Last time, we talked about how mutual, loving submission to the Apostles was, for the

first Christians, a powerful manifestation of, and a contributor to, the divine oneness that
the Spirit had come to work in them. Another pillar of unity, as we read in Acts 2:42, was
the breaking of bread. Every commentator I have ever read, Catholic, Protestant or
Orthodox, sees this as a reference to the Eucharist, the receiving of Christs body and
blood in the bread and wine of communion.
When the Lord Jesus Christ initiates the sacrament of the Eucharist with his disciples
before his death, he tells them that the bread he offers them is my body which is broken
for you. The wine he gives them to drink, he says, is the new covenant in my blood (1
Corinthians 11:24,25). But even though Jesus plainly states that the bread and wine of
communion are his flesh and blood, there has been, since the Protestant Reformation,
considerable debate as to whether or not Jesus meant that literally. Many in the Western
tradition insist that the bread and wine are purely symbolic of Christs body and blood. In
essence, they are nothing more than grape juice and wheat. But these mundane
substances serve a spiritual purpose by keeping Christs great sacrifice for us before our
minds.
Those who hold this position often point out that when Jesus established this mystical
supper, as we Orthodox call it, he said, Do this in remembrance of me (Luke 22:19).
But in the kingdom of God, as weve been discussing it, to remember is not just a mental
activity in which we recall some past event. In the case of the Eucharist, remembrance is
not just a bringing to mind of Christs death and resurrection which we facilitate by using
certain physical props.
As the New Testament declares in Romans 5 and elsewhere, we believers enter into the
life of Our Lord. The Spirit of God resides in us. As a result, we dont just remember the
life of Christwe participate in it, in all its completeness. Remember, Christ is fully God
and fully human. This is the being in which we are blessed to share. In baptism, Christ
gives us his divine Spirit. In the Eucharist, he shares with us his mortal, though glorified,
flesh and blood.
As always, it is most instructive to know what the early Christians thought about this
matter. From their testimony it is eminently clear that they received the Eucharist as the
actual body and blood of their Lord. Yes, it is bread and wine, but mystically it becomes
Christs genuine flesh and blood.
For instance, sometime around the turn of the first century, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote
a letter to the Christians at Smyrna in which he warned them about one of the first major
heretical groups within the Church. They were called the Docetists. What was their
heresy? St. Ignatius warns, They confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior
Jesus Christ. St. Ignatius became bishop of Antioch in A.D.69. He was converted under
the teaching of the Apostles. Thus, it is plain that the first Christians knew the bread and
wine to be truly, and in all reality, the body and blood of their Lord.
A generation later, St. Justin Martyr declares the same truth about the Eucharist in the
apology that he offers to the Roman emperor on behalf of the Christian faith. St. Justin is
often referred to as The Philosopher, and, as a philosopher, he goes out of his way to
assure that there is no misunderstanding about what is in the communion cup.
Listen carefully to his words. He tells us that the Eucharist is not common bread and
common drink, but in like manner as Jesus Christ had both flesh and blood for our
salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food, which is blessed by the prayer of
his word and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh
and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. The bread and wine is the flesh and blood
of that Jesus who was made flesh.
I love what St. Justin does here. He leaves no room for quibbling. The Eucharist is the
flesh of someone who is flesh. Of course, how this can be is an unfathomable mystery,
though some sacramental traditions have pointlessly attempted to explain it. But the
ancient Eastern Church together with the Roman Catholics and even some Protestant
confessions has always understood that the holy thing within the cup of communion is the
living, human substance of Christ.
This truth of the Eucharist makes it a powerful means, in fact the most powerful of all
instruments, for bringing us to oneness. How it makes us one with God is obvious, of
course. We receive into our humanness the humanness of our Christ. As the Spirit
inhabits our spiritual center, the physical essence of Christ permeates our physical bodies.
What more could God do to make us one with him?
At the blessed Eucharist we also become one with each other. I am reminded of this each
time I watch those with whom I worship share in its holy mysteries. In the Orthodox
Church, we all receive the bread and wine at the hand of the priest from a single cup, the
gifts being placed in our mouths with a solitary spoon. I think that makes it easier to see
the oneness worked by the sacrament.
