What's Wrong with the Lord's Supper?
Rethinking Church
This post is a part of a series entitled "Rethinking Church"
What's Wrong with the Lord's Supper?
Well, nothing, technically. It is one of the two ordinances (along with baptism) that our Lord gave us to follow. Have you ever thought about how blessedly simple it is to “do” church? We are told to baptize. We are told to do the Lords supper. We are told to do the public reading of scripture. We are told to preach and we are told to sing. That’s it. We are not told in what order or how often where or even when. We don’t have to pray in a certain position. We don’t have to bow toward Mecca or Jerusalem or anything else. No mumbo-jumbo, no ritual nonsense, just simple devotion to Christ. God is not impressed with mans religion.
The typical evangelical church does the Lords supper in some form every week, sometimes at a special service or on a Sunday evening. A lot of reformed churches do it once a month and some even once a quarter. We usually have a small individual cup and a small piece of cracker or bread to remind us of our Lords body and blood. None of this is wrong so please don’t take this post as me accusing any one of “doing church wrong”.
Luke 22:14-20 (NIV)
When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to the “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying “this is my body given for you do this in remembrance of me”. In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
We see here and in similar language in Matthew and Mark that our Lord links this ordinance to the fulfillment of the Passover feast in the Kingdom. The idea of feasting in the kingdom or what we call the Messianic Banquet is a theme in scripture and is often referred to by Jesus. For example:
Luke 13:29 (ESV)
And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.
And in Luke 14 after a man proclaims “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” and Jesus goes on to tell an amazing parable about a man giving a great banquet and people not responding to his invite so people are compelled to come in and he closes the story with “none of those men who are invited shall taste of my banquet” in Matthew 8 Jesus speaks of many coming from east and west and reclining at table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven. The point is when Kingdom comes it will be a feast, a party, a celebration, a Messianic banquet.
Paul had to correct the Corinthians because of there bad practices regarding the Lords supper. They were rushing on the food and some were even getting drunk! They were clearly missing the point but it begs the question what were our brethren In Corinth elbowing each other to get to? A little broken piece of matzo? What were they getting drunk on? A tiny half shot glass full of generic grape juice?
I don’t think so. They were feasting. They had the right idea but the wrong spirit. I wonder if sometimes we might have the wrong idea and the right spirit. What do I mean?
What do we do at the Lords supper when we are sitting there with our little piece of cracker and disposable cup of juice? We don’t know what to do. We know it has something to do with the cross. So some of us sit there and try to conjure up feelings of remorse about what happened to Jesus. We might read a description of the crucifixion or a couple of verses from Isaiah 53 and then we try to feel sorry for Jesus.
Please don’t feel sorry for Jesus. He does not need or want your pity. If we ever find ourselves pitying our creator we have strayed of course.
Other times during the Lords supper we sit and grieve over and over in our hearts about how we are not worthy for what he has done.
Well.
You’re not worthy.
Get over it.
When did this become about you? The Gospel is not so much about what God has done for you, but what God has done in Christ in reconciling the world to Himself. The Gospel is not good news about you. It is good news about God.
When Paul teaches on this in 1Cor. 11 he quotes Jesus as saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” As often as you drink what?
The cup.
What cup?
The Passover cup.
They drank it once a year at the feast. Here’s a radical notion. What if we did the Lords supper once a year and had a big blowout feast instead of the weekly dirge of staring at our shoes? Ok, I know that will never happen so we will leave that suggestion as my own little heresy.
So here is a more modest proposal. What if once a month we had a big church dinner? Like a feast or a banquet. It would be a celebration with singing and rejoicing and fellowship around Gods table as Gods family. The central part of the feast would be at some point either during or after the meal we would pause and distribute to each table a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine or grape juice and one large cup or chalice. At each table we would pass the loaf around and each tear off a piece and bless God and eat it to remember the broken body of our Lord and then we would pass around a common cup (common to each table) and drink to remember the shed blood of the Lamb that makes it possible for us to look forward to banqueting with God in the Kingdom. In this way we would be proclaiming the Lords death until comes.
That would be the basic idea. We can add things to it or rearrange as we go. Maybe a short sermon or a meditation or reading. This would be a great testimony to our children and others about what we believe and where we are going.
