Definition Please, Evangelicals

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Here we are again to talk about the sacraments. Usually when I write on this topic my purpose is to define, redefine, and defend a traditional Lutheran understanding of the sacraments. However, this time I’m going to take the offensive. If I can prod my fellow Christians to think about their own practice in relation to God’s Word than I will have accomplished my goal.

Dear Evangelical Brothers and Sisters,

I have been privileged to worship in many of your churches this year. In fact, I am now attending an Evangelical church in France. I have observed one very positive trend, namely, that the practice of Communion is becoming more frequent in your assemblies. It is now not uncommon for Evangelical churches to have communion every week! My hope is that you will be an inspiration to many Lutheran congregations.

Having said this, the manner in which you go about Communion, or “The Lord’s Supper” gives me less to be enthusiastic about. To better explain what I mean, let us begin with the portion of scripture concerning the Last Supper.

Matthew 26:26-29

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, “Take, eat, this is my body”. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I will drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

Given the way I have observed communion being done in many Evangelical churches, one would think the passage went something like this:

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, “Take, eat [bread] this is my body”. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them saying, [Then he said]”Drink of it [wine], all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I will drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

To be thorough, we’ll add this phrase which exists only in Luke: “Do this in remembrance of me”. And while Evangelical do a good job of keeping the remembrance of Jesus’ death alive, they forget what “this” is when Jesus says “do this”. I have put the verbs in bold: Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, “Take, eat this is my body”. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins.

My point is this: when Jesus says “do this”, these are the verbs we are to do, these are the words we are to say. But in the Evangelical churches I have attended, none of this has been done. I have observed that a pastor or elder stands up and says something to the effect of “We will now have Communion”, and he may give an exhortation to participate in memory of Christ’s death. At this point lay officiants may or may not pray over the “elements” before distributing them. The bread is not taken up by the officiant, it is not blessed, the word’s and promise of Christ concerning the bread and cup are not spoken. The officiant does not even give the bread and cup. Either the congregants come up and serve themselves, or lay persons distribute it.

So here is my question: If you are not doing and saying what Jesus said to do, on what grounds do you presume that you are even having the Lord’s Supper? What are your criteria that make up the Lord’s supper if it is not his own words and actions? I will give you this: in the congregations I have observed, the whole thing is done in great reverence and earnestness. But reverence does not the Lord’s Supper make.

Nathanael Szobody

https://paradoxicalmusings.com/author/admin/

Husband, father, and working for Christ's kingdom in Chad.

Comments ( 2 )

  1. Paul Szobody
    What you've done in barring out the text is genius for strongly making your point, a point well taken. And also in France, among Pentecostals, I've seen worse, where the pastor simply broke out the elements while dancing: no prayer, no words of institution, no explanation. I contend it's merely -- in light of Scripture alone -- a liturgical snacking. However, in defense of evangelical baptistic practice, such as the one you describe, I have two comments: 1) If thanksgiving caracterizes the nature of their prayer over/with the elements, then this constitutes the NT sense of "blessing" taken from the Jewish festal practice (baruka). 2) It remains to be seen in liturgical scholarship if simply repeating the words of institution constitute a vital element understood in the "do this" of Jesus' command. For the greatest Lutheran liturgical scholar alive, Frank Senn, has noted in personal correspondence to me that early church liturgy, such as one finds in the Didache, is lacking in this repetition. In other words, they understood the "doing this" as 1) taking bread (later developed processionally), 2) giving the great prayer of thanksgiving following Jewish precedent but adding the christological accomplishment to Israel's election (often adding the 'epiclesis'), and 3) distribution. If from a theological viewpoint one argues of the necessity of the verbal pronumciation of promise for there to be a sacrament, then could not one also argue that the promise is assumed in the practice itself as well as the prayer giving thanks for the Person and work of Christ? (I'm personally not settled on this issue). So, in not always reading the words of institution, and in simply giving an oral sacrifice of thanksgiving with the elements, I'm not too sure our evangelical baptist brethren are too far -- in exterior practice! -- from the evidence of the early church (of course, I'm not speaking of any doctrinal understanding of the real presence here). For an indepth historical and liturgical study of the 4 movements indicated in the verbs you note, see Dom Gregory Dix's classic, "The Shape of the Liturgy".
  2. AuthorNathanael Szobody
    Since you recommend Dom Gregory Dix's "The Shape of the Liturgy" I have gone and done some homework before replying :) From his work I learn the following: All pre-Nicene liturgies at our disposal (of which there are not many) rely solely, as you say, on the eucharistic prayer. This prayer constitutes all that is necessary to say in eucharist. I also learn that they all contain the insitution narrative and even the words of Christ. There is one (and possibly two) exceptions to this: the Syriac liturgy of Addai and Mari. This liturgy, according to Dix, hearkens back to a more Jewish form that does not feel the need to make everything explicit and explicitely defined as the Greeks did. However this eucharistic prayer still refers to the insitution narrative somewhat vaguely as the origin and purpose of the ritual: "...and have received by tradition the example which is from thee." The catechetical commentary of Cyril of Jerusalem seems to indicate that his eucharistic prayer also lacked the insitution narrative, but equally refers to it in a meaningful way. Historical example aside, a "eucharistic" prayer implies something specific for which one is giving thanks. Evangelicals make the object of their thanksgiving to be the cross itself, while the early church's eucharistic prayers universally consider the gift of Christ's body and blood in the bread and cup to be the reason for their thanksgiving--while not forgetting to mention that the cross is profoundly imlicated, as well as all the other reasons for which the church is thankful to God (Justin Martyr 1 Apology, 65). This practice is the natural extension of the original Jewish Baruchah: to thank God for the bread and cup...which eventually brings to mind all the ways in which God has been faithful. Nevermind that in both the Jewish Baruchah and in our earliest record of church practice the prayer is an established form; memorized and theologically veted to properly represent the universal community--not something spontaneously pronounced by a pious officiant. So for a church to have a prayer which thanks God for the cross and redemption is wonderful, pious, and Christian, but it is not the eucharistic prayer in any biblical or historic sense.

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