The epiklesis is the magic moment of the Great Thanksgiving. It is the great crescendo of the service of Holy Eucharist. It is the “shhh, everybody, shh! Here it is!” moment of the preparation of the table for communion.

The prayer, which begins in a great gathering, tells of the great story, and reminds us of Jesus’s command to his disciples to break bread and remember, drives to a moment, this moment, when the presider prays to GOD for the Holy Spirit to come down and bless the sacred elements.

That moment, of calling the Holy Spirit is called the epiklesis. It takes many forms in different Eucharistic Prayers, but the clearest one has to be Prayer B in the Book of Common Prayer:

We pray you, gracious God, to send your Holy Spirit upon
these gifts that they may be the Sacrament of the Body of
Christ and his Blood of the new Covenant.

There is a very clear call: GOD send that Spirit of yours down to change this stuff!

Epiklesis (also spelled epiclesis, but I prefer the K, because with the C it seems so anglicized) is Greek for invocation, so it is the invoking of the Holy Spirit. Which, to be honest is a pretty big deal. Funny, then, that not all Eucharistic Prayers have it.

Say Whaaaaatt?

In the old days (like the really old ones, the ones so old we call them “ancient” as opposed to the old days for 30 years ago) it was normative in much of the church. Over time, in “The West” (which at this point, really means Europe), and particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, the emphasis for the Spirit’s movement in the Great Thanksgiving came earlier, in the Words of Institution. This became the more common practice in the West and yet a separate epiklesis remained in the East.

Interestingly, the practice of using a separate epiklesis was a part of the Scottish Episcopal Church. When the founders of the Episcopal Church went seeking support, they got it through the Scottish Episcopal Church. As a condition of their support, they required that we include the epiklesis in our liturgies.

This is actually a pretty deep-rooted divide, that, to be honest, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It makes me think of the fight over women’s rights. When the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was put forward, it was an attempt to grant equal rights and protection to women. The primary argument against it was that we don’t need to spell it out: it is implied in the existing laws.

Meanwhile, women still are discriminated against and rights are not equal under the law.

The notion of the epiklesis, the invoking of the Holy Spirit spells out a direct calling of the Spirit. The Words of Institution are a paraphrase of something Jesus said. I might get my Catholic punch card revoked for saying this, but when a priest says “here’s what Jesus said” I don’t think “the cracker has changed!” I think, “yes, soon the cracker will change!”

These words no more invoke the Spirit (in my understanding) than the words of Jesus’s sacrifice invoke another crucifixion.

A different argument is much more persuasive.

One Big Magic Moment

As we’ve already highlighted the debate between whether or not we remember or it really becomes Jesus, and now the debate about where we might be saying the magic happens, there is another option. There is no magic moment. Or more precisely, there is no one magic moment. It is all a magic moment.

A bit of the Reformed tradition makes some sense here.

If we regard the power of the gathered community (or the Priesthood of all believers, if you prefer) to invoke the Holy Spirit, then we must suggest there is a possibility that our coming together brings the Spirit into our presence. For, as we regularly say in worship: “Whenever two or three are gathered, you will be in the midst of them.” It doesn’t say, Whenever two or three are gathered you’ll be waiting by the phone to be called down.

So in this way, the epiklesis is unnecessary because the Holy Spirit is already there. But not because of the Words of Institution, but because we have prayed together.

If we believe this to be the case, then the Magic Moment is unnecessary, so more importantly, knowing when the magic moment occurrs is absolutely unnecessary and quite useless.

I still like it

I don’t know about you, but I still like the epiklesis. Even if it is redundant. Even if it can piss off the Catholics. The fact that we think something happens to the bread and wine kind of pisses off the Protestants.

In seminary we were enamored of the epiklesis, my buddies and I. For us, it wasn’t about the intellectual debate about the Spirit’s presence with us. We got that the Spirit doesn’t work like that. What was powerful for us was that GOD would want us to interact with the Trinity by asking for help. Not like GOD as a divine butler so much as forcing us to deal with our need for self-reliance. That we would need to share with GOD in such intimacy as asking.

And that the Spirit would also come to us. That GOD isn’t distant and unknowable or that GOD’s presence would be undefined, but that we would have some other thing. Some thing that feels so sacramental, so like the other things. That the Spirit is experiential and demands an experiential event.

A call to come on down. Come to the event. We’ve made room.

Ask Yourself

How do these specific moments work in my worship? In my prayer life? Do I call? Do we? Do we expect? Do we not really believe?

How does our worship function around these ideas? Do our people feel like they are part of invoking the Spirit? Are they in on the epiklesis? Or are they on the outside, watching?

Do I even do an epiklesis? Is it part of my practice? What would it be to participate in a worship that is different from my preferred practice? Am I allowed?

Are the elements of the Eucharist (these pieces, like the work of the Words of Institution and the Epiklesis or the dispute over real presence versus the remembrance) the real sticking point between true Christian unity or is it something else?

If my tradition has both the Words of Institution and the Epiklesis and needs to get rid of one of the two, which would I rather cut out and why? What would it be to be forced to cut out the other one instead? If my tradition doesn’t have both, what would it be to switch which one we do?

 

[This is Day 26 of How to start deconstructing church. The next in the series is “Nicene Creed”. To start from the beginning, read the introduction here.]