Proclaiming the Gospel Through the Sacraments — Hans Boersma

Table as Word: Eucharist as Gospel Proclamation

I want to talk with you this morning about the relationship between preaching and Eucharist. And I don't mean by that that we'll first talk about preaching and then about the sacrament, which would, I suppose, be an entirely legitimate thing to do.

But it's not what we're going to be doing this morning. Instead of talking about Word and Table, we're going to more or less flip them around, except not Table and Word, but Table as Word. So I want to talk with you this morning about the topic of Table as Word.

Table, or altar, as a form of preaching, as a way of proclamation. In the very act of celebrating the Eucharist, in other words, and that's the main message of the talk this morning, in the very act of celebrating the Eucharist, we're proclaiming the Gospel.

Hence the title of the workshop, Proclaiming the Gospel Through the Sacrament. So how is it that the act of celebrating the Eucharist is itself a missionary act, an act of proclamation? One way of answering the question might be to say, well, when we celebrate the Eucharist, after the priest has said the words of institution, he says to the congregation, let us proclaim the mystery of faith.

Let us proclaim the mystery of faith. You know the wording, right? Let us proclaim the mystery of faith. And the reminder in those words is that there is something that you and I, in our pews, are going to proclaim.

And we respond as congregation with the words, we respond with the words, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. And that little part of the Eucharistic service is the memorial acclamation, as many of you know, the memorial acclamation.

And in some form or other, it goes back all the way to the 6th century. It's an ancient part of the liturgy. So while the priest preaches the Gospel and the sermon, the entire congregation, all of us together, preach the Gospel at the table when we proclaim those words.

The Eucharist Proclaims Christ’s Death

And that small part of the Eucharistic service, the memorial acclamation, goes back actually not just to the 6th century, but you could say it goes back to Christ's words in the upper room. St. Paul reports this in 1 Corinthians 11.

Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me, verse 24. And then the same with the cup. The cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, verse 25.

And right after that, we get the words, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until it comes. That's verse 26. So note that St. Paul maintains a close link between eating and drinking in the Eucharist, on the one hand, and proclaiming the Lord's death on the other.

So how is it that in the act of eating and drinking, we're actually proclaiming the Lord's death? How is the Eucharist a form of preaching? How is it an act of missionary proclamation? Well, to see how it is that you and I and the entire congregation are preaching when we are eating and drinking, I want to take you to a famous story of the early church.

Polycarp’s Martyrdom as Eucharistic Proclamation

It's a story of martyrdom. It's not an easy story in some ways. In that story, Roman soldiers are looking for a dangerous offender and finally find him after having tried all the tricks in the book. And a household slave betrays the victim.

They go up to an upstairs room, to an upper room. And in the upper room there, they find the person they've been looking for. And to their astonishment, the offender isn't the dangerous kind of person they figured it would be, but instead an old man.

Hardly the kind of person that would pose a danger to the empire. But orders were orders. And so these Roman soldiers, around the year 155, arrest Bishop Polycarp in the upper room. And they drag him to the stadium in today's, in Smyrna, a town on today's west coast of Turkey.

And there he is, face to face with the prospect of either lions or burning steak. Polycarp doesn't cringe though. He's intent on proclaiming the gospel. And in the martyrdom of Polycarp, we read the following.

When he came near, the proconsul asked him whether he was Polycarp. On his confessing that he was, the proconsul sought to persuade him to deny Christ, saying, have respect for your old age. And other similar things, according to the custom.

Such as, swear by the fortune of Caesar. Repent and say, away with the atheists. The atheists were the Christians, right? Because they don't serve, they don't serve the pagan gods. Well then comes that block quote that you have in your outline.

At least those of you who have an outline. Let me just pause it for a second. It was not an outline. Just a couple here up front. Shouldn't be too sorry for these friends here. But at least it gives them an outline all the same.

That's about five here. So we come to that block quote. Please keep your head up. But Polycarp, we read there, gazing with a stern countenance. Oh, I see, I forgot to take this. I'm very, very sorry. I'll start now.

But Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance, on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium, and waving his hand towards them, while with groans he looked up to heaven, said, away with the atheists.

Then the proconsul urging him and saying, swear and I will set you free. Reproach Christ, Polycarp declared. Eighty-six years have I served him. He never did me any injury. How then can I blaspheme my king and his savior?

Now those famous words of Bishop Polycarp have echoed through the centuries. Shortly after that, the soldiers tie his hands behind his back and lead him to the stake, where he then offers his thanksgiving, his Eucharistia, to God.

A prayer of thanksgiving to God. Ending with these words, I praise thee for all things. I bless thee. I glorify thee. Along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, with whom to thee and the Holy Ghost be glory both now and to all coming ages.

Amen. Those were the last words of Bishop Polycarp as he sacrificed his entire self in thanksgiving, in Eucharistia, to his God and Savior. Those words of Polycarp, those last words, are a liturgical prayer.

The spoken in preparation, before he offers up his Eucharistic sacrifice. His Martyrdom is the Eucharistic sacrifice. So note what it is that he's doing. He is following Jesus in Martyrdom. He sacrifices everything he has, brings it all to the altar, his entire being, by way of sacrifice to his God.

And his prayer of thanksgiving, his Eucharistic prayer, makes clear what is happening. He is sacrificing himself, and in sacrificing himself, he is proclaiming Jesus. Jesus' very own sacrifice. So when we celebrate the Eucharist, what we do is we offer a sacrifice of praise.

We pattern our lives, if need be, hopefully to the point of death, we pattern our lives on that of Christ. We're bringing everything to the altar. Our capacities, our work, our earnings, our relationships, everything.

Eucharist is about sacrificing everything we have and are to God in Christ. Now, in case that looks as though we're proclaiming ourselves, perhaps, bringing everything we have and are to the altar, let me make a few comments on that.

Self-Sacrifice Without Proclaiming Ourselves

It is true we bring all of our gifts to the table. In the Eucharistic host, we give everything that we have and are to God. We're sacrificing ourselves indeed, offering ourselves up to God. All that is true.

And yet, in sacrificing ourselves, we're not proclaiming ourselves. Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. That is the memorial acclamation, right? But how is that true if we sacrifice ourselves in the Eucharist?

For that, I want to briefly turn with you to St. John's Gospel. Because there's several links that closely connect this story of the martyrdom of Polycarp to John's Gospel, and especially the 15th chapter.

There's several links there. First, we read in the martyrdom of Polycarp that the soldiers found him lying down and I already mentioned that to you, lying down in the upper room of a certain little house, it says.

Now, in John 15, as you know, it's the upper room discourse, chapters 13 through 17. Chapter 15 is the central chapter of that upper room discourse. And though we don't know where Polycarp got his name, but it certainly was an appropriate one when you think of John 15.

His name was a reminder to the bishop himself, also to his parishioners, that his purpose in life was to bear much fruit, polos carpos, right? Polos carpos, much fruit. His purpose was a missionary purpose, a missionary aim.

Sometime before he got martyred, St. Polycarp wrote a long letter to the Philippians. The same people received the letter. St. Paul wrote his letter too. At the very beginning of the letter, Polycarp makes clear that not only does he himself want to be a true Polycarp, he wants his parishioners to be Polycarps.

He writes to them the following, he says, I've greatly rejoiced with you in our Lord Jesus Christ because the strong root of your faith persists even until now and brings forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ who for our sins suffered even unto death.

The reason for Polycarp's joy is the root of the Philippians' faith that has produced polos carpos, much fruit. Apparently the Philippians are like their priest, like their bishop. They are in the process of bearing much fruit.

And so there's no greater joy for the old bishop than to see that they, his parishioners, are turning into Polycarps. And you notice the parallel probably with chapter 15 of John's Gospel, right? Verse 5, 15 verse 5, Whoever abides in me, I in him, it is that bears much fruit, polos carpos.

