Episcopal worship is rooted in the idea that incarnation matters. When Episcopalians gather together to give thanks to God, we do so through sacraments—through physical signs of God’s spiritual grace. In some communities, we even posture our bodies in certain ways towards those sacraments or towards the altar that they’re celebrated on. We do that because for us, the Word of God has been made flesh in the Eucharist. We experience God’s living Presence whenever we come together to bless the earth-hewn elements of bread and wine and then receive those elements into our bodies. By doing so, we become little words of God enfleshed. We become Christ-bearers in the world.

Sadly, we live in a society that has a terrible habit of desecrating bodies. Many years ago, there were philosophers and even theologians who decided to separate the physical realm of reality from the spiritual. In doing so, they severed that of God from that of the earth. Then, as history played out, men were often associated with the spiritual or “greater” reality, and women were often associated with the physical or “lesser” one. 

In the same way, the earth became a commodity to exploit and was denied its rightful place as a bearer of the Sacred. This would also be done to those who had different pigments of color in their skin. The same separation has now been used to justify the marginalization of those who transgress gender norms and expectations of human sexuality. So in all of those ways, those who have been in power have abused the earth and its people. They have denied God’s goodness in creation and in themselves.

By participating in the Eucharist, however, we are reclaiming that creation is good and that embodied life matters. The Eucharist reminds us that we are not ethereal spirits floating around the void, but we are people who inhabit bodies—bodies that need physical nourishment to be sustained. Letting the Eucharist sustain us reminds us that God sustains us. It reminds us that the flesh and the spirit are woven together. They are, in every sense, part of the same whole. That’s why we often describe physical communion as a “sure and certain means” of God’s grace. The physical elements of bread and wine become Christ’s bodily offering to us and they unite us with him in his offering to the world.

The work of justice and inclusion that many Episcopalians participate in is actually an outpouring of that sacramental reality. When we work for racial justice, when work to safeguard women’s access to healthcare, and when we advocate for the full legal and religious inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community, we do so because embodied life matters. The Eucharist teaches us that every human body is sacred, regardless of its skin color or who that body chooses to love. All human bodies matter, because God has blessed them and called them good (Gen. 1:31). All bodies are equally capable of receiving and embodying God’s Presence to the world.

In the end, that’s why I felt called to be a “celebrant” of the Eucharist. As the late English priest Donald Allchin said in his book on Welsh poetry, I felt called to bless “the goodness that is latent in the world” and then lift up and celebrate that goodness for the sake of others (Praise Above All, p.6). To be a priest is to honor and celebrate that goodness, especially when it’s been forgotten, and to remind the world—through my embodies actions—that the physical world is irreversibly holy.