This occasional letter is not about the risks that the financial pundits didn't understand when they were playing fast and loose with our money, nor about the fundamental changes that have to be put in place to prevent another crisis, world wide, in the future.

This piece is about risk and change which lie at the heart of everyone's life. It is only the few who risk their lives climbing the world's highest peaks, like Everest - shown in the picture. Risk, in the ordinary everyday circumstances of daily life is always countered by watchfulness, instilled from our earliest years - looking out for the traffic on busy roads, cycling along them, and in the 101 events of daily living. Change, when embarked on, can lead to a new outlook on life. even in the smallest ways - like re-arranging the furniture! Everyone knows about these hunches of risk and change. But now and again, in everyone's experience, we come across some aspect of life which we unconsciously regard as 'fixed', unchangeable, like what used to be called 'the law of the Medes and the Persians'! Religion is one such aspect of life. It has so much corporate tradition behind it - centuries of law making and obedience by generations who may never have thought about the need to make changes. Then when there is a climactic 'bust up', as happened in the 16th century, it is the larger issues which form the central charge of the explosion and other, hidden aspects remain as part of the corporate consciousness of religious tradition.

One of those largely neglected, traditional aspects is the layout and the intentions of Christianity's Eucharistic traditions. You will recognize a 'hobby horse' of mine! - but I am sure that, in the long term, change will necessarily occur here and will bring it's attendant risks. So, first of all, let us look at the historical background. We know little about how the Eucharist was celebrated in detail in the first two centuries. Until the 'peace' of Constantine in 313, Christians seem to have normally congregated in some person's large house or domus. In the fourth century, after 313, there was an influx of people into the church and basilicas in Roman towns began to be used, providing more space. Significantly there was an apse at one end. The bishop or priest would celebrate the eucharist in the apse, facing the people in the body of the basilica. From that day until the present, with significant variations in the 16th century Reformation, the layout has remained virtually unchanged. The difference at the Reformation is significant. In many reformed churches in Europe, the pulpit became the main focus rather than the altar. The people sat in serried rows in special stalls or seating and the pastor faced them. In both cases there is the sense of the people either just being present when the Eucharist is celebrated for them or as an audience receiving the teaching of the preacher. In the Eastern church, which did not have the 16th century reformation, the Liturgy of the Eucharist had an even more acute separation between priests and people so that today in many orthodox churches a screen, the Iconostasis, separates the priests from the people; much as the choir screen did in the medieaval churches in the West.

Secondly, what lies behind these practical arrangements for the celebration of Eucharist, is the idea that, for all intents and purposes, Jesus, the risen Lord is not the actual host of the celebration meal - despite what is said to the contrary. That idea goes back to the third century, to the North African church, in the time of bishop Cyprian, who began to promote the understanding that it is the celebrant, now definitely termed a priest, who celebrates for the people instead of with them as previously. We don't know the whole picture how this idea came about or how quickly it came to be accepted. There are certain indications that by the third century Christians were adopting ideas of altars and priesthood which they could see all around them in religious ceremonies of other religious groups. Then, at the 16th century Reformation in Europe, as has often been said, 'Old priest is new presbyter writ large!' - with, of course, quite different attitudes towards the Eucharist.

So the ideas, the thought, behind the layout of the practical arrangements of Eucharist in any of the churches, is that we come to make the 'remembrance' of Jesus, as the Last Supper dialogues relate - Do this in remembrance of me.

But here is another 'twist' in the narrative of the history of our worship. We do not have any evidence, until the late fourth century, that the narrative of the Last Supper was included in the Eucharistic prayer. Neither was there any mention of the death of Jesus as a sacrifice in that prayer until then. We know that the documents of the New Testament took some time to circulate in the Mediterranean. When they did, by the 350s and later, then the Last Supper narratives came to be included. Why? One reason is that by that date - some 300 years after Jesus' death and resurrection - what I might call the 'relational' aspects of worship had faded away. Perhaps it was inevitable that 'rite' in the shape of a formula to understand what was happening in Eucharist should take over from personal relationships with the risen Lord and ourselves. In any case, this outlook is what we have inherited today and both the arrangement of our churches - while there are exceptions - and the theology of Eucharist in our formularies, expresses the tradition dating from the fourth century. It is said that numbers can dictate how we 'do' the Eucharist. While that is true in the practical arrangements of the congregation, it is not true in the ideas that we have inherited with these arrangements in our churches.

