Our Service Speaks
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
October 26, 2025
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page (available for three weeks after the date of streaming).
With a couple of baptisms and All Saints Day approaching, I thought that rather than having a formal sermon this morning, it would be good to walk through how our Eucharistic service is designed to speak to us, guiding both our worship and our lives.
First off, although we normally only experience two, there are three formal parts to an Episcopalian Eucharistic service: the Liturgy of the Word, the Liturgy of the Font, and the Liturgy of the Table. With the Liturgy of the Font specifically being about baptism, we don’t enjoy it every week, but when we’re able to, the three sections are meant to hold equal importance and equal weight of balance, much like how the three Persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit—are each equal to one another in majesty, power, and authority, yet they’re still one, singular God.
Our service opens with the Liturgy of the Word. In that portion of the service, we gather together as one body, sing God’s glory, and, after you as a congregation authorize me, as representative of the Bishop, to continue the service, listen to God speak through passages from the Bible.
That authorization is a significant aspect of the polity and theology of the Episcopal Church. If I say, “The Lord be with you,” and no one responds, “and also with you,” the service is over. That’s because I, as a priest, only function under the blessing of you as the people. I’m essentially a facilitator and representative. Although the history of Christendom—the 1500+ years of Church as a branch of State in Western society—still tries to convince us otherwise, I have no authority apart from what you, God’s people, allow me. You, collectively, are the body of Christ. I am to function as your servant.
Back to the Liturgy of the Word, after we listen to what the Bible has to tell us, we encounter the sermon, wherein I or Phil or Jeannie or another preacher attempts to interpret the context of what we’ve heard while applying it to a modern setting. After that, we, as a Body, respond. If we have a baptism, we do that by proceeding to the Liturgy of the Font. If not, we continue the Liturgy of the Word by pledging ourselves to God through the words of the Nicene Creed; praying for the Church, the world, and one another; confessing our failures; and receiving absolution, a reminder of God’s continuing mercy and forgiveness.
When we do have a baptism, the Liturgy of the Font begins immediately after the sermon. This portion of the service begins with a previously baptized member of the congregation presenting—or “sponsoring,” to use the formal term—the person who wishes to be baptized. I, as both your and the Bishop’s representative, confirm the individual’s desire for baptism. After that, we move into the Renunciations—originally considered a form of exorcism[1]—and the individual vows. I then ask you as a congregation whether or not you’re willing to support this person throughout their new life in the Church.
This, again, is an emphasis of the authority of the people rather than the priest. I, in and of myself, am not solely responsible for this community; we, as a body, are. I do my best to guide and support, but our health and future depend far more on the collective congregation than on any one individual.
After the congregation expresses their willingness to support those to be baptized, the Church collectively renews our baptismal vows through a responsive variation on the Nicene Creed. Again, it’s important to recognize that the Creed is a pledge, not simply a list of ideas to which we collectively assent. To “believe”—or as I like to pronounce it when saying the Creed, to “be-lief”—means to swear fealty. So, “do you believe in” really means, “do you pledge yourself to”: “Do you pledge yourself to God the Father?” “Do you pledge yourself to Jesus Christ?” “Do you pledge yourself to the Holy Spirit?” Those are the questions to which we all respond, followed by a series of shorter inquiries regarding our desire and commitment to how that sort of loyalty should display itself.
Following the collective renewal of the Baptismal Covenant, instead of the Prayers of the People, we pray specifically for the candidates, offer thanks for the water of baptism, consecrate the water we’re using to God, and perform the baptism itself in the name of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In the Episcopal Church, we recognize any Trinitarian baptism from any Christian tradition. If someone who was baptized in another tradition wishes to formally join the Episcopal Church, I cannot baptize them, because we hold to the idea, from the letter to the Ephesians, of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”[2] In those cases, we “confirm” or “receive” the person into our branch of the Church rather than baptize them a second time.
After the baptism, the person receives an anointing with oil as a symbol of our collective priesthood of believers (aka, those who have pledged themselves to God), and we, collectively, welcome them into the body of Christ.
The Liturgy of the Font (or the Word) then closes with the Peace, which is a deeply misunderstood portion of our service. We tend to think of it as a time of greeting and hand-shaking, but the intent is far more serious than that. The point of the Peace is to make peace. The idea is that we find those with whom we disagree or those who may have sinned against us and pledge both forgiveness and unity. If you can’t think of a division you might have with anyone in the congregation, greeting one another is fine. But if you do have a grudge or problem with someone else, it’s important to find that person and resolve to set your differences aside before we move on to the Liturgy of the Table.
The Liturgy of the Table is what most of us think of when we hear the word “eucharist,” which simply means “thankfulness” or “giving thanks,” but technically, the entirety of the Liturgy of the Word, Font, and Table as a whole are the Eucharist. The Liturgy of the Table is actually more synonymous with the word “communion.”
