The Sacrament: An Honor of Remembrance, Not a Moment of Fear

Good Morning Creeker.

Today I want to speak about something that has become very personal to me: the sacrament, remembrance, fear, and what it means to recognize the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives.

I was born into the covenant. I grew up taking the sacrament. As a little girl, it was simply part of what we did on Sunday. The bread came down the row, I took a piece. The water came down the row, I took a cup.

When something has been part of your life for as long as you can remember, sometimes you know how to do it long before you comprehend why you do it.

I have never denied Jesus Christ.

But there was a very long period of my life when I did not take the sacrament.

Those are two different statements.

And today I can appreciate that difference in a way I couldn’t have understood as a little girl.

Knowing the Difference

Sometimes we comprehend something by experiencing its presence and its absence.

When you have always had something, you don’t necessarily know what it feels like without it.

I needed to understand for myself what my relationship with Jesus Christ meant—with the sacrament and without regularly partaking of it.

And what I learned was that Christ did not abandon me.

That doesn’t diminish the sacrament for me. It makes the sacrament more meaningful.

Jesus Christ wasn’t waiting inside the chapel for me to come back.

He was with me in my life.

He was there while I learned.

He was there while I made choices.

He was there when I succeeded.

He was there when I failed.

He was there while I questioned.

And He was there when I came back to the sacrament with a completely different comprehension of what I was doing.

I wasn’t simply doing what the little girl had always done.

I was choosing it.

There is a difference between habit and choice.

There is a difference between being told something is sacred and discovering why it is sacred to you.

And there is a difference between fear and reverence.

Listen to the Sacrament Prayer

Moroni gives us the words of the sacrament prayers.

In Moroni chapter 4, we hear that we partake in remembrance of the body of Jesus Christ and witness unto God that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of His Son, always remember Him, and keep His commandments.

And then comes the promise:

“That they may always have his Spirit to be with them.”

Listen to that.

Always have His Spirit to be with them.

That isn’t a message designed to frighten me.

It is a message about relationship.

It is remembrance.

It is covenant.

It is companionship.

And then Moroni chapter 5 gives us the prayer over the wine—the water in our practice today—and once again ends with essentially the same promise:

“That they may have his Spirit to be with them.”

Twice.

Maybe we should pay attention to that.

The sacrament isn’t saying:

Be afraid.

It is saying:

Remember Him.

Passing the Sacrament Is Service

That has also changed how I see the person passing the sacrament.

Think about what that young man is actually doing.

He isn’t standing there to judge the person receiving the tray.

He isn’t there to determine what happened in somebody’s life that week.

He isn’t carrying punishment down the aisle.

He is serving.

Someone has prepared the bread and water.

Someone has blessed it.

And then another person carries it from one human being to another.

There is something beautifully nurturing about that.

The person passing the sacrament temporarily accepts the responsibility of making sure somebody else can receive it.

That should be an honor.

And receiving it shouldn’t have to be a moment of fear.

There can certainly be humility.

There can be repentance.

There can be tears.

There can be reflection.

There can even be recognition that we need to change something.

But none of those things requires terror.

Moroni later teaches:

“Perfect love casteth out all fear.”
—Moroni 8:16

Christ’s invitation doesn’t need intimidation.

Ancient Words and Human Comprehension

This brings me to another thing I’ve been thinking about.

The Book of Mormon describes people living in a world very different from ours.

Mormon 1:19 speaks of:

“sorceries, and witchcrafts, and magics.”

Those words can sound strange to modern ears.

But think about our own world for a moment.

I can hold a little piece of glass in my hand and speak to somebody thousands of miles away.

I can ask a computer a question and receive information almost instantly.

A doctor can look inside a human body without cutting it open.

We can put a machine into the sky, fly across a continent, and arrive somewhere that once required months of travel.

Show a smartphone to somebody from two thousand years ago.

What words would that person use?

We have technology because we have a knowledge base that explains technology.

Someone without that knowledge base would have to describe what they witnessed using the vocabulary and comprehension available to them.

That doesn’t mean an iPhone is magic.

It means human beings describe what they encounter through what they presently understand.

That is one reason I try to read ancient scripture carefully.

I want to hear what the prophets are teaching without pretending that my twenty-first-century vocabulary and their ancient vocabulary are necessarily identical.

