Meal, Manna, Medicine
“This is my body.”
“This is my blood.”
Churches have been dividing, morphing, and arguing over these words for the last few hundred years. Prior to that, almost everyone held to the general idea that “is” meant “is.”
Though now a Lutheran who affirms the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, I was raised Exclusive Plymouth Brethren. Though the denomination holds a roughly anabaptist doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, at the assembly I grew up in the Lord’s Supper was offered weekly. Bread, and usually wine (some assemblies chose to offer grape juice for those struggling with alcoholism), on a simple plate and in a simple cup. Since Plymouth Brethren do not recognize the office of pastor, any man in fellowship (i.e. not under discipline and a normal communing member or known visitor) could stand and approach the table, pray over the elements (what amounted to consecration), then pass them around.
Who communed? All members who had been received into fellowship, and again, any known visitors. Some “Exclusive” assemblies would require either a personal introduction from someone who knew you or an introductory letter, in order for you to commune on any given Sunday morning. “Open” assemblies varied in their approach: some were “tight” (which functioned much like Exclusives) and some were “loose” (where you weren’t necessarily required to know anyone).
Children of members were expected to ask to “approach the table” (be received into fellowship) in their teens—about the age when traditions would offer confirmation. Since the average child or teenager was known to the entire assembly, I don’t believe there was normally any kind of formal examination —perhaps this would have been different in a larger assembly, or where a family was new. I did a lot of reading about communion practices when I was fourteen (the age I asked to commune). I was worried I wasn’t good enough, worried that I had to have all known sin in my life vanquished before I could commune.
This was my life until I hit twenty-three. Our assembly shrunk to two families: my own and one other. If you’re in fellowship with other assemblies, those people may step in when interpersonal issues arise. But by that point, we were no longer in fellowship with other assemblies. So the assembly dissolved. There was no recourse, arbitration, or mediation.
So I went from the only church I’d ever known to having nothing at all. In a knee-jerk response, I went to a nearby Baptist church (I had friends there) for a little over a year. It was not good. I did not commune there since they required re-baptism; I was confident my first one took. I left there and went nowhere for a couple of years other than occasional visits. It was bewildering. My faith suffered. I landed at a Calvary Chapel. At that point, my need to commune was so strong I would have done almost anything, and they didn’t require anything. I remember driving home from my first communion service in years and weeping from sheer thankfulness at the feeling of distance erased, of restoration.
Then came Lutheranism. I got flung into the deep end. Suffice it to say, while I wasn’t completely convinced on the doctrine of the Real Presence, it became immediately clear that I could not commune at both the Lutheran church and the Calvary Chapel because they were offering two different things. This knowledge was not odious. In fact, at that point (and still!), Real Presence felt like an upgrade, not just from my present church but from my entire upbringing. Why wouldn’t you want to go from something that was only symbolic to … the actual thing? Why just memorialize when you can have the real thing?
Some Protestants can’t distinguish the difference between the Roman Catholic view (transubstantiation) and the Lutheran view of the Eucharist. And while you may see the Lutheran view referred to as “in, with, and under” or “consubstantiation,” I warn you that both of those terms will make good Lutherans cranky. Neither of them quite fit. The simplest explanation I can give is that Rome believes nothing remains of the bread and wine except the visual appearance—the substance of the elements become 100% body and blood. Lutherans believe it is 100% body and blood while remaining 100% bread and wine. (That math shouldn’t be that difficult for people since we all believe that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man, and are comfortable with the tension.) Seventeenth-century Lutheran theology Johann Gerhard put it this way:
“This presence is not an essential transmutation of the bread into the body, and of the wine into the blood of Christ, which they call transubstantiation, nor is it a local and permanent junction (or union) separate from the sacramental use, of the body with the bread and of the blood with the wine, nor is it a personal union of the bread and the body of Christ, such as is the union of the divine and the human nature in Christ; nor is it a local shutting up of the body in the bread; nor is it impanation, nor an incorporation into the bread; nor is it consubstantiation, whereby the bread coalesces with the body of Christ, and the wine with the blood into one physical mass; nor it is a natural existence of the body and blood in the bread and wine, nor a concealment of the body, in a diminutive form, under the bread, nor any such carnal and physical thing; but it is a sacramental presence and union, which is of such a nature, that with the bread, consecrated according to the institution of the Savior, the body of Christ is united, in both instances in a manner to us incomprehensible, so that together with that bread we receive and eat, by a sacramental manducation (eating) only, the body of Christ, and together with that wine we receive and drink, by a sacramental drinking only, the blood of Christ. In short, we hold that in the Sacred Supper there is, not absence, or existence within, nor consubstantiation, nor transubstantiation, but the real presence of the body and blood of Christ.”
Let a man examine himself
I remember taking 1st Corinthians 11 quite seriously even at an early age. Among the Plymouth Brethren, unrepentant sin of any kind was cause to be “put out of fellowship” until you repented and could be restored, even for children. I heard stories about younger children (under ten) who were allowed to commune, but had to be put out of fellowship for lying. So a parent, knowing about the sins of their child on a day-to-day basis, could request that communion be withheld, by bringing the sins to the attention of the “brothers” [functionally elders, but not called that] at the assembly. The solution most assemblies practiced was simply to encourage kids to wait on communing until they were a bit older, and better able to understand what was happening.