By this my Father is glorified, this is verse 8, By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, polos carpos, and prove to be my disciples. Now, I suppose that if we do a good historical, historical exegesis of Polycarp, we can't be quite 100 sure whether Polycarp deliberately, in terms of authorial intent, is patterning who he is and what he is doing on John 15.

But he was one of John's disciples, and it wouldn't have been out of place for him to have chosen as Episcopal identity this name from John's Gospel. And also, I think, it wouldn't have been out of place for the Church of Smyrna to have noted this remarkable fact that Polycarp, much like Jesus himself, was in the upper room.

I mean, it says that explicitly in the account of his martyrdom, right, that he was in the upper room in the days immediately before his martyrdom. And so there's a deep link, I think, that connects Polycarp to Jesus.

And that has to do with the overall theology, I think, of John chapter 15, and really with the entire Gospel's theology. I am the vine, says Jesus, you're the branches. Whoever buys in me and I in him, he is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me, you can do nothing. Those simple words, I think, are the reason, give us the deepest grounds, why it is that Polycarp's life is patterned on the life of Jesus. Or maybe I should put it this way, that Polycarp's life is not just patterned on that of Jesus, but participates in that of Jesus.

I am the vine, you are the branches, is the language. And those words make clear that when we sacrifice ourselves, indeed, in the Eucharist, when we offer ourselves up to God in the Eucharist, and similarly when Polycarp the bishop sacrificed himself to God in martyrdom, in the stadium, we're not doing something on our own, by ourselves, doing our own thing, on our own strength.

We're not just following Jesus as a far-off example. Rather, we are in Christ, St. Paul's language, right? We're abiding in the vine, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine.

Neither can you, unless you abide in me. That's where abide, it just runs through this passage, I don't know how often, it runs all the way through, and it ties the entire passage together. Menno, abide, remain.

And we're clearly meant to denote, our bearing fruit, your and my bearing fruit, depends on our abiding in Christ. And what that means is that when Polycarp sacrifices himself in the stadium, when you and I sacrifice ourselves in church in the Eucharist, we're not doing something on our own, as individuals, by ourselves.

We're in Christ. Let's go back to the language of the vine in the Old Testament for a moment to trace that. Psalm 80, famous Psalm, which is ultimately, I think, one of the main roots of this language.

You cleared the ground for it. Sorry, you brought a vine out of Egypt, is the beginning that I should quote here, verse nine, 80, verse nine. You brought a vine out of Egypt, you drove out the nations and planted it.

You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root, filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the river.

What the psalmist is doing here in this psalm is he's telling the story of the Exodus, right? And he's saying, it's like God taking a vine and transplanting it from Egypt to the promised land. Clearly, Israel is the vine.

And it's an imagery that you find in numerous places in the Old Testament. In fact, there's one place, Jeremiah 2, 21, where Israel is called the true vine. Israel is the true vine. So when Jesus says he is the true vine, he's saying nothing, doesn't he?

I am the true Israel. I am the true Israel. So, to join Christ and to join the church is one and the same thing. There's no difference. To join Christ, to join the church, one and the same thing. The two are inseparable.

You can't belong to Christ by not belonging to the church or vice versa. Bearing fruit is something you do in and through joining Jesus' ecclesial fellowship. So it's no coincidence, it seems, that it's on the occasion where he institutes the Last Supper, institutes the Eucharist, rather, on the Last Supper, right?

That Jesus is telling his disciples and that he's telling you and me to abide in the vine. And so Polycarp was undoubtedly aware that it's in the upper room along with the apostles that once united to Jesus.

Think Acts chapter 2. Again, they're in the upper room. The apostles are mentioned by name, right? This is a Pentecostal event, to be sure, but it's also an apostolic event, right? The apostles are front and center throughout the chapter.

It is by eating the living bread, John chapter 6, it is by drinking the fruit of the vine, by drinking from the true vine, John chapter 15, that we're participating in Jesus and in his ecclesial fellowship.

