The Solemnity of Corpus Christi
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16
1 Corinthians 11:23-29
John 6:47-58
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Why do soldiers march? Marching soldiers seem as anachronistic as Napoleonic warfare. I can’t imagine our soldiers and marines in Iraq marching into combat in neat columns, perfect formation, stepping in time. That’s suicidal. Yet, our soldiers and marines will spend hundreds of hours marching and drilling to prepare for battle. Does this make sense?
Archbishop Rowan Williams has written about how human beings want not only to be at the center of the stage, but also to exclude other people from it.1 We like to have other people in subordinate and decorative roles to serve and to highlight our leading performance. We like to stand at center stage, to determine the roles of other people, to make ourselves the reference point of all reality. It is the sin of Adam, the sin of humanity.
Williams reminds us of the Old Testament patriarch Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, the dreamer, and calls Joseph “surely one of the most obnoxious characters in holy writ.” That’s probably putting it kindly. Joseph told his brothers about his dream: “Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, your sheaves gathered around my sheaf and bowed down to my sheaf.” (Gen 37:7) Joseph is obnoxious because he reminds us of ourselves at our worse – wishing that everyone would bow down to us and serve us.
The Hirshhorn Museum is not a place that I turn to for beauty and inspiration. But it’s a delight to be surprised, to have your prejudices beaten back. In the basement for the next couple of months, the Hirshhorn is showing a short film called ‘Guards.’ I consider the film to be Father’s Day gift from my son, who had seen the film and then dragged me there. I was not quite kicking and screaming.
‘Guards’ stars the Coldstream Guards – sixty-four of them. The film-maker had each of them carrying a serious rifle, at times fixed with a bayonet, and wearing the Regiment’s fancy dress – black boots and trousers, bright scarlet tunics, and their huge black bearskin hats. The film-maker dispersed the guards individually throughout the City of London and directed them to start walking around the City.
We see the individual soldiers stroll around by themselves. Individually, they look ludicrous – elaborately, beautifully garbed walking down an ordinary road. As we watch, we even feel a bit of pathos. Individually, the guards sauntering through the lanes and alleys of the City seem forlorn, lonely, absurd, without purpose, without excitement, without energy. They are not convincing or impressive. They seem out of place.
Here’s the twist. The City of London, the financial district, is a rather small area, only about a square mile. Before too long, the individual guards begin to meet one another. When two guards encounter one another, they straighten up, put their rifles on their shoulders, and begin marching in formation. All of a sudden they are transformed. You immediately see their elegance, purpose, dignity, splendor.
Coldstreams marching in small groups come upon other solitary Coldstreams, or other small groups, and they gracefully fall into formation, marching in unison. The groups get larger, more impressive and more powerful. Eventually all sixty-four guards assemble into eight columns of eight magnificently moving through the streets. All together they are awe-inspiring, tremendously exciting, attractive, purposeful. The 128 marching feet thunder through the streets. None of the guards stands out or draws attention to himself. Their point of reference is outside of themselves – something bigger.
I read a review about how the film is a commentary about 9/11 and our resulting paranoia, and that may be, but the film struck me as primarily a meditation about community, about what constitutes a healthy community. For me, the film confirms the wisdom of marching and drilling soldiers for hundreds of hours. It’s people turning away from their desire to be on center stage, accepting a higher point of reference, and coming together in harmony and unity and service. On our own, each of us is ludicrous, but in coming together, being part of something bigger than ourselves, serving a higher good, we create something beautiful and powerful.
Jesus gives us his body and blood so that we can live in unity and harmony. Christian worship has authenticating characteristics, and for S. Paul authentic Christian worship requires the unity and harmony of the Christian community. In today’s epistle, Paul writes about eating and drinking unworthily at the Lord’s Supper. Paul does not mean that we must be perfectly righteous before partaking of the Body and Blood. None of us ever is. The Blessed Sacrament is a gift, not something we earn. Eating and drinking unworthily means provoking division in the community, disregarding the needs of other people.
Paul insists that we must discern the Lord’s body. That doesn’t mean we have to perceive Christ’s presence in the bread and wine. Discerning the Lord’s body means recognizing the true identity of the Christian community as the body of Christ. How we treat the Christian community is how we treat Christ. Those who act selfishly, those who create division in the community, those are guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
Paul’s point is that when we mistreat other people, when we put ourselves first, when we create dissension, then we are offending the Lord. When we sin against another person, we are sinning against God. When we hurt another person, we are crucifying Christ. Love of God and love of neighbor can’t be separated. We define our relationship with Christ by how we treat his body, how we treat one another.
In the 1980s, when watching on television the World Series or the Super Bowl or some other major sporting event, very often a crazy looking guy would appear with a wild wig of hair colored brightly like a rainbow, and he’d hold up a placard saying ‘John 3:16.’ When I lose my mind – or maybe, rather, when I come to my senses, I’m going to carry around a placard that says ‘Matthew 25:40': “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
We honor and adore the Blessed Sacrament, we march with the Body of Christ, because it’s our point of reference in life, pointing us beyond ourselves, showing God’s love for us, making God present to us, giving us purpose, energy, strength. We honor and adore the Blessed Sacrament because it changes us, unifying us with one another, breaking down our self-centered isolation, turning us away from our center stage fantasies.
The guards beautifully project the power of the state, worldly power that imposes itself, worldly power that controls and forces and coerces. No doubt, this power may be, and has been, used to the good, but it is wholly different than the power of God. After communion this morning, our community shall come together to march around the block with the Blessed Sacrament, our walk with Jesus. We are beautifully witnessing to God’s power, the power of meaning, and truth, and mercy, and service, and humility. The power of God conquers despair with hope, pessimism with faith, self-centeredness with love, division with unity.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1. Rowan Williams, ‘My Neighbor’s Business,’ A Ray of Darkness, Cowley (1995), p. 164.
© 2006 Lane John Davenport
