Simon Says ...

1. What's in a Name. I thought I’d begin this irregular series (also to be found in a certain Parish Magazine) by looking at the different names that the Eucharist has been called. Often these mark out a particular church or tradition or view of the Eucharist, but I think that they all have something to teach us about this act of worship. 1. The Lord’s Supper Calling this act of worship ‘The Lord’s Supper’ reminds us that this service is rooted in the final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples. When we gather to share bread and wine, we gather to remember Jesus. We are obedient to Jesus’ instruction to ‘do this in remembrance of me’ (Luke 22.19). We remember Jesus, and especially his death and resurrection, in the context of the Passover meal – the great festival of freedom. This is Jesus’ own interpretation of his death, given to his disciples at the meal table at which the story of the Exodus (the freeing of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt ) was ...

Year C: Daniel 7.1-3,15-18 ; Ephesians 1.11-23 ; Luke 6.20-31 . To be frank the Daniel reading has been castrated by the lectionary - only the bare remnants of the vision are left, what remains is aimed only at getting to the punchline about the saints receiving the kingdom and possessing it forever. The struggle of the saints against the beasts has been removed. But it is the kingdom that is at the heart of these readings. Daniel tells of the promise that the saints will possess it. Paul's letter to the Ephesians is his great letter about the nature of the church. In the passage here, we have Paul praying that the eyes of his readers would be opened so that they might know the true reality of which they are part. In Christ, God has given us the inheritance of the saints (which in Daniel remains a promise). The kingdom has arrived, all power has been given to Jesus, and why? For our sake. The point of all of this is us - the saints who toil below, as the hymn puts it. It is...