Epiphany 1c 2025; 12 January
Ps.29; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Jack Hardaway
HANDLE WITH CARE
Do you ever think that sacraments are dangerous? That they aren’t safe?
If I think about it too much they kind of start to scare me.
Maybe we should string up yellow caution tape, or place a “handle with care” sign on them..
So the Episcopal Church is part of the high sacramental tradition of Christianity.
That means that the sacraments, specifically Baptism and Eucharist, are more than symbols and metaphors, and ritual, more than personal significance.
God is physically present, Jesus is physically present, in a way that we call “real presence”.
It changes how we worship and how we live.
Faith becomes less inward and abstract and more physical, more ethical, more practical.
People and the world become much more important, in a fear and trembling kind of way.
Our lives become awe filled and fearfully reverent.
The holy encroaches everywhere and we move carefully, like through a mine field of unintended and unexpected salvation, falling on our faces in worship and humility over and over again.
The bread and wine of the Eucharist are only blessed once and are either consumed, or reserved for the sick in the ambry, the little box in the wall. Grace has the first ambry for the reserve sacrament in the Episcopal Church in the state of SC if the spoken tradition is accurate.
Or we pour and scatter the bread and wine in the memorial garden with the remains of our dead.
The same thing with the blessed water of baptism, reserved for blessing by the entrance of the nave or poured into the memorial garden.
The elements, the bread, wine and water are changed, they are more than they were, and they are treated differently, disposed of reverently.
When the ambry contains the blessed elements, the altar is reverenced, out of devotion to the body of Jesus present in this building. The presence candle burns to tell us when the elements are present. It is a warning light of a sort, and also light in the storm and the dark.
So there is this debate within the broader Christian faith about whether baptism should still be required before receiving communion, which is the ancient practice that we observe here at Grace.
The thinking is that the Eucharist is a table of hospitality and fellowship that welcomes all into God’s kingdom, whether they follow Jesus deliberately or not, all and any who desire God are welcome.
And that is true. The Lord’s Table is that. The sacrament is the sacrament no matter who receives it, or why we receive it.
So here is the thing about the real presence of Jesus in the sacraments.
To partake of Jesus in bread or wine or in the waters of new birth, is to be claimed by Jesus, to be owned by the Lord.
To tell a non-believer that they may receive communion purely as the table of fellowship, is like being spiritually shanghaied.
“I came over to dinner and when I woke up I was God’s slave. I’m not sure what happened. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.”
The high sacramental tradition of Jesus carries this very real consequence.
Handle with care.
The sacraments are much more than comfort and food and meaning, and strength. They claim us, they mark us, they brand us. Forever.
Today is the feast of the Baptism of our Lord.
When Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the one who sets the world free from the power of sin and death.
The one who steals us away from the house of bondage.
Marked and claimed as the beloved of the Father.
We renew our faith on this day.
We baptize new believers on this day as belonging to God.
We are exposed this day to the very real presence of Jesus in this place, in this world, and in our lives.
We are not our own anymore.
We have become part of the anointing presence that is claiming everything and everyone as the beloved of the Father.
That is what we have gotten ourselves into.
The real presence of Jesus.
Handle with care.