A Meal With Jesus

This new book from Tim Chester sounds really interesting: a Biblical theology of food, meals in the life of Jesus, the Lord's Supper, the Wedding Supper of the Lamb and how we might use meals in evangelism. Chester suggests that one of the great things about sharing meals with people is that it doesn't involve adding anything else to the schedule: we have 21 ready made opportunities each week to eat with people.

Feasts

The principal Feasts which are to be observed in the Church of England are:

Christmas Day
Epiphany
the Annuniation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Easter Day
Ascension Day
Whitsunday or Pentecost
Trinity Sunday
All Saints' Day

(Canon B6.2)

The Holy Communion shall be celebrated in every parish church at least on all Sundays and principal Feast Days, and on Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday.

(Canon B14)

Communion Card

Here's the text you need for the congregation to be able to say their bits in the Communion part of the Holy Communion service in the Common Worship version of The Book of Common Prayer service in contemporary language. The Confession is a permited variation.

Confession

Almighty God, our heavenly Father,

We have sinned against you,

Through our own fault,

In thought, and word, and deed,

And in what we have left undone.

We are heartily sorry,

And repent of all our sins.

For your Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,

Forgive us all that is past;

And grant that we may serve you in newness of life

To the glory of your name. Amen.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them up to the Lord

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God

It is right to give him thanks and praise.

… we proclaim your great and glorious name,

for ever praising you and saying:

Holy, holy, holy Lord,

God of power and might,

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us,

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

Outward sign

Calvin defines the sacraments as "outward signs". One of the most striking things about the Supper, however, is that the bread and the wine very obviously go "inward"!

Weekly Communion

From Keith Mathison's review of Thomas R. Schreiner and Matthew R. Crawford, eds., The Lord’s Supper: Remembering and Proclaiming Christ Until He Comes (Broadman & Holman, 2010) available on The Gospel Coalition website.

James M. Hamilton Jr. is tasked with looking at the Lord’s Supper in Paul. His thesis is that “Paul’s words in 1 Cor 11:17–34 explain that the Lord’s Supper is a proclamation of the gospel made by those who embrace the gospel, those whose identity is shaped by the gospel” (p. 68). Most of the chapter is a fairly standard commentary on the Eucharistic texts in 1 Corinthians, with primary emphasis on chapter 11. I only wish more space had been devoted to 1 Corinthians 10:16–17. Interestingly, Hamilton makes a strong argument from Paul for weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. Responding to one potential objection, he writes, “If it is objected that this would diminish its significance, my reply is simply that those who make this argument typically do not claim that weekly observance diminishes the significance of the preaching of the Word, the prayers of God’s people, the singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and I doubt they would be disappointed to have weekly baptisms!” (p. 101) As I have argued myself for weekly observance, I can only encourage Hamilton in this effort.

...

The final chapter in the book, by Ray Van Neste, answers a number of practical questions about the observance of the Lord’s Supper in the context of the local church.... ...he argues strongly for weekly observance of the Supper (pp. 370–4).

(emphasis added)

Pagan Eucharist

I heard a report on Radio 4 this morning of a pagan wedding service where, amongst other things, the couple ate bread and drank mead to represent the body and blood of the earth. The reporter mentioned that the rituals seemed largely to have beeen borrowed.

Extended Communion

It is worth noting that in a manner of speaking, every Communion is an extended communion. No one communes at exactly the same time and place as the President.It is all a matter of degree: how far away and how much delay are tolerable?

It is interesting to ask what difference being in the same building makes. What if there were an overflow of people to the church yard or church hall? Or down the road? Or if there were a video-link set up to those places?

Although I can see that people might dislike the idea, I wonder what possibilities modern technology might offer for extended communion e.g. for the housebound? Someone watching the service on a lap top would then recieve the elements in the same way as everyone else, only with a slightly longer delay? They would participate more fully in the corporate worship than at present. (They could down load service sheets and hymn words etc.) The same could be done for a sick family? Or for a congregation in another church?

