For some of us, that day of our incorporation into Christ's body, the church, is a vivid memory. For others it is a tale told by others, or marked by a faded card tucked in the family bible.
But we need not consciously profess an interest in participating in order to become Christians through our Baptism.

We are incorporated into the life, work and body of Christ
by water and the spirit.

We remember our relationship with God, and what Christ has done for us,
through our weekly participation in communion.

Eucharist (a Greek word meaning "giving thanks") or Holy Communion is the central act of worship in The Episcopal Church. It is the sacrament commanded by Jesus Christ, in which we recall His death and sacrifice. Eucharist is a primary means by which we nurture and sustain our relationship with Him and with one another.

The bible recounts the long history of God's attempts to establish a covenantal relationship with humankind - a relationship that is reciprocal, faithful and enduring. God is faithful, focused and full of loving-kindness.

We human beings have been less than stellar in either our long-term response or our daily behavior. We are clearly prone to forget both boundaries and promises.

Our sacred stories point back at our tracks through the landscape of life and the history of faith. We can see our ancestors and ourselves drawing near to God one moment and wandering away the next.

We began in a lush world given as a gift in which we knew God as a daily companion. In the heat of the moment we chose to disrupt the well-tended intimacy of that relationship. And in the cool of the evening, we hid, hoping to evade God
and the consequences of our own actions. We still imagine we are hiding from God when the work of our hands betrays us. Eden and Enron are provinces of the human heart, not places on a map.

We have lived in a harsher, less connected reality
rather than a garden because we have willed it.

But God called leaders and charged them to lead people on journeys back into the heart of God's love. Abraham, took his family into a mystery. Moses led a nation into the desert. God sent prophets resonant to His spirit to remind us of the promise and the possibility inherent in the Covenant. Finally when rainbows in the sky and words from the righteous and wise seemed not enough, God came to be with us - face to face - to give us what we could not obtain by our own effort or our own will: Righteousness and Salvation; And a peace that passes all understanding.

This passage from Eucharistic Prayer D recounts the breadth of God's endeavor and the fullness of God's grace:

We acclaim you, holy Lord, glorious in power. Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love. You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our care, so that, in obedience to you, our Creator, we might rule and serve all your creatures.

When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death. In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find you. Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation. Father, you loved the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior.

Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin. To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation; to prisoners, freedom; to the sorrowful, joy. To fulfill your purpose he gave himself up to death; and, rising from the grave, destroyed death, and made the whole creation new.

And, that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, he sent the Holy Spirit, his own first gift for those who believe, to complete his work in the world, and to bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.

Life comes from connection and communion. We gather in communities that we might not be isolated and self-absorbed. Our identities become diminished and distorted if they are primarily self-referential. We need the reflection of others in order to know who we are. We need God in order to discover who we are called to be. This is the basic calling for each one of us: to discover whom God would have us become. As such we are part of creation, a jewel in a crown not of our own making , one glorious growing thing among many in a master gardener's well-tended plot.

As more and more gather into the body of Christ and a right relationship
with God, the sanctification of all, bespoken in the Eucharistic prayer,
moves like the light of dawn stretching across the landscape to display a whole world as God would have it be. Bathed in light and sustained by love.

All along the long and weaving human journey we have been attended and fed.

God spoke and Moses raised his staff - parting a sea of water to expose the path to freedom - cleaving a dusty rock in the depths of the desert to provide the water of life. Manna in the wilderness fell like warm snow, and quail fell out of the sky into the hands of the hungry.

We have been fed in the midst of our fear and confusion. Bread and wine were set on the table the night before an execution. The One would who would die and rise again took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples saying: take eat, this is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.

And ever since, we have.

This four-fold action of taking, giving thanks, breaking and distributing is the shape of the heart of the Eucharist. Whether we look at the liturgy of the Word or the Liturgy of the Table you can feel these actions resonate in the Eucharist.

The lector strides to the pulpit, offering herself - her voice and her inflection.
"The word of the Lord," she intones. "Thanks be to God," we reply.
And then the sermon begins. The preacher breaks open the word
and distributes it. And God whispers things the preacher never said into the hearts that need to be fed with more than a preacher can offer.

Take, give thanks, break and distribute.

Ushers carry the silver and crystal over bricks and up to the hands above cool linen, warm flesh takes the bread and the wine, and lifts them up with prayer and thanksgiving as outward signs of the presence of Christ.

The audible breaking of wafers heralds the claim: "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefor let us keep the feast." And it is indeed distributed, by bishops, priests and deacons, by chalicists and Lay Eucharistic ministers who spread abroad and take the community and communion beyond our well-tended liturgies.

And what of our daily lives? Is there a four-fold rhythm to be found -
a heartbeat true to the call of God?

What do we offer to be taken- our body and blood,
Or our inconsistency and an occasional dollar in the plate?
Is the work of our hands and the efforts of our hearts and minds a daily offering,
or an offense to God?
Over what is thanks to be given? Do we honor the salvation with which we have been gifted, or do we squander our hours and our effort like two-time prodigal sons wasting an additional and undeserved inheritance.

What breaks so that it might be distributed? Do we let our life be broken open like a seed husk so that the green blade of God's possibilities might rise, do we loose our grip on the things we imagine we possess so that God can redistribute them as each has need?

Or perhaps it is our imagined limits that need to be broken and scattered. "I am only a boy," the prophet Samuel protested. "Lord, there are five thousand people here, six months wages wouldn't be enough to feed all of them," the disciples exclaimed. "You give them something to eat," Jesus commanded.

And the bread was taken, blessed, broken and distributed and when all were fed, there were 12 baskets left over.

And what of us? We have a day and a half, nine people gathered. None of us possesses the power of kings or the wisdom of Solomon. It is a small offering. It is more than enough. It remains only for us to offer it up to God so that it may be broken open and become that which God wills for us.

AMEN.