Corpus Christi sermon 2012

Rowan William's used an example in his sermon on Tuesday to describe what dedication might have come to mean. Prince Charles grinned widely when the Archbishop referred to the Kinks song “Dedicated Follower of Fashion” and said that this was actually about enthusiasm and not dedication at all.

This is a little surprising, not because I think that it is about dedication either, but because I think it is about something much darker – obsession and self definition – and this is exactly the opposite of the sort of self-giving dedication which the sermon was about.

I wonder, although with some surprise, whether the Archbishop did not write off a little too easily what is one of the most destructive trends in modern society, and that is self, manifested for so many people in a neo-obssesive adherence to the latest and the best. Whether it is nail varinish which crackles, lip stick which changes colour, cars which go faster or gadgets which are lighter and slimmer we all live in a world created at the marketer's keyboard.

I am not exempt from this – in January I upgraded by mobile which is on contract to a nice shiny new model – it is June and already a newer version is out and trying to grab my attention. The one I have works stunningly well and has more gadgets and apps than I will ever use but still there is a pull towards getting the new thing, being better.

And this last part is the worrying thing, our consumerism is not just about getting, for if it were we could probably let go of it fairly easily, it is about being. We define ourselves and our lives by what we have, what we wear, what we look like. We allow ourselves a sense of ease with life when what should be peripherals to being line up neatly in the way we want. No wonder so many people are hurting so deeply with no sense of worth and being beyond the external.

When I heard the sermon from St. Paul's I thought what a good sermon that would be for Corpus Christi. The idea of presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice and directing all our energy to the Body of Christ, giving ourselves over to sacrament and sacramental living, finding our worth in the image of the creator and journeying on.

It is good to have this day in the year when we can focus on and give thanks for the institution of the Eucharist away from the emotion and busy-ness of Holy Week. Maunday Thursday is always a bit of a wrestling match liturgically between the penitence of Lent, this great gift in the Last Supper, the general ambience of Holy Week and the journey into the heart wrenching place which is the Triduum – the three great days.

But today we come perhaps with a clearer mind to think on this thing which God does for and with us and to make our Eucharist – our thanksgiving to God. This is our place of definition and worth – this is the place where we bring who we are and find who we are and are formed into who we are to be. This is the middle of it all and brings in the edges.

Dom Gregory Dix in The Shape of the Liturgy, says this much better than I can. You will probably know this quote but it is worth remembering,

“Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return to fetich because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna; for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike; for a son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so wounded and prisoner of war; while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk; while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonisation of S. Joan of Arc—one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God.”

And this is who we are and are becoming – the plebs sancta dei, the holy common people of God. Having and not having do not matter in this place. This gift of Christ is both remedy and care. There is no other moment, no other place where we are more fully ourselves or more fully loved, wanted and transformed. It is here we both offer and find out dedication, not an obsession which drives out all thought of the other, but a love which draws in and broadens. The body of Christ for the body of Christ – corpus christi ad corpum christi – the body of christ to the body of christ – that sense of both being and moving towards.

Holiness and being made holy is not something with which our modern minds are comfortable. Holiness has too often been made an excuse for a rather groaning sentimentalism or worse for a rather denigrating sophistry. I like the words of Austin Farrer, and he was talking about the Holy Spirit but I think this is true more universally, that listening to the Holy Spirit is not to put ourselves into the hands of a harsh taskmaster but rather to listen to the comforting words of an old friend.

I think there is much in this picture for us here tonight – we are not here to be redefined again as friends, as those who are moulded and shaped by sacramental life. As those who find life in the source of all life. The Last Supper was not a place of forbidden action but of friendship and laughter. And this is not a call for over familiarity, but if we are to shed our attachments to those comforts of fashion and society, if we are to truly dedicate ourselves to the corpus christi then we have to find, as in any good friendship, both comfort and challenge, rest and recovery. But here we also find a simple holiness. To quote Rowan Williams (from Resurrection, Interpreting the Easter Gospel),

“The Eucharist demonstrates that material reality can become charged with Jesus' life, and so proclaimed hope for the whole world of matter....The matter of the Eucharist, carrying the presence of the risen Jesus, can only be a sign of life, of triumph over the death of exclusion and isolation....”

The dedicated and obssesive following of the world, of trend and fashions will only lead to fear and exclusion and isolation as money and time and youth become more elusive to us. This matter, this bread and wine, by the grace of God this corpus Christi is real and hopeful – hope for the whole world of stuff, matter, material. It is a hope we cling to and rejoice in, a body which we are part of and become, and a triumph which we are called to proclaim to those around us.

Let us pray:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me; Body of Christ, save me; Blood of Christ, inebriate me; Water from the side of Christ, wash me; Passion of Christ, strengthen me;
O good Jesus, hear me; within Your wounds, hide me; let me never be separated from You; from the evil one, protect me; at the hour of my death, call me; and bid me come to You; that with Your saints, I may praise You forever and ever. Amen.