Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ
May 24-25 2008
"Gods Work of Art"

This morning is show and tell. Archbishop Kelly was here last night celebrating Confirmation, and so, I don't know, I didn't feel like preparing a homily. So instead I thought I would have show and tell. I was going through the rooms in my house, and it struck me, I have quite the Lockhart collection. I have these three drawings, and they are all Bob's drawings. Now Bob says to me, "I'm really not an artist." But he's really good. And I just love his work, and I have these things. The thing I like the most about these, they are all depictions of God in various ways. The Trinity, which we celebrated last weekend. This one, I don’t know the title; I'm going to call it "Wisdom" or "Spirit." Something like that. And then this was at Grandma Steele's house and when she moved over to Oxmoor Lodge, she gave me this one. That's how I got this one (drawing of Jesus).

The Trinity I got after I was ordained. My uncle and my aunt, who are parishioners here, got me this one. My Mom had it framed so it's a little bit of everybody in the family in that one. And then when I actually got here as pastor of Epiphany, I got this one. I found it in the house, and I went and framed it. This one is Jesus. It completes the collection, for me anyway, until Bob does a new one.

But here's the thing that fascinates me about these drawings. The thing that fascinates me about these drawings is, honestly, we don't know what any of these people looked like. Not for real. Think about. We think we know what Jesus looked like, but the Bible doesn't come with pictures. Except the ones that some artists sometimes drew, right? And if you read through all of the scriptures, there's no descriptions of Jesus. Not really. We know what he does, we definitely know what he says. We know who he is. But scriptures don't seem all that concerned with what he looked like.

So what has happened throughout the ages is that every culture, every generation has guessed. And usually when you guess, you're going to guess that he looks like… me! I mean, if you’re going to guess, why not? But that's what artists are called to do for us. They are called to try in their imagination to capture truth. And that's what I like about these pictures.

The other thing I really like about these is that if you look at the eyes, they are always looking at you. Kind of eerie right? The eyes, no matter where you’re at, the eyes seem to follow you. I think that's what I like the most about the drawings. The eyes, they catch you.

This morning we're celebrating the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. I think it was last weekend, I forget who but it was a parishioner made a comment to me about the Last Supper. The comment was that they were sitting in chairs at a table. And I said, "Oh really! How do you know that?" "Well, the picture. I mean I've seen the picture of the Last Supper." The thing is actually if you look at the scriptures there's no description of the room or the table, just that they were "at table." Historically, what I was taught at seminary, historically they were probably lying down, because apparently at that time in history people thought you digested better if you were laying down when you ate. I can't imagine it. How would you drink? They didn't have straws. I don't know!

But that captured my imagination that someone would think, "Of course, we have the picture. That's what it was." But that just happened to be an artist's imagination of what happened. And in that imagination, to help the picture, everyone is on one side of the table, right? So if there was a table and there were chairs, they would at least sit around it. If you've ever been at a wedding reception and had to sit at the head table, you know how horrible that is. You have no one to talk to, right? So that caught my imagination.

And then I remembered something. My Grandma Nicolas, when she passed away, I was going through her condominium and I found a portrait of the Last Supper. But it's not a portrait like the one with everyone on one side of the table. I think it's a more accurate portrait. I don't know who did it, but I do know that St. Paul spoke to this particular depiction of the Last Supper. Again, I don't know who did it. I don't know what it's worth. But it's the only one. I know that. It's a one of a kind. So I thought I would show you that. (Fr. Jeff picks up something large and rectangle, which is covered.) It's old and it's heavy. (He slowly uncovers the frame.) This is a depiction of the Last Supper that I got from my Grandma Nicolas. And notice something when you look at this. Notice how the eyes follow you just like Bob's drawings. (Fr. Jeff holds up large mirror in antique frame.)

Don't they? The eyes when you're looking at it, the eyes are right on you. It's almost as if it's eerie, isn't it? No matter what angle you look at, the eyes are right there.