Greater love has no one than this, says Jesus in verse 13 of chapter 15. Greater love has no one than this, than that someone lay down his life for his friends. It's about martyrdom, right? That someone lay down his life for his friends.

He says that, Jesus says that by way of explaining the story of the vine and the branches. And so his identity as the true vine implies, it calls to mind, sacrificial love. His own, and by implication yours and mine.

That's the sacrificial love that Polycarp participates in when he too leaves the upper room to give his life for the church of Smyrna and for us. It's that same sacrificial love that you and I participate in when we celebrate the Eucharist.

Abiding in Christ’s Sacrifice and Bearing Fruit

Truly, truly, I say to you, John chapter 12, right? I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and it dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. If it dies, it bears much fruit.

The fruit bearing of a Polycarp has to do with participating in the sacrificial martyrdom of Jesus. And so Oscar Kuhlman, Lutheran theologian, Oscar Kuhlman observes that the relationship between branch and vine is above all, he says, the Eucharistic communion.

It's above all else, the Eucharistic communion of believers of Christ. So whenever we celebrate the Eucharist, we become a Polycarpic congregation, you could say. A fruit bearing congregation. But offering ourselves up, participating in the very sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Now there are all kinds of ways to bear fruit, to be Polycarpic. Obviously, every fruit on the tree in some way preaches Christ. The fruit itself is a way of proclaiming the vines being alive. When we offer up money to the poor, we preach Christ.

When we give of ourselves in the soup kitchen, we preach Christ. When we offer a room, an apartment, to a poor person, we're preaching Christ. Even when we simply devote ourselves to our everyday job, such as visiting people in our congregation or preparing a sermon, we're preaching Christ.

It matters not in principle what it is, right? For each of those acts, we give something of ourselves. And what we do in the Eucharist is we bring all of these little sacrifices, we gather them up, we bring them to church, and a couple of the members of our congregation bring them on our behalf to the front.

And we offer our gifts. The priest prays over them so that our sacrifice, so there are many sacrifices, you could say, come to participate in the one, true, once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And so our sacrifices aren't anymore just things that we've offered up ourselves, that we've done, for which we can have some sort of good boast.

No, they've become the Body of Christ. We sacrifice our lives in the sacrifice of Christ. And so it's in the Eucharist, in and through the Eucharist, that we abide in Christ. You see, something, I think, of this participation in Christ's sacrifice, you see Paul's letter to the Colossians, when he writes there in 1 verse 24, famously difficult and awkward passage, perhaps, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions, for the sake of the Body, that is the Church.

Now that's awkward in at least two senses. First of all, there is a rejoicing in suffering. Certainly our culture tells us, suffering you do not rejoice in. That's one awkward thing in this passage. And the other awkward thing is a more distinctly Christian question that we have, theological question that we have, and that is, how can there be things lacking in Christ's afflictions?

Tahus trema, I agree. How can this be? Isn't that denying the once for all sufficiency of Christ's death? How do we deal with this? Well, let's first have a look at that joy in suffering. Of course, it's not unique to Colossians 1 .24.

In many places, the Apostle expresses his joy in the midst of suffering. And his reason for joy doesn't lie in the fact that he has such a naturally happy disposition. With some difficulty, perhaps, you and I, or the Apostle Paul, might grin and bear suffering.

But we would not rejoice in it. So to grasp how it is that Paul can say, I rejoice in suffering. We need to briefly move into what I think is the historical backdrop to much of this verse. In the centuries prior to the birth of Christ, the Jewish people of God were forced to reflect on their suffering, their oppression by the nations around them.

How is it that while they were being faithful to Torah, serving God as best they could, nonetheless they were being oppressed and were forced to suffer? What's in that circumstance that they developed a martyrdom theology, you could say.

A martyrdom theology. They came to the realization that it is through suffering, precisely, through suffering, that they were able to obtain a place in God's plan of redemption. We find some of that in the fourth book of Maccabees, chapter 17.