(Admittedly, more presbyters would be a better solution!)

Virtual Communion

"A retired Methodist minister is to use Twitter to conduct Holy Communion - with his online flock taking bread and wine in front of their PCs. The Rev Tim Ross will tweet out the lines of the Eucharist next month to his 357 followers, and says participants can tweet back "Amen". He hopes that it will unite the faithful across the world. 'Where it could lead, who knows? Maybe one day to a baptism by Facebook,' he said."

From The Times, Monday July 26 2010, p.9

One of the potentially many problems of this would be that they will not partake of one loaf (1 Cor 10:17).

How wrong can one man be?

According to Jonathan Bonomo, by the end of his review of J. W. Nevin’s The Mystical Presence, Charles Hodge had charged Nevin’s system with being nearly identical to or at least tending towards the following heterodox views at one point or another:

(1) Schliermarchian Mysticism

(2) Rationalism

(3) Pantheism

(4) Socinianism

(5) Eutychianism

(6) Mothelitism

(7) Romanism

(8) Sebellianism

Of course Nevin would not have recognised this description of himself. And Bonomo suggests number of these errors are mutually exclusive. As he says, no doubt Hodge would have said that Nevin was hopelessly confused.

In the light of this onslaught of accusations, Bonomo agrees with Gerish that Hodge employed an “essentially hostile hermeneutic” Tradition in the Modern World, p62.

Jonathan G. Bonomo, Incarnation and Sacrament: The Eucharistic Controversy Between Charles Hodge and John Williamson Nevin (Eugene, Wimpf and Stock, 2010) pp93-94

This our sacrifice of thanks and praise

The communicants are to receive (rather than offer) the consecrated bread and the wine “with thanksgiving”[1] (Eucharist) and it is after the Communion that they ask the Father “mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of thanks and praise.”[2] Again, as with Calvin, this is a non-propitiatory sacrifice. It might be debated whether or not the Supper itself or the elements in it are included. The statement could refer only to the prayer which now expresses praise or to the whole service, or to something in between. If, properly considered, all of life is a sacrifice of thanks and praise to God, it would be bizzaire to think that the Lord’s Supper alone is excluded. Whether or not it is in any sense a special sacrifice of thanks and praise is another question. Perhaps it might be seen as a focal point for offering all of life to God in grateful thanks for all that has been received from him. The believer would be giving back to God what God has given. The Prayer Book and Articles do not decisively adjudicate on such questions.

---

[1] BCP, Holy Communion, words of administration, p256.

[2] BCP, Holy Communion, p257.

Jovial Communion?

C. S. Lewis argued that modern people and Christians particularly need to regain Joviality (and Mercuriality).

It may be that the Lord's Table is a place we can particularly re-learn Jupiter's strange combination of serious kingly dignity with laughter, joy , happiness and pleasure - a proper solemnity that is not dower.

"Bread! Me!"

The boy is repeatedly asking to be admitted to the Lord's Table.

The Holy Spirit

I reckon George Smeaton's book, The Holy Spirit (Banner of Truth, 1882, repr 1958) might be worth dusting off.

I liked this:

The exalted Christ continuously acts for the Church's good by His Spirit through the Word.

And his distinction between Christ's omnipresence and his gracious presence, according to his relations with His people.

pp238f cited in Maclean, Lord's Supper, pp184-5.

Converted at the Ordinacne

Tim Keller encourages pastors to say to non-Christians who might be present at the Supper:

If you are not in a position to take the bread and the cup, then take Christ! It is the best possible time to do business with him, no matter your spiritual condition or position.

Worship by the Book ed Carson (Zondervan, 2000) p234, cited in Maclean, The Lord's Supper, p181.