What do I mean by 'the relational' aspect of the Christian Eucharist? If we take the occurrences of the risen Lord meeting with the disciples, for instance in the walk to Emmaus account in Luke or the breakfast by the lakeside in John, we are presumably seeing the origin of what we have called 'eucharistic' meals with Christ as the host. In John, the disciples had been fishing and met the risen Lord when they came to land and he said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord (John 21:12). While from the beginning this meal was called 'the breaking of bread', and so the bread became a source of communication with Jesus' life, in fact it is the actual relationships between Jesus and the disciples which express, in their succeeding eucharists, the meaning of their worship. In the formative years of the early Christian communities, Jesus, the transcendent, risen Lord, was regarded as present to them. This view lies behind all the major writings of the New Testament, particularly in Paul. So while Paul does know about the Last Supper and 'remembrance', his intention in 1 Corinthians 11 is not to lay down the form of a rite of Eucharist, but to plead for the meal to be orderly -

When you meet together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk ...So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another - if any one is hungry, let him eat at home - lest you come together to be condemned. (1 Corinthians 11:20-33)

The tradition which we have inherited both in the catholic and the protestant forms of the church, from the past centuries, tells us that the focus of eucharistic worship is in the bread and the wine in which we share in communion with Jesus. Yes, that communion is true, but the greater meaning lies in the fact that Jesus invites us at the outset to come and worship and is present in a transcendent presence - as he is in daily life - throughout. So he is the host and we are his disciples sharing with him in this extraordinary meal of love and communication, glory and thanksgiving.

As a footnote to this discussion before I pass on, it is interesting to consider the Last Supper not only, or even primarily, as one of the clues to Christian Eucharist, but also as the moment before Jesus' betrayal when, in an enacted parable, like one of the prophets, with bread and wine, Jesus points towards what is to happen shortly in his death. What is not often considered is that not even Jesus necessarily understood what was to happen after his death. So the Eucharist is really about the post-resurrection relationship with Jesus. The Father's raising of Jesus as the fore-runner of the new creation of the whole of humanity is, in the event, the total disclosure of all that Jesus had acted out in his life and death.

So what of the risk in thinking along these lines? At the monastery, celebrating Eucharist with the nuns at the Abbey, we were, in effect, laying the foundations of this change in orientation. We stood in a large circle in intimate relationship with each other, and with the risen Lord. But I remember a discussion right at the beginning in which there was concern that there was more to Eucharist than a meal. While accepting that concern I realised that there were yet more deeps to be explored in thought and study. Eucharist is worship-in-relationship with the Lord, present, and with one another in him. For the 38 years when we celebrated the Eucharist in this way, the theological concerns and details I have been writing about were only dimly perceived. The freedom of the past five years after we closed the monastery have provided the time to think more deeply and to study the texts and evidence of history. So, yes, there is risk in departing from the consensus of the past. But change in our Eucharist would enable us to reveal the heart of Christian discipleship which is faith in and commitment to Jesus the risen Lord. Worship, as I have often claimed, is about people rather than about 'rite', about duty, as something that we must perform. Change would enable relationship, both human and divine, to flourish naturally. Change, in whatever sphere, always includes risk. It is in the mind that we need to face the risk involved in a proposal to look for change, rather than in the emotions. Above all it is something that requires a long look, an unhurried prayerfulness, and love for one another.

John, in his meditation upon the meal in the wilderness, and also, most probably, upon the Eucharist that he knew in his community, wrote -

[The people said] "what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Lord, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst."(John 6:28-35)