I've written it out for you on your outline there. These then, having consecrated themselves for the sake of God, are now honored not only with this distinction, but also with the fact that through them our enemies did not prevail against our nation.

The tyrant was punished, our land purified, since, this is the reason, since they became, as it were, a ransom for the sin of our nation. These few people who suffered and died became a ransom for the sin of the nation.

Through the blood of these righteous ones and through the propitiation of their death, the divine providence rescued Israel, which had been shamefully treated. So the Jewish martyrs came to regard themselves not just as enduring foreign oppression by way of punishment of God or so, or suffering injustice that was inflicted on them by their enemies.

They came to see themselves as participating in the redemption of God's people. They had a place within that redemption. Especially since Albert Schweitzer's well-known 1906 book on the historical Jesus.

I'm not much of a historical Jesus fan, but today we're going to use Albert Schweitzer's 1906 book on the historical Jesus. He talks there about the messianic woes, the messianic woes. He says they were, for the Jews of Jesus' time, they were the birth pains, you could say, the birth pains of the kingdom of God.

They were a time of intense redemptive suffering that some individuals underwent on behalf of the entire nation, so as to give birth to the kingdom of God. Without that suffering, the dawning of the age was not going to be possible.

Why not? Because God's anger would remain on his people, so the Jewish people thought. And so the martyrs are praying in chapter 6 of 4 Maccabees, Be merciful to your people, they say to God. Be merciful and let our punishment be a satisfaction on their behalf.

A satisfaction on their behalf. Very interesting language. Now, the early Jewish Christians interpreted Christ's messianic suffering in this light of these messianic woes, these messianic sufferings. The afflictions of Christ that Paul mentions in Colossians 1 .24, the afflictions of Christ can be understood against Old Testament and Jewish backdrop with an apocalyptic conception of a suffering at the very end of times that yields them, that gives them the kingdom of God.

So as Paul comments, he is rejoicing that in his flesh, he's filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. He's rejoicing not because of the sufferings themselves, he's not masochistic here. It's the Paul-y notion of Christians being crucified with Christ.

En Christo, right? With Christ. That's not an abstract idea. Instead, what it is, is a very concrete entry into the life, suffering, and death of Jesus Christ himself. And therefore, gives rise to joy, a joyful willingness to suffer even to the point of, as in the case of Polygar, sacrificial martyrdom in and with Christ.

If you keep that in mind, it becomes at least somewhat understandable that Polygar would want to pattern his actions on the actions of Christ in the upper room. He is participating in the very sufferings of Christ, filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.

It's a very helpful book by Michael Gorman. Michael Gorman teaches in Baltimore, St. Mary's Seminary. He's a Protestant author teaching in a Catholic seminary. It's a fascinating book called Cruciformity, Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross.

It's a great, great theology of atonement. And what Michael Gorman does there is he explains that this pattern of cruciformity, which he says runs throughout St. Paul's writings, reaches beyond St. Paul to all Christian believers, which is why we see it at work in Polycarp.

So the overall story of Paulian theology, he says, is an ongoing pattern of living in Christ and an ongoing pattern also of dying with him, which produces then what he calls a cruciform existence, a cruciform existence, indwelling him, being indwelled by him, living with and for and according to him in the resolve of Christ and by his life and death.

Again, therefore, it's not just that we pattern ourselves on Christ, that Christ is an example to us, a far-off example. Christ is an example to be sure. Can we imitate him in discipleship? To be sure.

But this kind of imitation is an imitation, not just as human imitation. Gorman puts it this way. He writes, cruciformity misunderstood as human imitation of Christ, and he means by that mere imitation.

If it's mere imitation, that's indeed, he says, an impossibility. You and I could not possibly get the courage to do what Polycarp does unless something extraordinary is going on. And so he writes, however, cruciformity is the initial and ongoing work of Christ himself.

By his spirit sent by God, who dwells within each believer and believing community, shaping them to carry on the story. Now, that last point is crucial, especially as we're moving in this talk toward the Eucharist, toward the theology of the Eucharist.

