Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face,
Here would I touch and handle things unseen;
Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon Thee lean.
Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
Here drink with Thee the royal wine of heaven;
Here would I lay aside each earthly load,
Here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven.
Horatio
Bonar (1808-1889)
Movements in history do not
last indefinitely. The energy and
enthusiasm from the early days of change wane over time. Reforms can lose their freshness as they are
institutionalized by social groups that emerge from the movement. Coupled with the threat of
institutionalization, competing interests from the old order subvert or even
attack efforts to spread the influence of new ideas.
It was a revived Catholic counter-punch to the
Protestant Reformation that led Prince Philip of Hesse to call for a “meeting
of the minds” between Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli in the fall of
1529...
...What Have We Lost at the Table?
My critical view of Ulrich
Zwingli has softened over time. In my
journey regarding the Lord’s Table, I had considered him a villain of sorts,
the primary culprit responsible for my impoverished conception of
Communion. In truth, my view is still
probably more Zwinglian than Lutheran.
But within the memorialist view, where the elements remain simply bread
and wine, there is a pressing need for renewal in order to recapture what we
lost in the polarized debate of the Reformation.
The corporate emphasis of the
Lord’s Table found in I Corinthians 11 and strongly affirmed in Zwingli’s
teaching is frequently missing in the practice of non-liturgical churches. I had always been taught and assumed that the
purpose of examining oneself prior to Communion, as Paul urged (I Cor.
11:27-30), was to confess the sins that we had committed prior to partaking of
the elements. Indeed, I asserted as much
in a theological paper that I submitted while I was in school. The professor’s comment, “Oh, really?” sent
me back to the biblical source.
The central question in self-examination
is what it means to partake of the bread and cup “in an unworthy manner.” Several commentaries on the passage reflect
the same idea that I had been taught, that of testing one’s heart attitude
regarding our relationship with Christ and an attentive approach to the
Table. We should not come in a cavalier
manner. Certainly, the nature of the
rite demands our care. Reverence may be
implied in the passage, but Paul’s concern was primarily focused on the
dysfunction of the community. The larger
context of the passage, including the whole intent of the epistle, was to
correct the division that was present in the gifted but immature church. That lack of unity and concern for others
manifested itself when worshippers came to the Lord’s Table. The apostle excoriates the gluttony and
hoarding of food by those who are wealthy because they excluded those who could
bring nothing to the meal. His language
is strong: “What? Is it really
true! Don’t you have your own homes for
eating and drinking? Or do you really
want to disgrace the church of God and shame the poor?” (v. 22a, NLT). Paul’s reference to “honoring the body of
Christ” (v. 29) is first a reference to life together. The entirety of the next chapter in the
epistle is devoted to clarifying the meaning of that metaphor.
The experience of many in
non-liturgical traditions like mine is intensely personal, even to the
exclusion of the community. People
protested when I instituted singing of hymns during the distribution of
elements at one of the churches I served.
For them, singing was a distraction from their personal reflection and
self-examination. And they were right in
raising that objection, since they understood the rite solely as interaction
between the Lord and themselves personally.
I brought corporate singing into the rite because it is one way to bring
people together in community. But for my
protesting individualistic worshippers, it intruded on their private
contemplation.
We will never be worthy to come
to the Table of the Lord. We approach
because Christ has always welcomed sinners.
We come at his invitation. Paul’s
emphasis, however, is that we need to examine ourselves to see if we are truly
acting in love towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. It is no coincidence that Paul elevates love
above all Christian gifts and virtues in the context of his instructions on the
Table (I Cor. 13). Theologian Wolfhart
Pannenberg explains the Apostle’s emphasis:
When
Paul warned against unworthy
communion (I Cor. 11:27ff.) he was not concerned with the intrinsic moral
condition of the individuals and with a corresponding need for confession and
absolution prior to Holy Communion, but rather with a lack of appreciation for
the communal implications in the celebration of the Eucharist. Forgiveness of sins is exhibited in the
Eucharist itself. Therefore, it obscures
the meaning of the Eucharist to make absolution a prior condition for
participation. One should be concerned
with the social obligations following that participation.[1]
If we truly understood and
practiced Paul’s teaching, I wonder whether we would not have more peace within
our churches. “Forgive us our debts, as
we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12). The sobering words of the
Lord’s Prayer bring the Apostle’s teaching into clear focus.
Probably
the greatest loss that developed through Zwingli’s memorialist approach is that
our focus at the Lord’s Table can be too limited. The Reformer conceptualized the rite as a
memorial of the Lord’s death. In
practice, memorialists focus their meditation on Christ’s crucifixion during
Communion. Certainly, Christ’s death is
the hinge point. But such an approach
diminishes the full meaning of the Table. Biblical scholars debate whether or
not the meal that Christ shared with his disciples and during which he
instituted the Lord’s Table was the Passover meal. Whether it was an actual Seder meal is not
critical. As Christ superseded the
Temple and the Torah, so he also intended the meal that he ordained with his
disciples to be the New Passover. Paul
identified Christ himself as our Passover (I Cor. 5:7) and the early Christians
demonstrated the same understanding through their practice.
When we recognize the Lord’s
Table as our Christian Passover, its meaning is not limited just to Christ’s
death; it is the whole Christ Event – his incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection,
and ascension – that we celebrate. It is
not just his death that has freed us from the bondage of sin and death (just as
the Exodus freed the Israelites from bondage in Egypt and implanted a national
identity within them) but rather the entirety of Christ’s work.
The preceding excerpts are from Chapter 2 of Strategic Portraits: People and Movements that Shaped Evangelical Worship. You can order your copy of the full book at Amazon in print or Kindle formats.
[1] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christian Spirituality, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983), p. 41.
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