This portion of the service technically opens with the Offertory, which isn’t actually about passing the plates or collecting money. The Offertory itself is the moment when representatives from the congregation bring forward the bread and wine. The idea here is that God has given us gifts—grain and grapes—and we humans, through creative ingenuity, transformed them into something greater—bread and wine. In gratitude for God’s gifts, we offer these new gifts back to God, trusting that God will once again return something greater to us—unity in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
After the Offertory, you, the collected Body, once again authorize me as a priest to represent you in this role. I function solely as your spokesperson and facilitator. So, like at the opening of the Liturgy of the Word, if I say, “The Lord be with you,” and no one responds, the service is over. That’s because, in our tradition, there is no such thing as “private communion.” Communion is inherently about unity within a group, not any one individual; therefore, I cannot proceed without your agreement.
Provided I hear, “and also with you,” I continue with a prayer called the Proper Preface and we move into the Sanctus—the “holy, holy, holy”—as a reflection of the worship of the angels before God’s throne in the books of Isaiah and Revelation. We then head into a recitation of God’s work throughout history, culminating in the Institution Narrative—the story of the Last Supper. In acknowledgment of those truths, we collectively respond with the Memorial Acclamation: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” We then ask God to sanctify the bread and wine, making them, for us, Jesus’ Body and Blood.
People have a lot of different ideas of what’s happening at that moment. Growing up Baptist, I lean more toward a Memorialist understanding—we’re following and reflecting Jesus’ example “in remembrance” of him. Those of you who grew up Roman Catholic may be thinking of Transubstantiation, the idea that, although the bread and wine have maintained their physical appearance as such, they have, in fact, become Jesus’ actual flesh and blood. The official position in most Protestant churches, including ours, is what’s called Real Presence. The bread and wine, though consecrated, remain exactly what they are—bread and wine. However, on a mystical or cosmic level, Christ has become specially and specifically present, allowing us to join with/in him as we partake.
Truthfully, it doesn’t really matter how anyone thinks it works, because the point is that we join together as one Body and one Creation. Upon receiving communion, we are no longer individuals left adrift in a senseless universe. We, collectively, are God’s presence of renewal in this world. We choose to no longer act for ourselves or our individual interests or desires; everything we do is now meant to glorify God and advance God’s reign.
But back to the service, after asking God to bless the elements, we proceed to the Doxology, concluded by the Great Amen, that all-caps “AMEN” just before the Lord’s Prayer. This is supposed to be the loudest part of the service—us joining our voices in confirmation and unity “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.”
Following the Great Amen, we boldly join in the Lord’s Prayer—we’re directly following Jesus’ example here, so no need to be shy! I then break the bread, which isn’t a moment where I’m somehow sacrificing Jesus again but a reminder that we’re eating of one bread rather than a bunch of individual bites or wafers. I offer you, the congregation, these physical reminders of God’s gift of love and forgiveness and unity with one another, Jesus, and all those loyal to him throughout the ages, and we partake in this present-day reflection of the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, the great feast celebrating God’s love and work as described in, once again, Isaiah and Revelation.
We then join our voices once more in a prayer of praise and thanks to God; I, as your representative, pronounce and remind us of God’s blessing, and the Deacon dismisses us to return to the world as what we truly are—God’s servants and apprentices of Jesus who are meant to spread, share, and invoke God’s reign throughout the Earthly Realm.
I used the phrase “return to the world” there intentionally. That’s because our entire service is actually a reflection of the End of the World or the End of Time. The bells ringing at the beginning stand as the trumpet of God, calling all to gather before God’s throne. Having come together, we hear God’s Word, make the effort to apply it to our lives—fully recognizing the gap between our actions and what God’s character truly is—and respond by pledging ourselves to God and praying for and reconciling with one another. We join in the Last Supper with Jesus, the Apostles, and all who have come before us and, in the process, find the Heavens themselves united with us on earth. Having experienced God’s Celestial Reign, if only for a brief time, much like in baptism, we then emerge as a New Creation, emissaries of God’s Kingdom and Christ’s love, spreading that light and joy throughout our present world.
I recognize I’ve gone a bit long this morning, but I think it’s important as we celebrate not only baptism but also All Saints Day—and our stewardship ingathering next week—that we remind ourselves of the deep realities of what we do here together. Our actions are not simply symbolic, nor are they strictly reminders of past events. They are our collective work, essentially the civic duty[3] of the Church throughout the ages.
Our service speaks, celebrating God’s continuing work even in our day, proclaiming our unity in Christ no matter where and when we may find ourselves, and commissioning us to live, both as a Body and as individual parts thereof, as that unifying, reconciling force that brings Creation to its ultimate consummation in God.
May we all learn to listen, and so may we all live!
[1] In the really old times, each renunciation involved slapping the baptismal candidate as a means of ensuring the devils or what have you being renounced truly left their body!
[2] Ephesians 4:5 | All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.
[3] Which is what “liturgy” means.