This last point is crucial because according to Gorman, our cruciform lives are lives that are not separate from the life and death of Jesus Christ. In some mysterious sense, and I'm purposely using that term, in some mysterious sense, your and my self-sacrificing participates in the sacrifice of Christ.

It would have to be that way. For imagine if it were not that way. What we would end up with is two sacrifices, right? We would end up with a sacrifice that is Christ's, and then other many sacrifices, your and mine.

And there's at least two problems, if there's more, you can help me out, but there's at least two problems with that, that I can see. And one is, it will be denial of the all-sufficiency, the once-for-all character of the sacrifice of Christ.

It's half a box, as we keep hearing time and time again, once-for-all, time and time again, give it up to the Hebrews, right? The second problem, if we were to separate our many sacrifices from Christ's one sacrifice, is that, well, what is Christ doing in this picture?

Why is He offering only His own sacrifice? It would mean that you and I, on our own, sacrifice all of the other sacrifices, by ourselves. It's pretty hard to avoid a Pelagian kind of pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps type of theology, if our sacrifices are separate from that of Christ.

Yet, we are called upon.

To sacrifice ourselves, right?

The language runs throughout the New Testament, and I've given a couple of samples here, 1 Peter 2 .5, we are like living stones that are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God, through Jesus Christ.

Romans 12, verse 1, famous verse, right? To present our bodies as a living sacrifice, through spiritual worship. Philippians 2, verse 17, even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering on the sacrificial offering of your faith, a combination of sacrifices, right?

If I am to be poured out on your sacrificial offering, your faith, I'm glad and I rejoice with you all. These are Philippians, right? It's a great epistle of joy. I rejoice if I'm dying, if I have to suffer my endowment on your faith, I'll gladly do so, says St. Paul.

Now, the reason why it is that none of these sacrifices of these various biblical passages, why none of these add a second new sacrifice to that of Christ, and the reason, too, why you and I don't offer them up in our own strength, is quite simply, there's only one sacrifice, in some sense.

There's only one sacrifice, and that is that of Jesus Christ. He sacrifices Himself, and what we do in offering up our lives, and what we do when we come to the Eucharistic altar, is we participate in the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And so we don't proclaim ourselves there. We're not proclaiming ourselves. We are proclaiming Christ. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again. I suspect one reason why many churches have done away with a sacramental view of the Eucharist, is that people are nervous that we might be offering up something to God in the Eucharist ourselves.

Now, that's not a bad nervousness to have, to be sure. It's not a bad nervousness to have. Because, as I said, if there are two sacrifices, separate, distinct sacrifices, one in Golgotha, one in the Church, we have a serious problem.

We have a serious problem. And in many ways, when you read Luther, or when you read Calvin, that's the problem they're struggling with. So Luther, for example, I'll give you a couple of quotations here.

He claims, We know and have no other sacrifice than that which Christ made on the cross on which He died once for all. Christ, he writes, Christ has sacrificed Himself once. Henceforth, He will not be sacrificed by anyone else.

Now, in some sense, that's very true. And again, it harkens back to a nervousness that clearly Luther expresses here about adding a new sacrifice to the sacrifice of Christ. Calvin does much the same thing.

He asks rhetorically, Are we allowed daily to sow innumerable patches upon such a sacrifice, namely that of Christ, as if it were imperfect, when He has so clearly commanded its perfection? How could you add anything to the perfection of Christ's sacrifice, is what he's asking.

When God's sacred Word not only affirms, but cries out and contends that this sacrifice was performed once and all its force remains forever, do not those, and you may guess who those are, do not those who require another sacrifice accuse it of imperfection and weakness?

You know what he's doing, right? He's rhetorically asking those papists, right? What they're doing is they're adding another sacrifice. An additional one to the one true sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ.

It's not a bad nervousness to have, frankly. And, I would add to it, there's a great deal to suggest, actually, that in connection with developments in the late Middle Ages, that many people did look at the Eucharistic sacrifice in such a way that makes the Reformation reaction understandable.