Sursum Corda

On the exhortation to Lift Up Your Hearts at the Supper, see:

John Calvin, 'Form for Administering the Sacraments' in Treatises on the Sacraments (Christian Focus, reprint 2002), p121f; Institutes 4.17.36

Matthew Henry on John 11:41.

And, John Flavel on John 20 in The Fountain if Life, Discourse 40.

(cited in Maclean, Lord's Supper, p189f & n12, p256)

Priestcarft & superstition

I can't agree with Donald Macleod that if each communicant receives the bread and the wine from a minister rather than from his companions "we are encouraging priestcarft and superstition". Who knows what this might lead people to think, but it certainly doesn't necessarily follow. We could equally be maintaining good order, church discipline or the unity of word and sacrament.

It seems to me not entirely wrong to think of the minister as the representative of Christ, although of course he isn't Christ and we don't want ministers with Messiah-complexes or who are thought of as the Mediator between God and man.

A Faith to Live By (Christian Focus, 1998) p243 quoted in Maclean, The Lord's Supper p178

The Breaking of the Bread

It is interesting that in many of our churches the bread is prepared for Communion beforehand (in our church sliced bread is half cut up into tiny squares) yet some of the Reformed have argued that the rite of the minister breaking the bread is essential to the Supper, which after all is called "The Breaking of Bread" (Acts 2:42; 20:7), the whole being named for the part. Without it "the sacrament is not celebrated according to its original institution.... to divide the bread into small pieces called wafers, and put a wafer into the mouth of each of the communicants, as is done in the Church of Rome, is grossly to corrupt this ordinance, for it takes away the significant action of breaking the bread."

Robert Shaw, Exposition of the Confession of Faith (Christian Focus, reprint 1998), pp355f. Quoted in Maclean, The Lord's Supper, p176

Alongside three other arguments in its favour, Robert L. Dabney says:

The breaking of the bread is plainly one of the sacramental role act, and should never be done beforehand, by others, nor omitted by the minister.... The proper significance of the sacrament requires it; for the Christ we commemorate is the Christ lacerated and slain.

Systematic Theology (Banner, 1878, repr. 1985) p802. Maclean, op cit.

The forgotten Supper

Surveying the writings of the Fathers, George Dollar says:

In no area of early church life among Christians is there greater uncertainty than in the matter of the Lord's Supper. It was not called by its New Testament titles such as the "breaking of bread," "the giving of thanks," and "the cup of blessing." The most common designation seemed to be the "Eucharist" (from the Greek word for praise or thanksgiving)... The fact is that no church father called it the Supper in a single instance and Pauline names for it ceased.

'The Lord's Supper in the Early Church - Part I: The Lord's Supper in the Second Century', Bibliotheca Sacra, 117:466, April 1960, p144 quoted in Maclean, The Lord's Supper, p173f - emphasis added

Isn't that remarkable?

A famine

John Mackay records that under the Episcopal regime following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was seldom administered in the Scottish Highland's country parishes. The necessary vessels and linen cloths were often lacking, and when needed had to be borrowed. In the parish of Loch Broom, the Lord's Supper was only administered once in seven years; at Fodderty, once in twelve; and at Glenurquhart not once in twenty-four.

The Church in the Highlands (Hodder & Stoughton, 1914, p151) quoted in Maclean, Lord's Supper.

How stupid to think that certain vessels and linen are "necessary" to the Supper!

Guilty of the body and blood

Revd Prof John Brown (1784-1858) "did not regard the meaning of 'guilty of the body and blood of the Lord' as being a mere profanation of the symbols; rather the clause referred to murder. He is aware that it cannot be understood literally in this way, but explains 'that the unworthy communicant is under the influence of the same malignant dispositions which animated the murderers of our Lord; and that, placed in their circumstances, he would have imitated their conduct'."

Malcolm Maclean, The Lord's Supper (Mentor, 2009), p107 quoting Brown Discourses Suited to the Administration of the Lord's Supper (William Oliphant & Sons, 1816, repr. 1853) p66