This is a depiction of the Last Supper. This is, because we believe as a church that what we do when we gather every Sunday and offer the Eucharist, we're not re-enacting anything. We're not simply remembering something from the past. But we are actually there. By the power of God, we are actually there. We are gathered with Christ as disciples receiving his Body and his Blood in bread and wine changed, blessed, changed, given. It's so easy given our great intellect to want to treat Eucharist like it is simply a thing we are remembering, like Washington's birthday or something. But it's a living, breathing presence.

A year ago on this solemnity I shared with you my ideas on the five levels of belief in Holy Eucharist. And I want to remind you today again of those five levels so that each of us can again, in our own private prayer, assess where am I. Where am I now a year later? A year later after celebrating the Eucharist, praising God, serving my neighbors, where am I now? Has my belief in Eucharist moved?

That first level of belief is non-belief actually. It's kind of silly what you all do. Bread becomes God? Wine becomes blood? Scandalous. It's also, by the way, the level we're born with. We're not born believing in Holy Eucharist. We've got to learn it. It's got to be taught. It's got to be passed down to us, witnessed, and then it has to seep into our understanding. It seems to be the way God works. God likes to get to us through us, you'll remember. So that first level is just, well, it's just ridiculous.

The second level of belief, that deeper level of belief, is that it's symbolic. It represents something. Just last night after mass, somebody that was a guest of one of the Confirmation people came up and introduced herself to me and was sharing with me her faith tradition and things and wanted to ask me questions. One of the questions she wanted to ask me was, "Do you all really believe that that…I can't see how you believe that that is actually the Body and Blood of Christ?" And she said speaking for her tradition, "We believe it’s symbolic." I said, "That is one level of belief, but just listen to the scripture we heard today in John chapter 6. Jesus says, 'Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood.'" And what happens? The very next thing in that gospel, which we don't hear today, but read your Bible you’ll see, the very next thing that happens is the crowds leave him. They go, "That's crazy!" We heard a little bit of it. They quarreled among themselves, but what happens is that they say, "Goodbye." You know, we were with you right up to that point, but if you’re going to tell us that we’ve got to eat your flesh and drink your blood, no thank you. Thank you, no. And notice what Jesus does, or actually doesn't do. He doesn't chase after them and say, "Wait! I was speaking symbolically! Metaphor! Metaphor! Come back!" No. He turns to the twelve and he says, "Are you going to leave me too?" And then Peter gives his famous reply, "Where else can we go? You have the words of eternal life." So as a people we believe that it's deeper than symbol.

And that moves to that third level of understanding – the level that we believe it is the Body and Blood. The bread becomes Christ's Body. The wine becomes Christ's Blood. Well, how can that happen? I answer that with another question – how can everything be created from nothing? How can God and humanity become one in incarnation? I think the answer is the same. By the power of God. Remember, that third level of belief that the bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ actually isn't the deepest level.

Our faith must then take it deeper yet – that once receiving that Body and Blood of Christ, we then go out into the world to be that Body and Blood of Christ. To bring that presence to the world through our love of neighbor. If our belief in the presence of Christ in the bread and wine changed stops there, our faith has yet to grow more. Because the whole reason, the purpose that Christ gives us his Body and Blood is so that we will then as the Body and Blood of Christ take it to the world in our service, in our washing of feet, in our forgiving one another, in our tolerating and understanding one another.

But my friends, that is not even yet the deepest level of belief, because the deepest level of belief is the realization why we are out there washing feet and forgiving and teaching and serving. While that's going on, realizing the love with which God loves us and gives us himself in Christ. That deep awareness of the love God has for us can't happen until we are in the midst of washing feet, having received the Body and Blood of Christ from this altar. That's when our faith reaches the deepest level of gratitude, real gratitude. As unworthy as I am, you love me to eternity. Gratitude, which brings us back again in full circle to our gathering, to again receive the Body and Blood of Christ. To again be sent out into the world to wash feet. To again experience the deep gratitude that God would use me as a tool to come back again and it gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And as we do this dance with our God, miraculously we are transformed more and more into Christ.

This is what we celebrate today. We celebrate God's love for us. So we can taste the bread changed into his Body and wine changed into his Blood. That we can feel in holding hands and hugs and sharing joys and sadnesses. That we can then live when we take that presence into the world, into our families and into our hearts.

We are God’s greatest piece of art!