For, standing in that single line, waiting for the life in that one chalice, are people of all
ages and from all walks of life. There are babies and the elderly, those who are educated
and those who can barely read, there are the social elite and the social outcasts, and there
are professionals and blue collar. Some are nearing spiritual perfection and others are
mired in the gutters of sin. And yet there, at the communion cup, all those distinctions
disappear.
The one Christ comes to fill each one with his purifying, unifying being. In the moment
he enters us, everything within us about which we might boast fades away. Everything
within that we would lament disappears. The body and blood of Christ is the great
unifying leveler. As he interpenetrates us all, we experience together the holy dance of
the blessed Trinity. We are one.
Together with their steadfast adherence to the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and to
the breaking of bread, Acts 2:42 tells us that the early Christians also devoted
themselves to prayers. Now notice the verse does not say that they continued in
prayer. That is, the verse indicates that the prayer life of the early believers had some
objective substance. They didnt just walk around in an attitude of prayer, though surely
they did that. Rather, they offered prayers, specific petitions, to God.
In fact, in the original Greek, the passage says that they offered the prayers. The
reference here is to specific prayers that the first Christians all knew and could offer
together. In other words, what we are told here is that the first believers not only had a
common practice of praying, but they practiced praying common prayers.
This is an important point given that we live in a day and age when most of us think that
true prayer is this spontaneous offering of our own thoughts and feelings expressed to
God in our own self-chosen words. The sort of wrote prayer that Ive been praying here
an important part of the early Christian practice is today routinely resisted as lacking in
spiritual effectiveness. Yet it is clear from the scriptures that it is this specified prayer to
which the prayers refers.
In verse 46 of Acts 2, we are told that the new Christians continued in the worship of the
Jewish temple. In Acts 3:1, we find Peter and John on their way to the temple to
participate in the prayers of the ninth hourthe prayer service that happened at 3:00 in
the afternoon. The Jews also observed hours of prayer at the third and sixth hours, or 9:00
a.m. and noon.
The prayers offered in these services which the Christian community continued to
observe were not the spontaneous, off-the-cuff petitions that characterize much
contemporary Christian worship and prayer life. No, they were recitations from the
Psalms and other passages of scripture. So, as Jews, this was the legacy of prayer that the
first Christians inherited. It was not unusual that they should continue in it.
Over the centuries, the Church added other, regular prayer services and prayers to the
daily cycle of worship. Prayers penned by holy saints also became part of the Churchs
spiritual tradition, recited by Christians throughout the world, across the centuries.
We must understand, however, that the reason that the Church adopted this approach was
not simply to endorse and carry on and ancient Jewish custom. Rather, this practice of
praying common prayers is a crucial element in achieving oneness with each other and
with God. Thats why, as an Orthodox Christian, my prayer life revolves around a prayer
book, filled with prayers that the Church has endorsed and which have proven effective
in establishing divine oneness in the body of Christ.
Now, I would never say that there is something intrinsically wrong with offering our own
heartfelt words to God in prayer. After all, many of the prayers in my Orthodox prayer
book are the sincere, original petitions of holy saints. Yet, I must recognize that when I
compose my own prayers, the danger of self-concern is always lurking. Praying
spontaneously out of my own feelings and my own needs can obviously become a self-
centering activity. Rather than making me aware of our communal life in God and
intimately joining me with other believers in a unifying and glorious dance with God,
private, spontaneous prayer can reduce the experience to one of pure individuality.
The prayers which fill my prayer book differ from my own petitions in that they are
devoid of self-centered thoughts and feelings. Those holy souls who composed them
were emptied of selfish designs. Union with God and union with others was their whole
and single desire. Thus, they became mouthpieces for the Holy Spirit who lived and still
lives in them.
As I set aside my own ideas and emotional needs and offer their words from my own
heart, the pure and Holy Spirit who first inspired those words speaks in me. By this, my
prayer becomes a self-denying participation in the life of God. I am made one with the
Trinity.
And Im also made one with all who offer those same prayers. Im joined in a chorus of
unity with my Orthodox brothers and sisters around the world. Together we become one
voice with Orthodox Christians across the centuries, all the way back to apostolic times
one single body speaking the words of the Spirit to the Triune God. This is the oneness
which the prayers foster in the life of God.