The Test Is the Fruit

Fortunately, the Book of Mormon gives us something much more important than vocabulary.

It gives us a way to examine what something produces.

Moroni 7 teaches us to judge that which invites and entices us to do good, to love God, and to serve Him as being inspired of God.

That gives me something practical.

Instead of being consumed with:

What do people call this?

I can ask:

Where does it lead?

Does something encourage me to love?

Does it encourage me to serve?

Does it encourage honesty?

Does it encourage repentance?

Does it encourage me to remember Jesus Christ?

Does it respect another person’s agency?

Or does it depend upon intimidation, secrecy, manipulation, domination, or fear?

Those questions matter to me much more than labels.

Christ Doesn’t Need Fear to Hold My Attention

I don’t need to be frightened into remembering Jesus Christ.

I don’t need someone to threaten me with what will happen if I don’t believe.

I believe because I have lived long enough to recognize His influence in my own life.

And that brings me right back to the sacrament.

When that tray reaches me, I can see something completely different than I saw as a little girl.

The little girl knew:

Take the bread.

The woman can ask:

Do I remember Him?

The little girl knew:

Take the water.

The woman can hear:

“That they may have his Spirit to be with them.”

The little girl participated because this was what her family and congregation did.

The woman gets to exercise her agency and say:

I choose Jesus Christ.

That is profoundly different.

Agency Makes the Covenant Meaningful

The restored gospel teaches the importance of agency.

Our Father in Heaven doesn’t need robots.

A covenant has meaning precisely because we can choose whether to make it and whether to honor it.

Jesus Christ repeatedly invites.

Come unto me.

Follow me.

Remember me.

Repent.

Love one another.

Serve one another.

Those are invitations that require action, but they still leave room for agency.

And perhaps that’s something we should remember when we administer the sacrament to one another.

The young person carrying that tray is serving someone else’s agency.

He brings it.

He presents it.

And the individual chooses.

There is dignity on both sides of that exchange.

Always Remember Him

I’ve also come to understand that always remembering Him reaches far beyond Sunday.

If I take the sacrament and forget Christ the moment I walk out of the chapel, I’ve missed something.

Remembering Christ happens Monday morning.

It happens when somebody frustrates me.

It happens when somebody needs help.

It happens when I’m deciding whether to speak or remain silent.

It happens when I need to repent.

It happens when I need to forgive.

It happens when I’m alone.

It happens when nobody else knows what choice I’m making.

Sunday gives me an opportunity to stop and deliberately remember what I’m supposed to carry into the rest of the week.

The sacrament isn’t the end of my relationship with Christ for the week.

It is nourishment for continuing it.

What My Absence Taught Me

I would never tell another person that they need to stop taking the sacrament to understand it.

That was my experience, not a prescription for somebody else’s life.

But I can testify about what my experience taught me.

After living for years without regularly partaking, returning has allowed me to recognize something I couldn’t recognize in exactly the same way as a child.

I know why I am reaching for that bread now.

I know why I am reaching for that water.

I know who I am remembering.

And I know that Jesus Christ wasn’t absent from all those years between.

That makes the words “always have his Spirit to be with them” extraordinarily meaningful to me.

An Honor, Not a Fear

So when I watch the sacrament being prepared, blessed, passed, and received, I want to remember what is actually happening.

Someone prepared something for another person.

Someone prayed.

Someone carried it.

Someone received it.

Someone remembered Christ.

That is service.

That is agency.

That is covenant.

That is community.

And that is why I believe passing the sacrament should feel like an honor, not a fear.

Receiving it should be an opportunity to remember Christ, not an opportunity for another human being to intimidate or judge us.

And when the tray moves on to the next person, Christ’s invitation moves with it:

Remember me.

The bread will be eaten.

The little cup will be emptied.

The meeting will eventually end.

But the promise doesn’t end at the chapel door:

“That they may always have his Spirit to be with them.”

That is the part I want to carry home.

I know Jesus Christ differently today than I knew Him as a little girl.

But He is the same Christ.

And today, when I partake of the sacrament, I don’t do it simply because I always have.

I do it because I choose to remember Him.

I do it because I comprehend the invitation differently.

I do it because I recognize the privilege of covenant.

And I do it knowing that the gospel of Jesus Christ calls me toward faith, repentance, remembrance, service, agency, and love—not toward living my life afraid.

I leave these thoughts with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.