Edible Words

In Jeremiah 9:7 God promises to refine and test us, his people. One area of purification that God's people needed in Jeremiah's day was to know the difference between a superficial peace with each other and a heartfelt peace. On the surface they were at peace. They said nice things to each other. But below the surface they were boiling, looking for ways to trip each other up, seeking revenge for past wrongs and hurts. And as we still sin, this church will need purifying in this way just as much as God's people did in Jeremiah's day.

In his first preface to communion in the book of common prayer, Thomas Cranmer writes this about the communion meal: "...[it] being so divine and comfortable a thing to them who receive it worthily, and so dangerous to them that will presume to receive it unworthily"

It might seem strange to us today that eating bread and drinking wine could be divine and comfortable for some people and dangerous for others. How are we to be worthy to eat?