At that time, it wasn’t clear to me what constituted unworthy eating or drinking. Certainly, Sunday mornings were a time to reflect on our sins and shortcomings. Receiving soberly and joyfully was encouraged. But without any form of corporate confession and absolution, I often felt that I was risking God’s anger by having sinned during the week. Had I repented enough? What would happen when I invariably sinned again? When should I refrain from communing? It was symbolic. It was memorial. But the dangers of partaking unworthily were clear. How then could this symbolism, this memorialism, jibe with the warnings about the effects of partaking unworthily? It was hard to take it seriously enough, and I wanted to take it seriously!
Now a Lutheran, I consider it this way: what if examination was not about finding yourself sinless, but finding yourself sinful—thus more in need of the Real Presence of Christ’s body and blood? My conversion to Lutheranism coincided with my present church’s adult study of the Lutheran Confessions. Most of my questions about Lutheranism were answered immediately. After the class, my pastor checked if I had any lingering questions. I remember telling him, I wasn’t 100% convinced yet, but I was convinced enough. Thankfully he didn’t put any obstacles in the way of my communing—convinced of my sinfulness and that the doctrine of the Real Presence was scripturally faithful, I needed to commune in order to have my faith strengthened to believe.
I got shaky the first time I went up to receive it. I still do, sometimes. It is a powerful thing to encounter God thus. That sense of responsibility I felt as a teen remains, but I am strengthened now in a way I was not then—the reassurance of corporate confession and absolution, the knowledge that this is how we participate in God’s timeline, the awe-full grappling with the elements. We are not worthy, and yet God is for us. We are not worthy, and that is why we go to the table.
A meal for sinners
I remain thankful for the understanding I’ve now arrived at. We commune with those in our pew, or at the rail with us, but we are partaking in something timeless. For this moment, we are outside our present timeline and participating in eternity, with all the saints, in a way that is completely different from the rest of our week. This is the high point, this is our feast meal, the foreshadowing of the wedding feast of the Lamb. Why would you not want this whenever it is made available to you? John Wesley, someone I am not often wont to quote, wrote in 1788:
“It is no wonder that men who have no fear of God should never think of doing this. But it is strange that it should be neglected by any that do fear God, and desire to save their souls; And yet nothing is more common. One reason why many neglect it is, they are so much afraid of ‘eating and drinking unworthily,’ that they never think how much greater the danger is when they do not eat or drink it at all.”
Wesley’s words inspire meditation on spiritual laxity, and how it correlates with not receiving communion regularly. (I do not speak of someone who desires it on a regular basis but finds themself in a situation where regular communion isn’t available. My heart aches for those people, and Luther addresses this dilemma at length in the Large Catechism.) I’m specifically thinking about people who don’t feel the need for it. Obviously there are different factors that influence how we feel about the Eucharist, and I think a more symbolic or memorialistic understanding of the sacraments can lead to more ambivalence about them. But even in traditions where the sacraments are viewed as a means of grace, it can be easy enough to grow disinterested.
Examination (which is good, right, and salutary!) should conclude with us acknowledging our need of Christ’s body and blood to nourish our own bodies and souls. My pastor spoke recently on our human inclination to rank sins, and about using this arbitrary ranking to bar other sinners from the table. [Not in a civil sense: we recognize that certain sins carry differing temporal penalties, but in the religious sense, in which all sin condemns us equally in God’s eyes.] He said: “This is a meal for sinners. If you have not sinned, you do not need to eat. If you have sinned, this meal is for you.”
Luther says in the Large Catechism:
“For Christ does not say, ‘If you believe or are worthy, you receive My body and blood.’ No, He says, ‘Take, eat and drink; this is My body and blood.’ Likewise, He says, ‘Do this’ (i.e., what I now do, institute, give, and ask you, take). That is like saying ‘No matter whether you are worthy or unworthy, you have here His body and blood by virtue of these words that are added to the bread and wine.’”
And yet: under what circumstances should you absent yourself from the table? Luther talks about those who find so much pleasure in sin, they prefer to remain in the life of this world, and so do not participate. We ought to pray for each other: that our hatred for our sin would increase, and our hunger be stirred up only to be satisfied in Christ. As Luther wrote:
“But whoever would gladly receive grace and comfort should drive himself and allow no one to frighten him away. Say, ‘I, indeed, would like to be worthy. But I come, not upon any worthiness, but upon Your Word, because You have commanded it.’”
“But if you say, ‘What, then, shall I do if I cannot feel such distress or experience hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?’ Answer, For those who are of such a mind that they do not realize their condition I know no better counsel than that they put their hand into their shirt to check whether they have flesh and blood. And if you find that you do, then go, for you good, to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. Hear what sort of a fruit your flesh is:
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. (Galatians 5:19-21)
Therefore, if you cannot discern this, at least believe the Scriptures. They will not lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you yourself.”
Most Sunday mornings I am, by God’s grace, to be found wobbling up to the rail with other sinners. Any doctrine of the Supper that requires I ascend into the heavenlies to feed there with Jesus is entirely too much to ask of me. I need God’s food—manna prepared to feed us in the desert, the medicine for the ills of our sins. I am thankful for a Jesus who came down to us in the flesh, who comes down to us in the Supper, and who will at the last raise us up to him, where we will feast forever.
