It all began with Peter Pan - June 22 2025 Corpus Christi - Sarah Cooper

It all began with Peter Pan

I was 5, in the Scala theatre near Tottenham Court Road

I was captivated

I was lost

My love of the theatre began that afternoon

The greatest gift my mother gave me, or rather the second one…the other being my library ticket at the age of 3

Since then I remember oh so vividly

Performances of the world’s great plays and new ones destined to be so

The voices, the actors, the  sets, the lights, the national theatres, the fringe theatres

Arenas in which where my imagination has been fired, my heart moved, my soul uplifted

Peter Brook, the great  theatre director, includes an observation in his book The Empty Space

”when I leave the theatre I am not quite the same as when I entered”

and likens it to what he calls holy theatre

a place in which the blazing centre speaks… a  holy place in which we encounter  a greater reality

Today I want to speak of the holy theatre that is the Eucharist

Today we celebrate Corpus Christi

we revere the great sacrament , the great thanksgiving

which is the very core of our faith

the memorial of  Christ’s passion and the salvation of humanity

It is 1 of 2 paschal or dominical sacraments, of greater significance than other sacraments because they were ordained by Christ

 What is a sacrament?

The word is the Latin version of the Greek Mysterion

A hidden reality

A sacred rite

Sign of God’s grace

A theological truth symbolised

Invocation of the holy spirit

The mystery of faith

…holy theatre

And that is what it is

We can see the shape of the liturgy as similar to a piece of classical drama…Greek or Shakespearean

And we are drawn into the drama, into the blazing centre, just as we  are in a theatre

Act 1

·      mise en scene…bones of story, characters…

·      repent of our sins, cleanse ourselves to prepare to worship

Act 2 

·      the plot develops, we get a sense of the drama building

·      we listen to the word of God in scripture and a sermon, a theme emerges

Act3

·      a turning point, a dramatic climax…..nothing will be the same

·      we make peace, we give thanks, we remember, the bread and wine are consecrated, we share…… and nothing will be the same

Act 4

·      resolution, settlement, we leave

·      we thank and pray, we leave, charged with mission

We are not quite the same as when we entered

In the holy theatre we have glimpsed something, what Augustine called the visible sign of invisible grace

And this is a pattern we repeat, with the odd variation, every time we celebrate the service, as have generations before us, and we pray generations after us

We approach the pattern of the Eucharist having made peace with each other…and today’s fun fact….a step that had lapsed (the kiss of peace, from very very early days)  re introduced in 1950 by the Church of South India to overcome the caste divisions

It is a little Easter every time

We remember, we relive, we retell the story of Christ’s death and his resurrection

We do as he himself charged us to do

Take eat, this is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me

Drink this all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins: do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me

We remember, we look back, but we also look forward

Through the sacrament we feed ourselves and are charged to feed others

It makes the kingdom a present reality

And we leave, feeling a little bit different

And it is a drama

Don’t mean to diminish as mere theatre

But it is dramatic ritual, in both words and actions, and it draws us in, it compels us to pay close attention, the repetition of familiar words captivates us

Irenaeus, writing in the second century, said that patterned repetition is a way of establishing continuity with the past

But it also talks to us in the present and points us to the future

Think of the pattern of the liturgy, the unfolding of the theme, the story, the body language

The  holding up of the bread

The holding up of the wine

A holy theatre

The act is performed by an actor, the priest, directed by God through the holy spirit ….as described by the philosopher Kierkegaard…….and we are more than the audience, we are fellow actors as we are one body sharing in one bread

And this is the living bread upon which we feed and nurture our faith, wherever we are in our journey

Ritual of the act helps us experience religious worship as more than a cerebral activity

It enhances, it gives insight, it touches our soul

We hear the familiar words as if for the first  time

The rhythm may be familiar, and we slip into the pattern of the words, but there is  a moment, just a moment when we know we are in the presence of God

And that brings me to Camilla, whose baptism serves as an entr’acte in this great drama…a drama all in its own right.

The other one of the two great sacraments

This is truly a blessed day

And again we have a familiar pattern, we repent and renounce, we affirm our corporate and individual faith

We call upon the Holy spirit and we share in the joy of this very special sacrament

Camilla is beginning her journey of faith ..as we renew ours each Eucharist, to walk by the light of faith in the risen life of Christ

There may be few things sacred left in the world around us, but here in this holy theatre, we are changed, we catch just a glimpse

Being a Eucharistic community is, therefore, not simply about remembrance.  Neither is it a passive encounter, for partaking in the Eucharist requires active engagement because of the relationship that God has with his people…..we are fellow actors….. 

And it is integral that we do this together, that we share this, as we have done since the days of the early church

The liturgy is the complete drama of being the people of God

I believe our spirituality grows during the service …I can sense it

We hear the word of God

We give God thanks

We remember, we are renewed

We are nurtured, we are fed

We leave eager to proclaim his death until he comes again

I pray the words of our collect from the beginning of the service that

We know within ourselves and show forth in our lives the fruits of your redemption

And….. that we leave this service not quite the same as when we entered Amen