Toward the back of the Prayer Book, in a section marked “Historical Documents,” you will find a vestige of the Reformation: The Articles of Religion, which should, at no point in your life trouble you very much at all, unless some day you happen to find that they come in handy when you are preparing a sermon. Among the thirty-nine Articles of Religion, there is Article XXVIII - Of the Lord’s Supper. And the last line of that somewhat schoolmarm-ish pronouncement says this: “The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.” To clarify: that statement was not written by anyone at Saint Mark’s.
As an assertion of fact, Article XXVIII is undeniably correct. Although the details of the institution of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, will be found in four different locations in the New Testament, nowhere in scripture does our Lord provide for the reservation, exposition, procession, or adoration of his real and sacred Presence - his Body and Blood, hidden beneath forms of Bread and the Wine - in the Blessed Sacrament: all of which are practices we keep in this parish.
A lawyer might point out that Article XXVIII does not prohibit the reservation, carrying about, lifting up, or even worshiping of the sacramental stuff of Christ. The decree (if you want to call it that) which has no force in the church, anyway, simply says that Christ didn’t instruct us to do any of that. True enough. Here at Saint Mark’s, we are bold to do so anyway. What can I say?
The somewhat Puritan spirit behind Article XXVIII finds the possibility of the entirely objective Real Presence of Jesus in the forms of Bread and Wine - affronting, and too open to the possibility of mischief. To some minds, that contrary spirit has seen the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament as something akin to locking Jesus up in a golden cupboard. As if we could keep the Lord of the Universe contained under lock and key.
The young French Carmelite nun of the nineteenth century, Therese of Lisieux, now a saint of the church, was unimpeded by Article XXVIII, and spent many hours in prayerful contemplation before a Tabernacle, wherein the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. There she encountered Jesus in rich and imaginative imagery. Surprisingly, she, too, provides an image of Jesus as a prisoner. Listen to what she wrote: “The Divine Prisoner of the tabernacle awaits the visit and the gratitude of his creatures who abandon him! He knocks at the door of our heart to make of it a tabernacle where he can rest.”
The Divine Prisoner of the Tabernacle. This beautifully inverted vision sees Jesus as a prisoner, not because we can effectively keep the sacramental forms of his Presence locked up, but because, in every place and every way that Jesus can be found, we can (and do) very effectively keep him locked out of our hearts, with practically no effort whatsoever. The Divine Prisoner of the Tabernacle is a prisoner there, not because there is a lock on the door of the Tabernacle, but because there are bars on the doors of our hearts. And so very, very often we keep Jesus locked out of our lives, our love, our hearts; consigning him to stay, instead, in his place, safe from anywhere he might perturb our lives.
On March 15, 2020, the great key to the Fiske Doors, that swing on their glorious hinges, was turned in the lock to keep those doors shut, as they mostly have been locked for more than a year now, (even when we have been able to have limited congregations inside the church).
On that same day, the small key, on its red tassel, that fits in the lock of the golden door of the Tabernacle at the High Altar was also employed, to open that little door and bring forth the Blessed Sacrament of Christ’s living Presence, so that we could place the sacred Host, in its monstrance, here on the Altar. There, we asked Jesus to stand as guardian, sentinel, friend, and savior: a constant and obvious reminder of his Presence with us; and as a sign of our prayers of our own deep need, and desire, and helplessness. We did not trouble ourselves about Article XXVIII. We begged the Divine Prisoner of the Tabernacle to move as freely among us as he pleased, and to do as much healing work as he possibly could.
Something else happened that day, too. When we opened the Tabernacle door to bring out the Blessed Sacrament, this whole, entire building became a Tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament, behind the locked, red Fiske Doors, wherein Christ the Divine Prisoner, awaited the visit and the gratitude of his creatures. Every day, whether we knew it or not, as we (and the rest of the world) walked past those locked doors, Christ was knocking at the doors of our hearts, hoping to find in any who would have him, among all those who passed by, a tabernacle wherein he could rest. This brownstone church became a kind of nesting Tabernacle: a big tabernacle with a red door, enclosing another, smaller tabernacle inside of it with a golden door.
But it turns out that there was more. Late in June, we were able to open the west doors of the church to allow for limited congregations. And once the people of God were able to take their place in here (albeit with unwelcome constraints as to how many could be here at once), we determined that it was alright to return the Blessed Sacrament, that had been perpetually exposed during those months of uncertain and anguished prayer, to its normal place of reservation, (so irksome to Article XXVIII). For on that Sunday in June, when a way for the people of God to return to their rightful place within the church, the living Body of Christ could again be constituted here, as we learned to worship God - masked, sanitized, and keeping our distance, but still joined together, and nestled within his tabernacle.
Still, for the past year, the constraints of the pandemic have put the church in the unusual position of telling people that when it comes to Communion you might have to be spiritual but not religious. The reformers who so worried about reserving, carrying about, lifting up, or worshiping the Lord in his sacramental Presence were worried about religion that might not be good for one’s spirit - and God knows, there is plenty of bad religion out there.
Maundy Thursday provides an unusually heavy dose of religion, and it is very good religion indeed, if you ask me. It reminds us who the Divine Prisoner of the Tabernacle is (Jesus), and why he came to be with us (to teach us to love one another, and to save us from sin and death), and where he can reliably be found (wherever the church takes bread, and blesses it, and breaks it, and shares it in his Name, by the power of the Holy Spirit).
And on this night of all nights, when we remember that even his friends forsook him and fled, we are bold to carry that Bread about, and to lift it up, to reserve on its own altar of repose, and to worship there the One who is really present beneath the ordinary form of so simple a thing as Bread.
And so, he goes to the garden. There, the Divine Prisoner of the tabernacle awaits the visit and the gratitude of his creatures who abandon him. He knocks at the door of our hearts to make of them tabernacles where he can rest.
And if we will have him, as a church we become a tabernacle of nested tabernacles, enclosed behind those great red doors, with that Divine Prisoner who, alone, can make us free!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
Maundy Thursday, 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
