Have you ever wondered why
churches like this are so large? Why the
ceilings are so high? Why there is so much space?
Let me explain.
In the 1970's and 1980's, Death Squads wreaked havoc and terror across
Central and South America. Sponsored by government and business
interests, these Death Squads acted with impunity. In El Salvador
alone, they killed tens of thousands of peasants and activists,
including nuns and priests who resisted the oppression.
In response, the Christian Church developed a dramatic means of
expressing their faith, their hope and their resistance1.
During the
liturgy, they would read aloud the names of those who had been
murdered, or, in the euphemism of the time, those who had been
"disappeared." When each name was read, the congregation would call
out, "¡Presente!" (Here!)
They were affirming what the Church has believed from the beginning:
that others may have the power to destroy our mortal flesh, but in
Christ, God has destroyed death. . .that our dead are not dead. They
are alive in Christ.
We claim that whenever and wherever Christians gather to break bread
together in Christ's name the whole company of heaven and earth are
gathered: the angels and archangels are here; the saints and martyrs
are here.
All this space? We need it: every bit of it. It's crammed, filled,
packed to rafters.
Peter, James and John, Simon and Andrew? ¡Presente! Zacchaeus and
Bartimaeus? Paul, Martha and all the Marys? ¡Presente! (Here!) Augustine
and Aquinas, Francis, and Theresa? John Huss and Micheleangelo, Calvin
and Luther? ¡Presente!
(Here!) J.S. Bach and Sojourner Truth? Harriet Beecher Stowe and
Juliette Gordon Lowe? Dr. Schweitzer and Dr. King? Archbishop
Romero and Rosa Parks?
¡Presente! (Here!)
The Death Squads in El Salvador wreaked their havoc to be sure. They
caused terrible suffering and untold sorrow. But they were impotent
against the Church's claim that death is swallowed up in victory! That
the Communion of Saints is not bounded by time.
As we approach the communion table we need every inch of this space,
and then some, to accommodate the great cloud of witnesses who are even
now gathering to join us at this meal: the war dead from Afghanistan
and Iraq, ¡Presente!
(Here!) The one they called the Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, ¡Presente! (Here!) The
children whose school collapsed over them in the Indonesian earthquake
and those swept away by the tsunami in Samoa, ¡Presente! (Here!)
Not just those … not
only those who make the news. Also with us today
is the one for whom our Great Cross is named: Bob Christenson: ¡Presente! (Here!) Calvin
Hampton, whose music ministers to us, of whose will and musical estate
Harry is executor: ¡Presente! (Here!)
Quinn's father and grandmother:
¡Presente! (Here!) My grandparents, Isabel and Emory,
James and Aileen, and my father David,
¡Presente! (Here!) Duane's and Janice's two children who
predeceased them: ¡Presente!
Evan and Annamarie's third and fourth children, siblings to Nate and
Amanda: Noah and Melanie, ¡Presente!
Janet's Harvey, Lise's Paul, Jean's Philip, Jim's JoAnn, Diane's Marc,
Don's Betsy, and my Peter: ¡Presente!
Jean Jackson and Helen Jackson, Agnes, Gabino, Richard,
Anna, Marion, Betty, John, Mary, Elsbeth, Florence, Earl, Barbara,
Jennette, Jim … every one of them,
¡Presente! (Here!) And your loved ones, each of them, too
numerous to name aloud, but which I trust you are naming in the privacy
of your own hearts … all of them: ¡Presente!
(Here!)
The Christians in El Salvador stared the Death Squads in the face and
defied them. They were emboldened to do so because they believed the
Gospel, the good news: death has been defeated. That is our claim. That
is the faith we celebrate at this feast. We come to this table to stare
death in the face and reject its power over us.
We do so in the best of company: in the company of the great cloud of
witnesses. This house is packed, jammed. It is filled to the rafters
with our kin, our sisters and brothers in Christ. Heaven and earth is
here and the space between them is thin. Therefore, let us keep the
feast. Amen!
_______________
I Corinthians 11: 23-26 23
For I received from the
Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night
when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given
thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for* you. Do
this in remembrance of me.' 25In the same way he took the cup also,
after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do
this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' 26For as often
as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death
until he comes again.
1From Rowan
Williams’ Easter Sermon, April 11, 2004, preached in Canterbury
Cathedral (see below)
“Think back for a moment to the days when death squads operated in
countries like Argentina or El Salvador: the Christians there developed
a very dramatic way of celebrating their faith, their hope and their
resistance. At the liturgy, someone would read out the names of those
killed or ‘disappeared’, and for each name someone would call out from
the congregation, Presente, ‘Here’. When the assembly is gathered
before God, the lost are indeed presente; when we pray at this
eucharist ‘with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven’,
we say presente of all those the world (including us) would forget and
God remembers. With angels and archangels; with the butchered Rwandans
of ten years ago and the butchered or brutalised Ugandan children of
last week or yesterday; with the young woman dead on a mattress in
King’s Cross after an overdose and the childless widower with
Alzheimer’s; with the thief crucified alongside Jesus and all the
thousands of other anonymous thieves crucified in Judaea by an
efficient imperial administration; with the whole company of heaven,
those whom God receives in his mercy. And with Christ our Lord, the
firstborn from the dead, by whose death our sinful forgetfulness and
lukewarm love can be forgiven and kindled to life, who leaves no human
soul in anonymity and oblivion, but gives to all the dignity of a name
and a presence. He is risen; he is not here; he is present everywhere
and to all. He is risen: presente.”
