. This is the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit. That is why we say to one another :
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit be with you.

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