I’ll never forget an incident in a COMMUNION service that I was leading some years ago.  With my congregation’s children’s choir and young acolytes, I was at in the chapel of a nursing home.  The choir sang for the residents, and then I was giving a brief meditation, before celebrating the Lord’s Supper with the elderly residents who had come. As I began that mini-sermon PRIOR to Communion, suddenly into the chapel wandered a patient obviously suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or senile dementia.  Before anyone could stop her, confused, she’d rushed up to the holy table.  And with one sweep of her arm, she’d KNOCKED TO THE FLOOR the whole tray of COMMUNION WINE!

        DISASTER!  A sickening noise as the tray HIT THE FLOOR and the tiny glasses all tumbled out, spilling into a great, crimson GUSH that kept on spreading!

    A cry rose from the congregation—and from my own lips and heart as well.  A moan of pure horror—almost ANIMAL-like -- such as I’d never heard in church before — and HOPE never to hear again!  Not only the residents but our visiting children from the church, too, were appalled!

    Quickly, quietly, a nurse led the confused patient away.  WHAT NOW?, I wondered.  Should I pronounce the Benediction then and there, and end the whole service?  Or should I go on with Communion and only serve the consecrated Bread?

    I decided, instead, to resume speaking, as if the incident had never happened.  Fortunately, no cups had broken when they fell.  (They were consecrated plastic, like the ones you use here!)  And as I continued with my meditation, an aide soon entered with a mop and bucket.  And she sopped up the pool of wine and retrieved the vessels.

    As I continued to speak, a dining attendant located a bottle of Welch’s unfermented in the nursing home pantry.  And by the end of my meditation, everything was back in place. We went on with the Sacrament.  But, you know, afterwards, strangely, I felt almost glad this catastrophe had happened!  That afternoon, you see, Communion seemed less perfunctory, more precious.

    “Why?” I wondered.  Then I realized it: in our sophisticated, modern churches, you and I tend to SANITIZE the Cross, to clean it up, make it less shocking — hence, less real!  It disturbs us to recall that Jesus wasn’t hung on a gold cross between two candles, but on a rough, wooden cross between two convicted felons!

    Please don’t get me wrong!  I’d never purposely have planned that horrible accident at the nursing home that day.  But the spilled wine really brought home to us the precious meaning of Christ’s sacrifice, the greatness of his love for us!  It made Communion that afternoon, for us, to use a wonderful word from the Second Helvetic Confession of the Presbyterian Book of Confessions, a real EUCHARIST—that is, a real sacrifice of PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING to Christ!

    TO SPILL THE WINE! — Friends, remarkably enough, our Psalm for today pictures for us a service of sacrifice in which the worshiper DELIBERATELY does JUST THIS! – A service in which the devout Old Testament Jew, in thanksgiving to God, ritually and deliberately POURS OUT a cup of wine as an ACT OF DEVOTION!

    Look for a moment at the words of this 116th Psalm.  Listen to our psalmist here—towards the end: 
    “What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”

    Bible scholars tell us that the “cup of salvation” here is the so-called “Kiddush cup,” still used in Jewish synagogues and devout homes today.  Not only did Jesus employ the Kiddush cup at the Last Supper, but the use of this vessel goes all the way back to the ancient Jewish Temple.  As part of a ritual sacrifice to God a priest would pour out  a chalice of wine over the altar.  The Jews called this a “libation,” or “drink-offering.”  And the fragrance of the poured-out wine, they believed, would please the Lord’s sense of smell!

    And, you know, the pagans of he ancient world observed a similar custom.  The Greeks usually ended their devotions to their gods and goddesses by pouring out a glass of wine.  In fact, the practice today of people, on very special occasions — say a wedding anniversary — sipping champagne and then dashing the crystal against the wall, or smashing it on the floor, is a survival of that custom!

    “What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me? –I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord . . . .”

    Just who IS our psalmist here, anyway? –We don’t know.  All we can tell is that apparently he once was in great danger but God has delivered him.  Perhaps he’d suffered some grievous disease, been sick nearly to death—and God had HEALED him.  Because, towards the beginning of the psalm, he cries, “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol (the PLACE of the Dead) laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.”

    But “Then I called on the name of the Lord . . . .”  And (our psalmist continues):  “You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling . . . .”

    Perhaps you, like me, have visited the old university city of Oxford, England.   If you stand on Broad Street there, you’ll see the so-called “Martyrs’ Monument” to three prominent English church leaders who were burned at the stake at the command of Queen Mary Tudor—the so-called “Bloody Mary”--for their Protestant faith.  Nearby in the pavement, a cross marks the spot where, in the Sixteenth Century, Thomas Cranmer, with the other two bishops, died.

    Surely Cranmer’s greatest gift to the world was the Book of Common Prayer.  And one of the most moving sections of that book is what he entitled, “The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth.”  Essentially it consists of prayers and Scripture selections that, for centuries, were read in English parish churches in the presence of each woman who’d recently become a mother.  And, very significantly, Cranmer purposely inserted this 116th Psalm into this special service:  “You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.”

    These words may not mean much to us who live in the age of modern obstetrics.  But just visit a 19th-century cemetery or even an early 20th-century one, and you’ll be amazed at the number of young mothers who lie there, having died giving birth, as well as the number of infants who lived only a few weeks or months.

    “You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.” – Now,  friends, in all HONESTY, can’t EACH ONE OF US here today make this same grateful confession?  You and I don’t have to have faced a life-threatening danger or disease, like our psalmist.  You and I don’t have to have experienced the pain and risk of a mother in childbirth!  No, in one way or another each of us here today, looking back on our lives at the narrow-escapes. at the roads NOT taken, at the temptations turned away in the nick of time, can confess:

    How can you and I show our GRATITUDE for such wonderful deliverance? –That’s EASY! –BY SPILLING THE WINE!  By seeing—REALLY SEEING—Christ’s blood poured out for us, in love, on the Cross—and THANKING God from our hearts!  By yielding our wills to him.  By giving the Lord our TIME, our TALENTS, our MONEY, OURSELVES!

    In our service on November 22nd — just TWO WEEKS from today -- you and I will blend two important themes:  Harvest Sunday (the Sunday before Thanksgiving Day), and our annual Stewardship Commitment Time for the coming year.   And yet, remarkably, BOTH really do mesh!  For on that day, when you and I sacrificially, in grateful devotion to the God who MADE us, BLESSES us, and continuously GUIDES and PROTECTS us, make our heartfelt promises and pledges to CHRIST and CHRIST’S CHURCH for the coming year, we are expressing our profound, heartfelt THANKSGIVING to Christ.

    Yes, “What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?” – “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”  Will you, today, on November 22nd, and EVERY day, resolve with me, to SPILL THE WINE?
 
Prayer:
    Gracious Lord, you have created us and have given us all that we own.  How can we possibly thank you?  What shall we return to you for all your bounty to us? In your mercy, cause us firmly to grasp “the cup of salvation,” and with hearts overflowing, ever to SPILL THE WINE in a continual, life-long sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise for your Son, who gave himself for us!
    Hear our prayers now: For your great Church throughout the world, in all its branches—and particularly for this congregation and those congregations and parishes represented here today; for peace among peoples and nations, split by ancient pride and wrongs remembered; for those who hunger for food both material and spiritual; for the friendless, the fearful, the burdened— particularly any in this holy place today who are heavily laden; for the sick; and for those who mourn.
    Finally, God of all eternity, accept our praises for our brothers and sisters who have gone before us into heaven, into your perfect rest and presence. For we make these and each of our petitions in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.