Trouble at the Table

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. 

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[1] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christian Spirituality, (Philadelphia:  The Westminster Press, 1983), p. 41.