Fianl Helping of Lusk on Supper

Some jottings arising from Rich Lusk’s fourth and final Auburn Avenue Media lecture on the Lord’s Supper:

The Lord’s Supper is training in mission, hence the end of the old Latin service, “You are sent out” and the title “Mass”. The Supper prepares the church to die for the life of the world and take the way of servant-sacrifice, transforming the creation into the Kingdom. As we eat the body of Christ we become more and more like the body of Christ, scars and all. See Peter Leithart, The Kingdom and the Power, ‘After the Supper’ on the cultural effects of the Eucharist.

A eucharistic life shows hospitality. Show grace as God has invited us into his home and life and fed us. God’s life is a life of openness, generous welcome, joy, sharing, regardless of worthiness and merit. God feeds us lavishly, undeserving as we are. God’s incarnational ministry patterns our own word and deed ministry. (Mt 11) Words and deeds belong together and are mutually interpreting.

The upper room of Jn 13ff is a heavenly mountain top experience with a new law. Wash feet and fill bellies: that is our calling.

The Supper incarnated the love of Christ, as should we.

The Supper affirms the intrinsic goodness of creation, culture and dominion. William Temple rightly said that Christianity is the most materialistic of all religions – the most earthy and oriented towards creation. Cultural transformation is brought into the kingdom in subordination to Christ. Salvation is an escape from sin, not from the creation.

The supper shows us the sacramental possibility of the whole of life.

The supper calls us to responsible stewardship as we eat and drink to the glory of God.

The supper tells us that Christian life is fundamentally one of joy and victory. We are satisfied in God who feeds us with the best of things (his Son). Week after week God sets before us glorious excess. The supper is the most uncommon common meal. It is about a table not a tomb.

The supper promotes grace consciousness. If you feel unworthy to come, good: that’s why you need to come. The Supper is for weak sinners to feed on. It is in Jesus we have access to this holy food. Holy things for holy people. Those who are in Christ eat Christ. The table is not something you attain to. It is a gift from the beginning. The liturgy imposes gratitude on us.

A wrong view of the supper is a wrong view of the supper.

The Supper must be open to all baptised non-excommunicate Christians.

The Supper is the high point of the Lord’s Day, which is the high point of the weak: feasting & rejoicing.

The supper cries out to God in hope. We do this until he comes. Christ is both really present and really absent so there is a longing. We are fed and satisfied but still hungry. Like the people who have not yet entered the land we eat the fruit ahead of time. The Supper is a foretaste in the present of the future. The future has occupied the present. In blessing or curse the supper leaves its indelible mark on the world. Definitive and future eschatology. The supper shows us where history is going.

We supper empowers us for the wilderness journey and the conquest of the whole world.

The Bible is a food test, like Gen 2-3. Israel in the wilderness grumbling, Ex 32, Num 5, Christ’s temptation in the wilderness (Mt 4), 1 Cor 11. Adam in the garden is in the best of all conditions in a garden with all food to eat and fails the test; Christ is in the worst of all conditions in the wilderness with nothing to eat and passes the test.

Just as Scripture does not explicitly command a weekly sermon, it does not command a weekly supper but both are fitting. The Supper marks out the Lord’s Day as covenant renewal worship.

Biblical order of service: Lev 9: Summons, call to worship; Sin offering / confession & absolution; Whole burnt offering – the ascension / going up offering (as smoke in the cloud into the heavenly glory cloud) – consecration, praise, Word; Tribute offering – tithes and offerings; Peace offerings – eat; benediction and dismissal.

The temple show bread / face bread / bread of the presence was eaten by the priests every week.

Jesus abrogates animal sacrifices but not sacrifice.

The Bible does not say much about worship because it presupposes the OT liturgy.

Acts 20 – an upper room again.

Churches that have cut off the Lord’s Supper have usually invented some other way of responding to the word, such as an altar call.

The sermon is table talk, not an academic lecture but a father talking to his household.

Spontinaity is not the essence of sincerity.

Worship forms like dance steps must be learned. We need to feel at home in them. The Lord’s supper should be habitual virtue that becomes part of who we are and what we characteristically do.

An infrequent communion can make it more of a superstitious bid deal.