13th October 2024

Readings; John 3: 1-15 and Matthew 16:13-20 

This morning I would like to explain a few things to you that might help you to understand who we are as a church, and why we do some things the way we do.

Why do we call ourselves ‘non-denominational’, for instance, why do some people go to church regularly, and why do we take communion the way we do? 

There are perhaps three main reasons that we call ourselves ‘non-denominational’. 

Firstly, and very simply, we’re a collection of people who have all sorts of different church backgrounds, but with one thing in common, we speak English.  Hence our name. 

Secondly, the fact that there are different denominations results from a number of divisions that have happened over the years, the reformation in the 16th century that divided Catholics and Protestants, being one of the most significant. Those denominations have different liturgies, different forms of dress, different traditions and so on; but, as a church, we want to focus on what we have in common, what unites us, not on what separates us.  

The biggest difference being that the protestants amongst us, particularly the evangelical ones like myself, believe in the sole authority of the Bible, rather than the traditions that have been adopted subsequently.  "All Scripture is God-breathed, Paul told Timothy, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly (or completely) equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

But as I say, we want to respect our differences and not allow them to push us apart. 

Thirdly, by calling ourselves non-denominational, we want to make the point that our doors are open to people of all church backgrounds, or none, and of all nationalities.  That’s what we say on the home page of our website. 

So WHY do we go to church regularly, be it weekly, fortnightly, monthly, or whatever? There are perhaps as many reasons as there are people in this chapel this morning.  But let me suggest to you one in particular. 

We go to celebrate. To celebrate the fact that in the immortal words of the apostle John, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”.  

The sad fact is that we are all born with a selfish, and I’m sorry to use the word, but “sinful” nature that by definition separates us from the creator of the universe and deprives us of the hope of eternal life in his presence, however you perceive eternity to be. 

All religions offer solutions to this dilemma, Hinduism, Buddhism, New Age, other monotheistic religions, whatever, usually involving paying for one’s sins through rites, good works, sacrifices or suffering, and thereby obtaining merits of some kind.

But the second sad fact is that no amount of good behaviour and good works are going to do that for us, not according to the Bible anyway.  

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John reports Jesus as having said. “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The focal point of the Bible is not Christmas and the nativity, it’s not Easter either, it’s Good Friday.  The day on which God took my sins, and yours, and put them on the shoulders of the only sinless person who ever lived, his only son, so that he could pay the ultimate price on our behalf, “the righteous for the unrighteous,” as Peter described it so succinctly.  

Salvation is not bought, or earned, it’s given, given freely, and that, my friends, is the best news that you will ever hear, and it’s what we celebrate here on Sundays.

Can you celebrate that at home? Of course. But why keep it to yourself?  Isn’t that rather selfish? Isn’t it a bit sad, like having a birthday party and not inviting anyone else?

Jesus said “I will build my church” for that very reason. So that we could celebrate and share with others the fact that God, by his grace, freely gives us the one thing we crave most, a future, and even better, a future in his kingdom, in his presence, in his loving arms. 

Church isn’t just a building, it’s the people who attend it, the “living stones”. “You also, said Peter, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And this leads me on to perhaps the most important thing that we do when we’re at church on Sundays, one of those “spiritual sacrifices”, and that’s what we call Communion, or Holy Communion, the focal point of our celebration together.

May I say, straight away, that I know this can be a sensitive subject, because different Christian denominations have different traditions, different ways of doing it.  Even within those denominations there are variations in individual churches. So, I want to treat it respectfully.

When you’ve done something one way for years and years, for all of your life even, it’s natural to think that that is the way it should be done – the ONLY way – and that doing it differently is wrong, or lacking in some way.  I understand that.  

Being a “non-denomination” church, however, we are not confined by such tradition, and indeed, as I’ve said, we have folk here from all sorts of denominational backgrounds, from the very liturgical to the not liturgical at all. What we do, and how, therefore tries to accommodate a very diverse religious pallet.

But, at the same time, we need to be aware that the lowest common denominator is not always the best approach, because it can be so watered down as to lose its meaning altogether.

So what is the meaning of Communion?   That’s the big question we have to ask ourselves? What is the reason? What is the Why? What is the point? 

Just before we get into that, let me say something to those of us who have a more Catholic or high-church background, and are used to traditions that say that Communion should only be taken by people who have been baptised, and should only be administered by an ordained priest, and the understanding that when that priest prays for the bread and wine they are literally transformed into Jesus’ flesh and blood.  That’s called transubstantiation, when one ‘substance’ becomes a different ‘substance’. 

However, nowhere does the Bible even infer either of those two things, and since the reformation, in Protestant denominations, communion is seen more as a memorial of Christ's death, and the bread and as just ‘symbols’.  

There are four Bible passages that recount the Last Supper, and I read one of them alternately before we take communion each week.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In all four places it is clear that what Jesus did was what any host would do in those days, which was, at the beginning of a meal, to break a loaf of bread into pieces and give one to each person sitting round the table. It was equivalent to what we do today when we ‘say grace’. Some people prefer to say ‘give thanks’, which incidentally is the term used in all four of those passages. 

Jesus simply used that simple custom to initiate something that would help us to remember him. “Do this in remembrance of me” he said. In other words, “Every time you sit down to eat a meal, every time you ‘say grace’, remember me.”

Nothing about priests, nothing about transubstantiation, and interestingly, nothing even about church services.

So, all that to say, that’s what we do.  I am not an ordained priest, I’m just a ‘lay leader’.  I’m like the host at the supper table who breaks the loaf and invites the guests to share it with him or her. 

The bread represents Christ’s body, broken on a Roman cross, for each of us.  It represents, though, not only his physical body hanging on that cross that day, but his body, the church, that I mentioned earlier.  So, as we eat it, we associate ourselves not just with him personally, but at the same time, with each other.

The wine – some churches use grape juice – simply represents his blood, that poured out of Jesus’ side when one of the soldiers pierced it with a spear to make sure that he was really dead. 

Why did they do that? Because crucifixion typically resulted in death in one of two ways, in both of which a clear fluid builds up of around the heart as the person dies. 

John’s gospel describes how, at the end of the afternoon, with Sabbath fast approaching because it officially starts at sundown, the Roman executioners needed to take the bodies down. But before they did so they had to make sure that the three men were really dead. When they saw that the other two crucifixion victims were still alive, they broke their legs so they would no longer be able to push themselves up to breathe, which resulted in death within minutes. Jesus, on the other hand, was clearly unconscious, and apparently already dead, certainly because he had been very severely beaten even before he got to the cross. So, to confirm their suspicions, instead of the leg trick, they drove a spear into Jesus’s side, under his ribs, to puncture his heart, resulting in a flow of both blood and that clear fluid that proved he was dead.  This is why, in some traditions, a little water is mixed with the wine by the minister. 

So, I hope that I have not upset or offended anybody by saying that, and I hope that in a few minutes, if you have accepted Jesus as your ‘Lord’ and ‘Saviour’, you will join us as we share the bread and wine together. 

So, back to my original question. Why do we celebrate communion every week?  Because however old and forgetful we get, there’s one thing we must always remember, that Jesus died to give us access, to give us a set of keys, to invite us to spend eternity with him.