Note: during Easter season we are allowed to deviate at times from preaching on the scripture readings. The following addresses what gifts we bring to the altar.
Despite the fact
that shopping for Christmas gifts can be stressful, and that choosing the right
gift for a neighbor whom we may not know well enough causes a bit of anxiety,
we like giving gifts.
We know that
making or purchasing and wrapping a gift is a physical manifestation of a
spiritual reality: an appreciation of the person to whom it is given, a
celebration of this person and what she or he means to us, a symbol —the gift
and the giving—that not only expresses the love that we have for the person but
that actually deepens that love, widens it, strengthens it, inspires it,
invigorates it.
I give you a gift
because I have come to know that you are a gift, a gift to me, a gift to the
world; that no one ever or anywhere else is you, that no one gives me what you
give me, means to me what you mean to me.
And thus, despite
the anxiety that making or purchasing gifts for each other causes, we
nonetheless enter into gift-giving with at least a modicum of enthusiasm, a bit
of excitement, an ounce of hope that the love that we share is indeed what is
ultimate.
And so it is in
the assembly of the church.
And so it is when
we—as individuals, yes, and more so, as a people— give our gifts to God.
But what do we
give to a god?
What do we give
to the Living God who made everything and has everything and needs nothing?
We offer the
simple things of bread and wine, "which earth has given and human hands
have made."
We used to call
the point in the Mass when the bread and the wine are brought forward "the
offertory."
But now we call
it the preparation, because that's in fact what happens then:
We prepare the
Lord's table and we prepare our gift of money for the poor and for the church,
and we prepare our gifts of bread and wine to give to God. The offering of
these gifts happens later, in the great eucharistic prayer.
So what is being
offered under the sign of bread and wine?
What is the gift
behind the gift?
We take our clue
from what the priest says to begin the great prayer of thanksgiving: "Lift
up your hearts."
That is what is
invested in our bread and in our wine—our hearts, that lovely ancient metaphor
for "all of me," for "all of us."
That, in fact, is
the gift that we bring.
That is what we
offer—our hearts, our very selves under the sign of bread and wine.
And that is what
God accepts.
That is what the
mighty Creator, the awesome Shekinah, the ultimate Mystery and holy Wisdom
accepts from us.
And that is what
the God of Jesus changes into Christ's body and blood to give back to us.
The offering in the
great Eucharistic prayer becomes an exchange.
We give to God
our hearts, under the sign of bread and wine.
In return God
gives back to us the body and blood of Christ, under the same sign.
And so we have
the old, lovely image in the Eucharistic prayer called "the Roman
canon": "We pray that your angel may take this sacrifice to your
altar in heaven. Then as we receive from this altar the sacred body and blood
of your son, let us be filled with every grace and blessing."
We must not be
stingy when we enter into this divine exchange of gifts. We must prepare to
give God the full gift: our whole heart, as individuals and as a church.
We must see in
this bread our successes and our struggles, and see in this wine our passion
and our pain.
These experiences
are given to God and changed and given back to us. And we are changed in the
giving and in the receiving, changed for the sake of the world, changed for the
sake of the reign of God that is now and not-yet, here and still-to-come.
We become a
living sacrifice of praise, bread for the world, wine for the weary.
So when you come
into church, stop by the gifts table.
Extend your hands
over that bread.
Place onto that
bread your accomplishments of this week, the job that you did well (the wall
that you painted, the meal that you prepared), the simple acts of kindness that
you performed, the work in which this parish engages (food delivered to the
needy, children taught to read).
Then this is
consecrated with the bread, returned to you as your life made holy, to us as
our life made holy, so that this parish, this city, this world may be made
holy: the mystical body of Christ.
Extend your hands
over that wine.
Place in that carafe
your struggles: the addiction you resisted, the harm you healed.
Place in that
flagon this parish's struggles: halting steps toward being a more inclusive
community, small attempts to be more faithful to the gospel.
Then this is
consecrated with the wine, returned to us a cup of salvation: this blood poured
out once and for all so that the blood of our children may never again stain
our streets, so that the blood of the convict need not be shed in revenge, so
that the blood of soldiers need never be wasted in far-away fields.
And when we are
invited to lift up our hearts, let us—each of us and all of us—do so
consciously, remembering what we have invested in these gifts, what it is in
fact that we are bringing to God.
And let us pray without
hesitation, with sincerity and with great devotion, "And so Father, we
bring you these gifts. We ask you to bless them and to make them holy."
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