Diocese of Grahamstown

The Renewal of Ordination Vows for the Clergy of the Diocese of Grahamstown, Maundy Thursday 5 April 2007 in the Cathedral

Luke 22:7-20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

Dear Friends in Christ, dear Companions in Christ, dear Fellow Bread Sharers in Christ, greetings

We meet today to renew our companionship with Christ and with one another in service to Christ in this Diocese. We meet on the eve of our Lord’s Passion to reflect on the gestures He made on this day and the mandate that He left with us to ponder and act on. Luke’s gospel describes (whether literally or metaphorically) that on the night before He was handed over, that is, before He gave His life in Love totally and completely for us, Jesus met with His companions to break bread together, to share in the same cup (together) and to strengthen their companionship and fellowship. We, as fellow companions in this journey, come today to renew our commitment to Christ and to faithfully take God into the world and the world to God as part of the Catholic or Universal Church. Thus breaking of the bread is key and central for us, it’s not something we rush through, get out of the way to do other things.

St Paul in 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26 drives the point home addressing the context not so different from ours, a context in Corinth that needed transformation. There were disparities evident in the gap between rich and poor, haves and have not; the demeaning attitude that some that had showed to the workers when they met for the Eucharist. These aristocrats created enmity, laxity and discord. Paul reminds them in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 of the centrality of the Eucharist. It is not just a meal to appease guilt nor entrench division, of workers verses owners, drunks and sober, poor-rich but a serious business of embodying who and what Christ was about, is, did and means to us through the Holy Spirit.

Paul stresses the Eucharist must be a meal that unifies all of you, that break all barriers. In Luke 22: 20 ff, we know that (forgetting what our Archbishop Emeritus had said about the gospel according to Judas) from our faithful and traditional biblical teaching that Judas was to betray Christ at this meal. We know that Peter, on whom the church is formed, had denied Christ. So in this meal, in this breaking the bread, Christ comes and calls them to return back into that companionship that He started, formed and maintained through meals and the breaking of bread together, to share it before he becomes the Passover Lamb Himself.

We also as His disciples come from all walks of life, different parish contexts, different life experiences, where we have denied Him, betrayed Him, have been marginalised, where we have marginalised; contexts where we have been stigmatised, where we have sown division and reaped discontentment, emphasised difference instead of unity and breaking of bread together. So Christ calls us together here, invites us together here to renew our companionship, to echo “that although we are many we are one body for we all share in the one bread and drink from the same cup of salvation.” As we share this meal, be mindful always that Christ who is God, is setting His people (us) free from the above ills, to be His friends again.

Draw near and receive ….. , Christ is giving us a share in that foretaste of the Heavenly banquet, and key to this banquet is that we share a meal with God at which Jesus is present and at which we, His guests must expect transformation to take place. Thus it is safe to say that Holy Communion is a meal of transformation, a melting pot wherein in God’s company invited by Christ through the Power of the Holy Spirit we are remoulded, remade in His likeness, to embody that which He embodied, to give even our last drop of blood and flesh for the love of the world.

He says “receive this body, my body”. Having been selfless in giving, He still gives His body and blood. The Eucharist, dear friends, is serious business. In it we learn as companions, that in Christ there is no great nor small (as John says). We are to wash each others’ feet, and to serve one another.

We are all invited as guests of Christ to be transformed, we are all invited out of God’s mercy and Grace, to be cleansed of our sins, to be nurtured and to be made ready to continue in the work of reconciling the world in Christ.

Thank you for sharing this privilege with us, thank you all for being here. Thank you for your hard work, especially breaking bread together at times under very difficult context, sometimes unwanted, rejected. Your faithfulness in breaking this bread together, in unifying the people of God, in showing them God’s abundant goodness is always noticed.

As we renew our vows today let us bring all the denials, betrayals, Peter, Judas, of our contexts, all the divisions, all the selfishness to Christ in prayers so that through this meal of transformation God may take these and mould them to make us refreshed Apostles of Christ, who are willing to consistently break the bread together and with the poor, the imprisoned, the HIV positive, the marginalised, the displaced in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.