If last week was a way of saying, who then is God, I think today can be read as a way of reflecting, by means of probably our richest symbol, on who then does this make us. But it starts in a strange place.
The readings today firstly recall two ancient phenomena, namely blood covenants and communion sacrifices, which are then applied to the death of Christ by the author of Hebrews and by Jesus himself, and to our Christian Eucharist. These are ancient rites, with anthropological significance, deeply embedded in human culture and human psychology, but we can still get the point.
Blood covenants are covenants or solemn agreements sealed by the sprinkling of blood on both parties, or else cast on the altar representing God and sprinkled on the people. This is not just a way of solemnizing an agreement but clues into what gets associated with blood – rather like ‘blood brothers’ and ‘blood sisters’ from my childhood, probably borrowed from cowboy movies, possibly relating to some cultural symbolic practices from north American Indians. Thus something like: joined by the same blood, same life, same skin, same tribe, same family, same mob, same people.
Communion sacrifices have a similar effect but relying on the symbol of table fellowship rather than blood, the fact that we don’t eat with just anyone, some of the sacrifice burnt on the altar, the rest consumed by the people, communion with the god and with each other, all sharing the same food, part of the same group, same family same friends.
Our Eucharist picks up on both of these at once, communion in the body and blood of Christ, the blood of Christ as the blood of the covenant. It is the blood of a new covenant, a covenant in the blood of Christ, making us blood brothers and blood sisters of Christ and of each other, in a meal sharing communion with Christ and with each other. This is a new covenant, however, meaning a new kind of covenant, not just the old one mark II, not just another solemn agreement, but even more of an act of love on God’s part, a covenant bringing with it the healing to the depths called forgiveness of sins, and bringing with it the gift of the Holy Spirit, what Christ himself has, the wherewithal actually to be the covenant people, the blood brothers and sisters with Christ and of each other, to truly be the sons and daughters and by this individual and communal witness of ours to be Christ in the world, members of his body, his continuing missionary healing saving presence in our troubled world.
This however is just the beginning of this our richest Christian symbol.
Our Eucharist inserts us into a rich, full bodied history. It begins with the Exodus, the blood covenant
and communion sacrifice which
But we also look forward, like Jesus himself at the last supper, to drinking new wine with Jesus and all our friends, all our brothers and sisters present and departed in the kingdom of God, projecting ourselves to that Messianic Banquet of good food and fine wine for all people on God’s holy mountain promised by the prophets, where lion and lamb lie down together, for which we long and for which we work in the here and now, hoping thereby to be made worthy of being part of it when it comes. Though it seems we are as far away from it in the 21st century as we were in the 1st.
Meanwhile, we live and work here in the present, sustained by the Bread of Life and the New Wine, our Spiritual Drink, meaning both the drink that brings the Spirit and which sustains our spirit, making Christ the bread and wine of our lives, so that we may ourselves be Christ, members of his Body, his continuing
missionary, healing and forgiving presence, participating in the Body of Christ for the sake of ourselves being that Body in the world.
So Christ continues to be a Real Presence in our lives. In this context we might even try for something of a retrieval of another kind of Real Presence, namely that associated with monstrances and benediction and Corpus Christi processions and such-like. Now that we no longer do these things as a way of affirming ourselves over against people we now regard as brethren. And I think here there is no need to invoke magic in order to revive the symbol: the reality is powerful enough. It’s the reality of love-gifts such as engagement rings and wedding rings not just bits of gold, and more than the reality of paper money though that also is genuinely real as we find when we go to the shop. God loved us so much that Christ the Beloved Son became for us as disposable as bread and wine, given up for us, and given to us for our sustenance, in a sign which accomplishes what it signifies, communion with Christ and with each other, a new covenant in the blood of Christ, God’s so much love, Christ’s so much love. And even the left-overs become a sacrament for us, a sign which accomplishes what it signifies, Christ becoming more and more a real presence in our lives even as we pray and adore, and as we pray and adore filling us more and more with his Spirit and shaping us more and more so as to be his continuing real presence in the world.