Dear People of Christ Church,

This week, I've been reading up on Anglican practices around the Eucharist. We had our meeting on Sunday to talk about what we'd like to do moving forward here, and talked about it as vestry as well. The summary is, in the words of Marcia Luce: "If they want to dip, let them dip!" That's the upshot of the thing, but as I have been discovering, it's a lot more complicated than that-and more personal, too.

I was raised to be a drinker, even as a young child. No one, that I can remember in my church growing up, was a dipper. It was just what you did. I was reminded of this a while ago when my dad served as a LEM here at Christ Church and he presented the chalice to a rather perplexed Isaiah, who hadn't had it before but seemed OK with it.   In my own spirituality, the sacraments are incredibly important to me; the sense of being fed, spiritually and physically, in the Eucharist is entirely what brought me back to church after I'd spent an angry adolescence away from it. I love celebrating with you on Sundays, and administering communion to each of you is my favorite part of my work as a priest. A smiling and excited 2 year old, a distracted teenager, a child-wrangling parent, and the creased palm of an 80 year old-I get to witness the faith of so many different people as they receive the sacrament, and it is a privilege.

A simple privilege... until I start to think too hard about it. I was away this fall when the bishops made their "no intinction" policy, so I didn't have a chance to do much teaching about it. Coming back, I was sad to see the number of people who didn't feel comfortable receiving the wine by drinking, so I am glad that we had a chance to reconsider the policy. The thing is-I'm still a drinker. And that being my personal experience and faith, I still encourage you to drink from the chalice, too.

We celebrate the Eucharist because we are doing what Jesus said to do; he took one cup, and shared it among the disciples. What we do at the rail is pretty far removed from an actual meal, but it seems important to me to do what we can to keep it in that realm; including real sips of real wine from a real cup.  But that's my preference. As a seminary-trained priest, I could come up with a theological treatise on why you should do it my way, but that's not the way of our Anglican/Episcopal tradition.

There is a difference between a theological opinion and a matter of faith. It is a matter of faith that we receive the sacraments-a matter of faith that you should come to church, and participate in them, and that Jesus loves us and died for love and was raised. But it's a matter of theology whether you should drink or dip, and in that theology, it's a matter of where Christ best meets you, as an individual. And that is a question only you can answer. The Anglican Church is big on theological dialogue-not so much big commandments for how you should live your life and practice your faith.  So... drink. Unless you want to dip.

We will make some new efforts at keeping the cup clean for everyone (see the left column here), but there is no way to be entirely germ free. The Anglican Church first took up the question of bacteria in the chalice during the Plague, when they enacted the Sacrament Act of 1547:  The "most blessed Sacrament be hereafter commonly delivered and ministered unto the people... under both the kinds, that is to say of bread and wine, except necessity otherwise require."  Necessity, in that case, being risk of illness. But we have to keep that fear of risk in perspective. Life is risky; that's why we have seatbelts and immune systems. Every time we are exposed to a germ, it doesn't mean we'll get sick.  In their theological statement on the common cup during the SARS epidemic in 2003, the Anglican Diocese of Toronto wrote:

Our liturgy of faithful remembering must not make the avoidance of all risk the primary criterion -which would mean avoiding any authentic celebration of the Eucharist. After all, this gathering at table is of no practical use whatever (a morsel of bread, a sip of wine do nothing to fill the belly). But at the symbolic level, the bread and wine are food for life, a meal of hope, a banquet "rich in delights and suited to every taste."(Wisdom 16:20)

May our Eucharistic feast be rich in all delights, and delicious to our souls.

Blessings,

Sara+