More Supper with Lusk

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

Bread was used extensively in Old Covenant worship: grain offerings and the show offerings.

Baptism is a sacrament which speaks of pure grace. Water is not made by men and they contribute nothing to it. It is “nothing in my hand I bring”.

Bread is part of the good creation but it also requires human work transforming nature. Bread shows that God welcomes our efforts and works into the kingdom: human cultures are taken up into the kingdom. Bread is symbolic of our cultural endeavours as stewards and our faithful exercising of dominion over the world. The sacred – secular divide is shown to be a false dichotomy.

We receive the sacrament as gift but we also offer the bread back to God, grateful for his blessing on our work.

As Warfield and Kuyper point out, God’s original purposes for creation are fulfilled. Redemption brings creation to its goal. Kuyper can even call redemption accidental. There is an eschatology already built into Genesis 1 and 2: to bring the garden to a city, to bring humanity to maturity as a son, to make her a bride for Christ.

Samuel Johnson said animals take and eat but no beast is a cook. Man becomes human (civilised) with the breaking of bread.

We may decide to use leavened and unleavened bread at different seasons of the church’s year. Yeast speaks of the secret transforming growth of the kingdom, of hope. Unleavened bread speaks of Passover and of purity and may be appropriate to Lent.

A Biblical theology of wine: feasting and rejoicing, especially in victory and redemption and accompanying the coming of the Messiah. In the Old covenant worship no-one could drink: drink was poured out before the Lord. Worshippers always left the Old cult thirsty, but now with the promise fulfilled, God shares his cup with his people. Is 62: drinking wine in the courts of the sanctuary in the New Covenant. Old Testament priests could not drink wine while on the job but now we can rejoice in the work of the High Priest fulfilled. Jesus refuses to drink on the cross until his work is completed (just before in Jn, he says, “it is finished”) – Jesus will not drink the fruit of the vine until he drinks it again in the Kingdom. It is as if Jesus has taken a Nazarite holiness war vow as he does his special work.

The Supper is a wedding feast not a funeral ceremony. We are not just toasting a departed friend.

The vine is a picture of the people of God. Christ is the vine and his people are the branches.

Dt 14: drink wine in celebration of God’s goodness. New Testament worship should be even more festive than Old Testament worship since the OT saints only celebrated shadows whereas we celebrate the reality.

Gen 14: Abraham gives Melchizadek his tithe and Melchizadek gives Abraham the bread and wine – eating and drinking after victory.

Judges 9 even says that wine makes God glad!

Psalm 78: the holy warrior drinks a cup of wine and is ready to go into battle.

Wine is powerful stuff. Drinking it is a dangerous business. Drunkenness is a terrible wickedness that must be avoided. At the Supper we are trained in the right use of God’s gifts. The Lord’s Supper too is dangerous and must be used worthily if it is not to be the cup of wrath from which people drink condemnation on themselves.

The early Protestants were accused of being drunk with the joy of the forgiveness of sins.

Eating and drinking shows that the kingdom is here.

Just like the yeast, fermentation speaks of maturing, progress and transformation. The Old wineskins are burst. The gospel is no longer bottled up in Palestine. The cork is out and the Word is flooding the world.

Wine speaks of the blood of Christ. Wine is the blood of grapes according to Genesis.

The one food law in the New Testament is that we must do this: eat and drink bread and wine. We are not at liberty not to do this or to change the menu (e.g. to grape juice).

Peado-Communion:

The supper belongs to the baptised. It is for the whole covenant community: men, women and children. 1 Cor 12 – baptism and cup linked.

A new humanity must include every stage of human life. The whole creation (including children) is redeemable.

Covenant promises and practices always include children. Covenant succession is built in with the next generation sharing in the gifts / signs of the covenant.

Covenant children are regarded as believers, having faith in the Bible.

Jesus invited children into his presence. He surely wants them at his table.

Children are members of the body and we must rightly discern the body at the Supper. Presbyterian: examine yourself! We should not divide the body at the Supper. As Robert Rayburn says, peado-communion is fitting with a Reformed ecclesiology.

Peado-communion is the majority position in church history and dropped out because of transubstantiation. The Reformers failed to reintroduce it and did not really consider the arguments put forward today. We would not look to Calvin to find out whether or not we should use a PC or a Mac.

Anabaptists used the Reformed rejection of peado-communion as an argument against peado-baptism.

In 1 Cor when Paul speaks of examining oneself, he is clearly speaking to adult problems (such as drunkenness at the supper). If this text rules out children from the supper, by the same logic, children who do not work should not eat.

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The supper not only expresses faith but is formative of faith. Doing the supper remoulds us as our faith is embodied. The Supper norms covenant life and shapes the church.

The supper manifests gratitude for a gift. C.f. Rm 1.A restored human life is eucharistic.

The habit of thanksgiving spills over to our common meals.

The Supper is intrinsically social and irreducibly corporate – an antidote to individualism. Gathered worship with the Eucharist as its culmination is the centre of our life. There are no private communions. This is a family meal, a fellowship, communion with Christ and with one another. We manifest and learn our community life at the table and are trained in the manners of the kingdom here. We wait for one another and serve one another. We learn the culture of the New Jerusalem. Our unity is celebrated. Kingdom justice and economics are worked out.

The Supper is a sacrifice and meal of covenant renewal with God and with one another,

We become friends with God at the supper, his companions, those with whom he shares the bread.

The table is about peacemaking and reconciliation.

Do not excommunicate yourself. You are summoned to do this. We must not amputate the body of Christ, depriving it of one of its members.