Let¡¯s talk about what is Communion!

The year is 1529. Actually the year is 2007. I haven¡¯t gone completely around the bend. I just want to tell you about something important that happened in the year 1529. It was called the Marburg Colloquy (the same German city where the Marburg virus erupted in the late 1960s which was very much like Ebola. We¡¯re a treasure trove of disease information in this house.) The idea was to have the heaviest hitters in the Protestant Reformation come together and work out what the unified Protestant view of Communion should be. Melancthon was there, Johannes Agricola was there, Ulrich Zwingli was there, and Luther was there. They didn¡¯t work it out.

You have to understand that they were trying to form a church entirely independent of the Catholic Church. There was nothing but the Catholic Church before them. Zwingli in particular kind of wanted to throw out a lot of the old staples and start over fresh. Martin Luther, on the other hand, may have foreseen a day when pastors in Hawaiian shirts and sandals have no problem giving Welch¡¯s and crackers to any adulterer, social climber, or drunk who filled a pew of a Lord¡¯s day morning. Probably he was just concerned about keeping the Lord¡¯s Supper a holy sacrament and keeping the focus in the right direction. Zwingli argued that the Lord¡¯s Supper was meant to be a commemorative event, in remembrance of Jesus, and that nothing specifically mystical happened in the actual event, aside from the believer focusing on their deity. Luther, on the other hand, at one point pounded his fists on the table and shouted over and over, "This is my body! This is my body! This is my body!"

At this rather overly dramatic point in our narrative, let¡¯s play catch up on the subject of the Lord¡¯s Supper. The New Testament institutes two sacraments in the life of the believer. One is baptism. When one is lead by the Holy Spirit to the point of salvation, one publicly confesses their faith by being baptized. This is a recognizing of Christ¡¯s sacrifice on the cross, which atoned for the sins of the elect. It is symbolic of the believer¡¯s identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection unto new life. The second sacrament was instituted by Christ at the Last Supper. In Matthew 26 it is talking about the Passover meal that the disciples shared with Jesus the day before he was crucified. "Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, `Take, eat; this is my body.¡¯ And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, saying, `Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father¡¯s kingdom."

Sin is a word I have a lot of trouble with in mixed company. A lot of my friends don¡¯t like to think of people as being depraved by nature. It sounds so bad and so hopeless to them. I think it¡¯s a misunderstood concept. Or maybe it isn¡¯t and my friends just don¡¯t like the concept.

Sin is an archery term for missing the mark. It¡¯s misleading in that that can imply trying. The fact about human kind¡¯s sin nature is that they won¡¯t. It¡¯s like giving a bunch of monkeys bows and arrows. None of them are going to put an arrow in a bow, aim for the target, and hit. They are going to run around, hit each other with the bows, scratch themselves with the arrows and so on. Someone, some human, has to come along and do it for them.

I drive around with NPR playing in the truck while I¡¯m making deliveries. We have two NPR stations in town (because we are in Northern California) and I switch back and forth to my favorite programs. One station is liberal and one is super-progressive. So I go from the BBC to Democracy Now. Lately there have been things on:

- a woman in Florida gang raped and forced to fellate her son while no one heeded her screams for help

a professional athlete who could buy and sell everyone I know who trains the kind of dog I have to be killing machines. He also kills the dogs if they aren¡¯t mean enough by drowning, hanging, electrocution and so forth. Or he did rather. I doubt he¡¯s doing a lot of that anymore.
Turns out tap water is just fine for you and bottled water pollutes.
A marine who came home from Iraq where he killed two Iraqi soldiers. He killed himself.
Apparently the current administration has done about fifty million things that should get them fired. Karl Rove doesn¡¯t have to testify over the firing of several attorneys because the White House says so.
Like half of the Tour De France riders have been fired for doping. Barry Bonds marches on.
A woman microwaved her baby. She claimed she was drunk at the time. The baby died.
These things dance around my head all morning. I could, at this point, try

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