What do you think?
Not being worthy is not something I will ever, nor should anyone ever get over. God chose you before the foundation of the world for no good reason and you dont deserve salvation. This is a wondrous thing for individuals and the church alike. Remembering the death and resurrection of Christ is the purpose of communion and should naturally turn to oneself. If thinking about the resurrection elicits morose thoughts to people, then there is a problem, perhaps not understanding Scripture and the glorious, redemptive, joyous nature of the resurrection.
I pity Christ on the cross. If I were on a cross asphyxiating, I would think anyone watching that does not have pity on me has no compassion. Gosh, I wish I could take His place. I pity the Son of God who was blameless and rejected by his chosen people, but loved them, even while they cried "crucify him". But I cant take his place. I am just one of the many who was yelling "crucify him". It is true that calvary is not about emotions, but God has emotions, and I believe him to be grieved when he slew his son for the salvation of his beloved. If anything, we should be tormented by the fact that such wicked worms as we were exchanged for the blood of God's own Son. Of course, God did it for his own glory, but we take no pleasure in the thought of our God on the cross right?
I'd like to have at least ONE good feast at our church a year. I'd like it to be food that hasn't become genetically modified or denatured or full of trans fats or enzyme depleted..
Yes, a feast which renews, restores, revitalizes, replenishes, re-energizes and reinvigorates the body, I say Amen to that!
Yes, let's give something BACK to our bodies instead of robbing it! I would say that God would smile on that.
@Koala: Two things...
In regards to not being worthy. I think I agree with you, but I also agree with Mr. Green. I don't think we should ever get over the fact that grace was undeserved. I think that would be horrible. We would miss what the Cross really was. We would miss what Jesus did... the power of the Cross and the grace given to us.
At the same time, though, it's easy to get so caught up in our own trespasses that we forget about grace. We don't focus on what God did and we just get overwhelmed with what Paul called 'worldly guilt'... There's a difference between just feeling bad about stuff, and taking that to the next step by worshiping God for what He did.
As regards pity... I think you might have misunderstood here, but Mr. Green (I call him that because he goes to my church...) will have to explain. I think there's a good kind of pity and a bad kind of pity. Looking at the Cross and thinking "Poor Jesus, that was the only thing He could do. I did that to Him, He had no choice... I made Him miserable." is a pretty severe theological error.
Jesus had a choice. He could have just said "no". He knew exactly what was required and He went through with it anyway. God would have been completely just to spare His Son and condemn all of humanity. Grace was not owed to us. The Bible says that Jesus "for the joy set before Him" endured the Cross. Yeah, He despised it's shame... we should, too. We should regret the hugeness of our sin, and the greatness of the sacrifice required... but we shouldn't get the idea that we put God at a disadvantage and backed Him into a corner where the only way out was to let us crucify His Son... He's greater than that.
I don't think we should take pleasure in God dying on the Cross (not in a "mwahahaha" kind of way, anyway)... but Paul says in Romans 8.. "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"... we do need to take pleasure in the love required to do such a thing.
@Cookie:
What I said merely brought balance to statements that were black and white, yet very complex in what they are theologically. The terms were not explained. Both sides must be looked at and explained, especially with saying things to people who might not know all the different aspects of communion, and the thousand other doctrines slightly hit upon in the post. Many good things were said, but one misstep can make us fall on our faces.
I wouldn't think that we feel sorry for Jesus, but sorry, perhaps, that he endured such a horrendous death. The "pity" is the way the death endured--strung out and not clean or quick. It was brutal. We deserved to be there. As saved Christians, we weren't. Vicariously, we can only imagine the agony, and therein lies the pity, imo.
Sidebar: Why does the church (at least ours) allow children who are NOT saved to partake of the communion elements?
pardon my ignorance, but does the Bible specifically say that one has to be saved to take communion? obviously, it would be pointless for someone to do so if they weren't, but still...
1 Corinthians 11:27-29 "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself."
pardon, but was paul not speaking to a group of believers in his letter? how can people who are not saved be held accountable to that?
that said, i'm not trying to draw anyone out on this. i haven't really thought about it myself and am merely exploring different ideas.
