Taking it Home: The Trinity is sometimes described as a dance or in Greek "perichoresis." The Trinity is essentially God's invitation to us to enter into the very life of God by entering into the life of Jesus. Jesus is the visible face of God who shows us how to live the life that God intends; to become self-gift. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we are then literally transformed to become the body of Christ that we are intended to be. And as the Body of Christ, we too are called "to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God." In this way Jesus reveals that the very nature of God is to give and our way to God is the way of self-giving.
   Unfortunately, for us this invitation to enter into this dance does not come easily. We are often afraid to enter the dance because the steps are just too hard. This idea of self-giving is not something that is part of our nature. We are more likely to be self-interested more than other-interested. So what are we to do?
   Today we celebrate the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ; essentially what we acknowledge and celebrate is the Eucharist, the mass. Now there is some confusion because some say that the mass is a meal while others argue that it is a sacrifice. But I would venture to say that the mass is indeed a meal, in which we acknowledge and celebrate the self-gift of Christ, which is the way Jesus showed us the nature of God. Jesus by his life, death and resurrection showed God's nature as one of continual self-gift. This was God's gift to us of the Son and the Son's gift of love to God as the Son's response. Eucharist is the very best expression of this gift-giving relationship between Father, Son and Spirit. For it is at the Eucharistic table where we commemorate and make real this totally self-communicating relationship. We are caught up in the love of Father and Son and then transformed by that love through the Spirit so that we too might offer ourselves in love for others as the Son offered his life in love to the Father. This is the dance and when we come to the Eucharist, not just once, but often, here is where we learn the steps necessary to do the dance in our lives. It is where we learn to be schooled in the graced pattern of Christian living. This is why our participation at Eucharist is so important. We need to learn to do the dance. Look at the bread and wine, as symbols to us for how we are to approach this graced pattern of Christian living.
   Bread is a symbol for life and coming together; it is a necessary ingredient for nourishment and health. "Give us this day our daily bread." But in order to have bread something else needs to happen. Kernals of wheat need to be crushed in their individuality and ground and moistened by water in order to form a loaf. But still that loaf will not become bread if not baked in a fierce fire. Bread then speaks of both joy and pain.
    Wine is a festive drink. It is a symbol of celebration. We use wine to celebrate life in its fullness; but just like bread has its opposite side, so too does wine. The grapes used to make the wine must be crushed and fermented to produce the juice that, like the blood of Christ, becomes the very substance of what must be given in order that life might come forth.
    On the one hand, the bread and wine represent all that is healthy, strong and good. Yet on the other hand, bread and wine also represent all that is being crushed, broken and torn apart by violence. What we see in the bread and wine is the tension of what we celebrate at the Euhcarist; we see life at once as good and joyful, but also as painful and sorrowful. What this means is that we need to enter this mystery of our faith, this sense that life itself is good and we must honor this goodness. But at the same time we need to be reminded that we cannot express this goodness without experiencing the pain of those who cry out for inclusion and love. We need to do this because this is where the cross of Christ forever starkly stands. The love that Jesus bore the Father was a love that was emptied for all, not just the lovely and beautiful, but also the broken, forgotten and excluded. Invited into the dance, are we able to live the tension of this Eucharistic food, and our lives as well, and bear our part in this loving self-giving life of Father, Son and Spirit?    

                                                                                                               Deacon John