HOMILY FOR LENT (Sermon Series based on Draw Near Booklet (Communion) 2026)
Texts: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Matthew 26:26-29
“Beloved, I received from the Lord what I also hand on to you” (1 Cor 11:23)
I first met Abigail Tkulu back in 1999, she was one of our Trustees at the Mothers’ Union from South Africa. She is an ordinary South African woman who worked as a teacher in a school in Port Elizabeth. Her main claim to fame was that she was a distant relation of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and that was a huge advantage to us in Mother’s Union because she could always get him to come and speak at our gatherings in Africa.
She wasn’t a pop star. She wasn’t a politician. She was a small middle-aged lady dressed in a white and blue Mother’s Union dress. There was nothing physically special about her. Yet when Abigail spoke you could hear... a pin drop. For she did so much with those who had HIV/ Aids at a time when people were frightened to even touch those who were ill, let alone truly care for them. Taking dying people into her home and caring for them in their last days. Washing them, feeding them, loving them.
And if you asked what was it that gave her the strength to keep going day in day out in this tireless work, she’d tell you it was sitting each day in front of a piece of bread. Every morning, she would go early to the Cathedral in Port Elizabeth, opposite the library, and receive bread and wine. You might wonder what taking this bread has to do with washing the rotting bodies of dying peoples.
Before I answer that- turn to the person next to you and give them a high five.
“Beloved, I received from the Lord what I also hand on to you” (1 Cor 11:23)
Leonard Wilson was the Anglican Bishop of Singapore during the 2nd world war, when Singapore surrendered to the Japanese. He was offered a place on the evacuation plane and turned it down. He went into the notorious Changi prison camp with 3000 other civilians. The conditions were indescribable. The bishop continued to minister to his people, despite a Japanese command to stop, Each Sunday he celebrated the Eucharist, not with bread and wine – he had none – but with rice and rice water. Under the trees in the prison compound. He said, “At first only a few came – later we had over 200” The Japanese tortured and beat the Bishop to stop him. Finally, they broke all his fingers one by one to stop him being able to celebrate, but others stepped forward to help. Following the surrender of Japan he returned to England. Despite the best efforts of the surgeons, they could not heal his hands. He continued his ministry as Bishop of Birmingham. One Easter, many years later he met and forgave the Japanese guard who had broken his fingers. He later learnt that the guard converted to Christianity and himself became a clergyman.
Why would a prisoner continue to celebrate this strange ritual with food and drink even though he was being tortured for doing so? Why was it so important to his guards to stop him? And what did it say about God to his fellow prisoners that this bishop had turned down his place on the evacuation plane to stay with them when all he could do for them was offer Holy Communion?
I will answer that question - but first please turn to the person next to you and do a fist bump.
“Beloved, I received from the Lord what I also hand on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
Lawrence Price is an Anglican clergyman in Lichfield Diocese. Years ago he had a dreadful car accident which resulted in his loss of some of his vocal cords. As he could no longer speak, he had to retire from active ministry. The then Bishop of Shrewsbury, subsequently our Bishop Alan of St Albans, was convinced that he needed to continue to have Lawrence active in the ministry, so arranged for some special speech treatment for him, as a result of which he learned to speak again, albeit haltingly, but found that he could not say an repetitive phrases, so administering the bread and wine was not possible. Except that he learned you could place the bread into someone’s hands and lightly squeeze their hand so that the recipient knew that at that moment he was saying the prayer, “The body of Christ keep you in eternal life”. To his astonishment, the number of parishioners who said that the communion became more special to them at that moment in time, as it was often the only physical contact they had with someone else all that week.
“Beloved, I received from the Lord what I also hand on to you” (1 Cor 11:23)
I am getting to my answer - but before I do, please lightly squeeze the shoulder of the person sitting next to you.
It’s said: to sell a house - bake some bread. As the smell wafts through our bodies are comforted, we feel at home, we buy the house… the house of bread. That’s what the name Bethlehem literally means. The house of bread. And that’s where Jesus was born. Mary gave birth to a baby who grows up and would go and preach “I am the living bread. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever.” (John 6:51)
I don’t know if you know the electro-pop songs by Haile Steinfield. (I am down with the kids!!) “I didn’t know that I was starving until I tasted you”
“I didn’t know that I was starving until I tasted you.
The more I know you the more I want to.
Something inside me has changed.
I was so much younger yesterday.
Don’t need no butterflies when you give me the whole darn zoo,
I didn’t know that I was starving till I tasted you.”
We live in a world that is starving for love and doesn’t even know it. We live in a very lonely world. A world where many of us will never have had our next-door neighbours inside our houses and where many people will never have had anyone inside their house.
The reason baking fresh bread sells a house is we are physical people. Physical things affect us. I have had you high five, fist bump and squeeze the shoulders of the people next to you. Little bits of human touch like that release a hormone called Oxytocin that lowers our heart rate and makes us healthier. And yet in our lonely society there are people who will not have received any human touch for days or weeks on end.
So, what has this got to do with Communion? What has it got to do with Abigail being inspired to care for those with HIV/ Aids on the streets of South Africa. Why was it that? Bishop Leonard stayed behind a prisoner of war just so he could celebrate the Eucharist with his fellow prisoners and why did that mean so much to them? Why has Lawrence found that this service has brought comfort to so many people over the years? Why?
The Eucharist tells us what kind of God, God is.
Jesus is not a God who stays safely in heaven with a phalanx of angel security guards between him and us while we sing songs at him from a distance hoping they are loud enough to reach his throne. Nor is Jesus a God who says to the dying beggar “don’t worry about the physical pain you are in- it doesn’t really matter because you’ll be dead soon and then you’ll be with me”
Would you want to worship a God who stayed safe and didn’t care about your physical difficulties? Would anyone?
The God of the broken bread is a God who gets his hands dirty. The God you will touch and taste on that altar is a God giving you a hug. Because a god who didn’t make himself present for you is a god who doesn’t really care. A stand-offish god. Not so the God of the bible. He is a God who hugs lepers, and who through that bread and wine that you touch and taste - hugs you now.
Jesus says: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
“Beloved, I received from the Lord what I also hand on to you”.
Amen.