While in seminary at the University of the South at Sewanee, I had the opportunity to take a class in the College division of the University. It was an upper level course in the Anthropology Department: The Anthropology of Religion. This course is the one course, of all my studies, that had the most immediate impact, and has had the most long-lasting impact on my thinking. It introduced me to something I have come to accept as true: there is a spiritual component to Homo sapiens. Spiritual experiences and the practice of religion seem to be common to humanity around the globe and across time, embracing all cultures and ethnic groups.
Along with rites of passage (how one moves from one stage of life to another), rites of incorporation (how one joins the faith group) and rites of maintenance (how one stays a member) are common elements to most religions. It is the rites of maintenance, in the larger group of Christianity, and in the more specific group of Episcopalians, and even more specifically in the faith community of Good Shepherd Church, that I would like to think about here.
We at Good Shepherd gather weekly to participate in two maintenance rites 1) to tell our sacred story and 2) to share our sacred meal. Looking at The Holy Eucharist in our Book of Common Prayer, either Rite I or Rite II, we can see the two divisions of the service: The Word of God (This is where we tell our sacred story.) and The Holy Communion (This is where we share our sacred meal.).
The sharing of our sacred meal took on some additional meaning for me recently, when I found myself ducking into one of my favorite eating places, Happy Hawg, in Hiawassee. Those of you who have been there know that the indoor area is replete with signs on the walls. I sat down at a small table with a sign right next to me that read, “Feed them and they will come.”
I am not sure that the sign-maker had in mind our Holy Eucharist, but that is what settled into my thoughts upon encountering that sign. “Feed them, and they will come” might not be found in those specific words on the lips of Jesus as recorded in our Gospels, but I have no doubt that it is the essence of those words that was sent forth with Jesus’s disciples as he encouraged them to spread the good news of the Kingdom of God. All of God’s children need to be fed – with physical food, with spiritual food, with the food of the Good News.
Our life together at Good Shepherd includes so much feeding. At our recent Friday night Reel Theology event, where we shared pizza and a movie, we had some visitors who had not been to Good Shepherd before. “Wow! This is some feed!” was a remark I heard. And I thought to myself, “Yes it is. We do feeding very well.” And I found myself so very thankful, as I thought of all the feeding activities and ministries in which the good folk of Good Shepherd engage. And the one element that inspires all this feeding activity that we do is the gift God gives us of the opportunity to feed spiritually and physically with the bread and wine, that for us makes present the body and blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we celebrate The Holy Communion.
Anthropologists may look from the outside at what we are doing when we celebrate The Holy Eucharist and say that we are participating in our group’s maintenance rites. From the inside, however, as a member of the Good Shepherd family, gathered around our Table, I am hearing Jesus say, “Feed them and they will come.” Please join me at our Table.
Bev+