If an unbeliever takes communion, they are by default doing it in an unworthy manner. If a christian does not examine themselves beforehand, and takes it carelessly, then they too are in the same boat, but the unbeliever is by default (at least what I've come to understand logically).
I vividly recall the look on my mother's face when the communion plate was passed in my direction when I was a child. It was a look and a head shake and a verbal, "No, that's not for you to take."
My mother was saved at six. I always listened to my mother (in church)!
This is getting kind of complicated... The Bible says that anything not done in faith is sin and that even the plowing of the wicked is evil. Of course it's sin for non-believers to take communion. It's also sin for them to sing the songs we sing... just like it's sin for us to sing them without really worshiping God (the prophets talk about that a lot, like the end of Amos 5, I think)... Though, I don't want to belittle what's going on when a non-believer takes communion, it's pretty heavy stuff (though not unforgivable, praise God).
As far as children... our church's (that excludes AngryKoala but I think includes all other participants here) official stand point is that if you're not saved you shouldn't take communion. It's mentioned at random intervals (I think this Sunday or last) and usually followed up by a gospel invitation. I don't think we go around telling little kids to take it anyway, but I also don't think we teach it in Sunday School every week... It's kind of up to the parents (unless the parents aren't saved, then it's all on us).
*hopes that makes things make maybe a little more sense*
@Cookie:
I agree with you there. If a child does not understand what they are doing, it is not done in faith, and is therefore sin.
Regarding pity, my only point is that Jesus was not, is not and never will be a victim. that said, the cross must never stop being a horror and a stumbling block to our own self-righteosness. Jonathan Edwards preached "sinners in the hands of an angry God" the cross is what you get when you place God in the hands of angry sinners.
the points you are making regarding children and unbelievers i think would be addressed by doing this once a month with much fanfare and clarity rather than a sloppy 5 minute " will 2 brothers lead us in........"with a special service, we would be confronted with heaven, hell discipleship, children, unbelievers, kingdom and everything else all in the context of a family of brothers and sisters around a Gods table celebrating HIM. all there as a direct result of actions taken by His Son 2000 years ago.
(JD Green)
Regarding the communion...it's not that the parents or the church TELL the children to take the communion; it's that they DON'T tell them NOT to. It doesn't seem to be emphasized that it is a sacrilege to partake w/o being a (baptised) believer, or if it is, people aren't listening.
Regarding the feast...Me thinks JD likes to eat! S'all good! I think it would be nice to have the communion service at the "All Church Prayer Dinner" we already do.
Side Bar: Speaking of food, I'm reading a book on fasting and nutrition and I think it would behoove us to partake of that (fasting) once in a while. What the spirit can do in a fasted body is pretty cool. Accompany that with prayer and we're taking it to another level.
Carry on the good fight my bretheren...
Not to drag the conversation from where it was going, but I thought I'd just chip in that when I attended a Church of the Brethren, we had communion the first Sunday of every month.
In addition to this, every Fall and Spring (I'm not sure exactly how the specific date was chosen) we would have a small meal in lieu of communion. This included a fist-sized roll of bread and a coffee mug of water. 'Normal' communion blessings were given for both bread and cup prior to eating, and we'd take 15-20min to eat and fellowship with those around us.
"...a small meal in lieu of communion. This included a fist-sized roll of bread and a coffee mug of water."
Sounds like an old fashioned prison meal--bread and water! Ha, ha, I jest. But when you say "included," surely, if it were a meal, there would have been other foods? Yes? No? Otherwise, the small "meal" was JUST bread and water? Yes? No?
It seems they had "communion" fare in a meal setting. Seems counterintuitive to me, but if it points the way to Jesus and brings people closer to Him, great!
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i agree with some of this. while i've always loved communion and look forward to it every week, there is something about it that's got my brain wired to go into automatic guilt-trip mode. but, i'm wondering, what would stop us from just falling in to what the corinthians were doing? (though, as in many things, it seems like with this our inventiveness in finding ways to mess things up is succeeded only by God's grace and patience in yanking us back around to the point of things.)
καὶ μνηστεύσομαί σε ἐμαυτῷ ἐν πίστει, καὶ ἐπιγνώσῃ τὸν κύριον.