Corpus Christi

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi)

Genesis 14:18-20; Psalm 110; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 9:11b-17

“Dismiss the crowds so that they can go …and find lodging and provisions…” How often have you and I dismissed individuals or groups of people because…because their timing was inconvenient, because they were considered inconvenient – a nuisance, because we didn’t want to be bothered, because they are not one of us… because, because….any combination of the above? 

Black and brown people are dismissed and inconvenient in our nation. Their presence reminds us of a history of selling and purchasing human beings, of tearing apart families half a world away, of torture, slavery, indignity and lynchings. Dismiss the crowds so that they can go…

But go where and do what? Where are the lodging and provisions of justice to be found? From whom do they seek out justice when the descendants of those who deprived them of justice will not fully acknowledge the truth of our nation’s past?

Women are dismissed in sports, the Church, in business, in government. We make such a big deal every time a woman is in a position for the first time. “She is the first woman to hold this office”. Such statements have gotten to be not only boring but highlight the dismissal of women in our society and Church. Yet we have to say these things to make ourselves feel like we are progressing forward because we still keep dismissing woman from positions of authority, from equal pay, from human dignity through the use of pornography, through the unwillingness to fully support mothers [and fathers], and to help raise people [mostly women, mostly black women] up from poverty so…Dismiss the crowds so that they can go…

Go and do what? Seek out justice, dignity and respect from whom?

Immigrants are dismissed, especially those deemed “illegal” – not “one of us”. Did your ancestors arrive here legally or illegally? What constitutes “one of us” since we are all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants? Or do immigrants and refugees remind us of the poverty and ignorance all our families climbed out of and our fear of returning to that status? Dismiss the crowds so that they can go…

Go where? Where do you seek lodging and provisions if returning home or being repatriated by governments means death, human trafficking, drugs, violence, poverty, and hunger?

Gay and transgendered people are dismissed. Is it because they make us uncomfortable about our own sexuality? Do men in particular not like being looked at in the same demeaning way that they have looked at women for millennia, as an object? Dismiss the crowds so that they can go…

Where do you go to find the provision of acceptance?

If we want to understand why there is so much anger in our society, might we consider that one deep cause is that so many people are dismissed?

Jesus responds to even the suggestion of such a dismissal of people by his disciples with a curt answer: “You give them something yourselves” and then Jesus shows his disciples of all ages what to do.

Jesus first instructs that the people be made welcomed and comfortable. Then like Melchizedek, priest–king of Salem, Jesus gives thanks. The miracle is God’s. The miracle is that God can take the little we each have and multiply it. Welcome people, give God thanks and share what you have.  And with God there will always be more than enough. In other words, “You yourself, give people dignity, respect, equality, hospitality, security from fear, violence and death, companionship… Do it as individuals, do it as groups, do it through mutual institutions but, you yourself give them something”.

And what does all this have to do with the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ?

The senior members of our community will remember The Feast of Corpus Christ as a time of processions with the Blessed Sacrament, crimsoned grabbed clergy, gold monstrances wrapped in clouds of incense, with showers of flowers. Beauty and joy marked our belief in the presence of Christ, his very Body and Blood, under the most simplest of signs, a piece of bread.

In most places the processions have ceased and so has much of the joy in the Holy Eucharist that we share with Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and many Anglican and Lutheran Christians. So what is left? Where is the joy to be recaptured, reignited?

In Jesus instructing us, “You give them something yourselves”. He binds his feeding of us in the Holy Eucharist with his true Body and Blood, to the giving of ourselves, Blood and Body, for others. The people we dismiss are the people we are to feed. Why? Because the first dwelling place of the living Christ has never been church buildings, tabernacles or even the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist itself but the human being. The human being is the first and primary dwelling place of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

One could argue, I do make the argument, that the presence of Christ in the Eucharistic bread and wine and the presence of Christ in the human being, whether dismissed or accepted, is the same. If we conceive of some difference between these two presences of Jesus Christ, we do an injustice to Christ and our sisters and brothers.

Therefore, might our Eucharistic processions now consist of walking with people in their pain of bigotry, non–acceptance and even hate? Might this presence of Christ be surrounded not by incense but by our embrace and advocacy? Rather than clergy garbed in imperial Roman purple, might we garb people with dignity and respect?

We began our prayer by singing: Lord Jesus, you are here with us. This we do in memory of you. What is the “this we do…” mean to you?