Rev Malcolm J. Duncan FRSA

When a tone deaf world hears Christ’s Melody of Hope through us, we re-member Him. When a dying world sees a Vibrant Church, we re-member Him. We are a thankful community in so far as we are a community that remembers.

When a broken world sees a United Church, we re-member Him. When a fractured world sees a Healing Church, we re-member Him. When a world that has forgotten how to sing sees a Singing Church, we re-member Him.

Perhaps that is another reason Jesus said ‘Remember me’? in the act of thankful worship our shards of life are put back together. We re-discover our humanity in worship. We are re-membered. As we live in thanks as the Church, we re-constitute His Broken Body to a broken world.

A Eucharistic Community. Recreated by mercy, reformed by thanks. Our broken pieces put back together again as we eat the broken bread. Our spilt lives restored as we drink the cup, a symbol of spilt blood.

Imagine it- at the centre of the centre of our worship is thankfulness! This is the DNA of our life together. This idea is what defines, refines and recreates us. In the Eucharist, we find ourselves again.

And perhaps above all this thankfulness is expressed in the meal that lives as the beating heart of Christian community in our services of Communion or Breaking Bread or Eucharist. The last is my favourite nomenclature - because it is rooted in a word that means ‘thankfulness’.

We align ourselves with gratitude as we hear the Story that shapes all stories, and we join the ancient cry, ‘Give thanks to The Lord, for He is good and His mercy endures forever.’

We speak our thanks in the stories we tell: of Light that led us home; Comfort that carried us through the darkness; Hope that held us in the winter of despair and Strength that imbued us in the midst of our weaknesses.

We express our thanks in song, whether we join the ancient Hebrew rhythms of psalmody, lift our voices with Watts and Wesley, harmonise with Sankey and Crosby or enter the beauty of the melodies of Hillsong or Elevation.

Christian community has thanksgiving at its very heart. We are a thankful community and our gratitude grows from the ground of grace. Our roots push into the deep, nourishing, soil of our Saviour’s mercy.