However, however, the way in which Luther and Calvin depict Eucharistic sacrifice as an additional sacrifice is, in the light of everything that we've seen so far, perhaps not the only way to look at what it is that we're doing when we're sacrificing ourselves in Christ in the Eucharist.

It's striking, it seems to me. It's striking that the early Church, unanimously, without exception, regarded the Eucharist as sacrificial in character. Is there as early as the Didache in the very beginning of the 2nd century at the latest?

Is there Clement? Is there Injustin? Irenaeus? Hippolytus? It runs throughout the tradition from the very earliest evidence that we have. In fact, one liturgical scholar, Gregory Dix, writes, there's no exception whatever in any Christian tradition in the 2nd century.

No hint of an alternative understanding anywhere as Gregory Dix. Now that unanimity struck me perhaps for the first time when I read a beautiful book some of you know, by Jean-Marie Rouget at Tillard, Flesh of the Church, Flesh of Christ at Skull.

A small book, very accessible book by an ecumenical Roman Catholic scholar. At Tillard, shows in that book, passage after passage from theologians both East and West, that they were convinced, these theologians, East and West, were convinced, that in the Eucharistic celebration, we are offering on the sacrificial altar our lives.

We're offering there the lives of mercy that we have lived in the preceding week. We bring it to the altar. And so, for St. John Chrysostom, for example, in the 4th century, it's important that our lives of mercy, and he's all about lives of mercy, Chrysostom, that they be in harmony with the sacrifice that we offer up in the church.

They can't be out of sync with each other. Because the sacrifice that we offer when we take care of the poor is the very same sacrifice that we bring to the church on Sunday morning. And so he talks about the poor like an altar.

They are the altar, he says. He makes the following comment. You have the quotation in front of you there. This altar, the altar of the poor, is made of Christ's members. They're part of the body, right?

They have Christ's body. They're members of the body. The altar of the poor is made of Christ's members themselves. The body of the Lord becomes your altar. Venerate it. Venerate the altar, he says. You sacrifice the victim on the flesh of the Lord, the poor that is, right?

This altar of the poor is more awesome than the one that we use in church. Not just more than the one used in ancient times, in the Old Testament. No, don't object, he says. You can hear him preaching, right?

Don't object. This altar in church is awesome because of the sacrifice laid upon it. That, the one made of alms, when we take care of the poor, is even more so, not just because of the alms, but because it is the very sacrifice that makes the other, the one in church, awesome.

This one, offered on the poor, is the one that makes the other one awesome. It also goes the other way around, right? If this one's not very awesome, there's all sorts of questions about our sacrifice in church.

So, the acts of mercy, our daily acts of mercy, for St. John Chrysostom, they give, or they make up the beauty and weight of our Eucharistic sacrifice. That's the East, right? Chrysostom. In the West, St. Augustine.

No different, no different. He talks at one point about Romans 12, verse 1, the verse I already mentioned earlier. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, he says, right? And then he talks, as you know, Romans 12 goes on to talk about all the gifts in the congregation and so on, and he goes on to talk about those gifts that we have in the congregation.

And he writes the following, this is the sacrifice of Christians. We being many are one body of Christ. He's talking Romans 12, clearly, right? We are the one body of Christ, he says. And this is also the sacrifice that the church continually celebrates in the sacrament of the altar, known to the faithful, in which the church teaches that it itself is offered in the offering it makes to God.

This is what St. Augustine writes, right? So because he says you have your gifts, and you offer them up, he immediately makes the link with what happens on Sunday morning. He says, that sacrifice that you offer up in using your gifts, that's what's celebrated on Sunday morning.

Because you are offering that on the altar on Sunday morning. You're offering up yourself. You're doing a polycarpic thing. You're like St. Polycarp, offering yourself up. So let's go back once more, and after that we'll shortly wrap up and then we'll have some questions, some Q &A.