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. (1 Corinthians 11:27-30 ESV)
[Note: This post is an abridged version of a 15-page paper I wrote in April for a professor in a course on the Lord's Supper. The original title is Communion Casuistry: Who is invited to the Lord’s Supper? A better one would have been closer to the title of this post. Two real-life experiences provided me a thesis and are mentioned in the actual paper; I have removed them for reasons of privacy.]
As a future pastor, I, of course, desire to do what is right
in the eyes of God, in the stead of Christ, and for the spiritual welfare of
those whom I will be tasked with shepherding. What is the best Communion policy?
Practice? Just who is invited
to the Lord’s Supper?
I read the following statement on the LCMS website, posted to
a page emblazoned with the question at hand[1]:
Denominational affiliation ought never be
the sole criterion for admission to the Sacrament. When we extend an open
invitation to members of congregations in church fellowship with us to commune
at our altars, we are simply saying that we believe this membership means that
they “know what they seek” and “why they come.” While the Missouri Synod has
long recognized the necessity of communing non-LCMS Christians in special cases
involving responsible pastoral care[2],
our congregations generally ask that those unknown to them speak to the pastor
before communing in their congregations for the first time, lest the
congregation be guilty of encouraging someone to receive Christ’s body and
blood to his or her judgment.
One of the most indelible images forever rooted in my heart
and soul is the sight of a pastor sitting alone in a pew, refusing to approach
in the Lord’s Table with brother pastors following a pastors meeting
that I attended as an intern some years ago. From my point of view, it was the
spiritual equivalent of dropping to a knee or turning a back to the flag during
the National Anthem. I will never forget how lonely he looked, just sitting
there while the rest of us received Christ’s Body and Blood. All I could think
was that he was following the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to not partake of the
Sacrament in an unworthy manner—did he feel he was not worthy? But he was a pastor, after all, and perhaps he had
taken the time to examine himself and…well, no, he was a pastor! With brother
confessors nearby… It just did not make sense to me.
In retrospect, confessional unity has to have been the issue
that kept him in the pew all by himself.
But how does confessional unity fit into Paul’s exhortation about
worthiness? The church in Corinth was not Roman Catholic, nor Lutheran, nor any
other denomination or sect. Paul’s letter was addressed to “the church of God
that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints
together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, both their Lord and ours (v. 1 ESB),” the Christian Church.
And what, exactly, is meant by confessional unity (as we in the
LCMS understand it[3]) as it pertains to a communicant’s
worthiness—perhaps the two concepts are not meant to be mutually exclusive of
one another. I have found that there are degrees of interpretation of both, as indicated
by varied Communion practices from congregation to congregation. Unfortunately
for the pastor, but most fortunately for the believer, Communion is not
one-size-fits-all, allowing for the exaggerated possibility that each person
could potentially become a kneeling casuistry (question of conscience) case!
In a doctrinal paper presented at a WELS conference, author
and professor emeritus Armin Schuetze makes the point that “Jesus nowhere
commands the church to invite everyone to this Supper. The gospel, the good
news, we are to preach in all the world. And regarding baptism Jesus says, ‘Baptize
all nations.’ Never, however, does he say: ‘Give my body and blood to everyone.’
It was instituted in the close fellowship of the twelve. It is not for
everyone. The Lord has to tell us under what circumstances or to whom this
sacrament is a blessing.”[4]
And so He did, through the Apostle Paul, whose exhortation in 1 Corinthians is
the law of the Communion rail, so to speak.
But Scripture is not the only yardstick used to determine
whether a potential communicant may be invited to the Lord’s Table. Is the
communicant confessionally sound? Does he or she agree with the Lutheran
Confessions as contained in the Book of Concord? Or even know what the Book of
Concord is? Does he or she agree with the teachings of the LCMS?
Gregory Lockwood addresses the issue of confessional unity in
his commentary on 1 Corinthians, specifically that “the differences between the
confessions of faith that define and delineate Christian church bodies may also
require that Christians from heterodox communions be excluded from the Lord’s
Supper.”[5] I
think this alludes to individual Christians, yet all Christians must be
considered confessional and the doctrinal divisions in the visible church must
be acknowledged with concern to my thesis question: Who is invited to the
Lord’s Supper?
LCMS Lutherans insist and confess that the “genuine faith”
required for receiving the Sacrament worthily includes a proper understanding
of, and faith in, what the Sacrament is; that is, an understanding of the
doctrine of the real presence of Christ’s Body and Blood in and under the
sacramental elements of bread and wine.[6] I
agree that genuine faith is the paramount requirement, and I would hope that
every communicant could articulate the doctrine of real presence, but,
realistically, most communicants are led to the rail by tradition, as well as
faith, and if the Sacrament is administered rightly, they will hear the words
“take and eat the true Body of Christ, given for you” and “take and drink the
true Blood of Christ, shed for you” with little or no understanding of any
doctrine behind them. A rhetorical question now bubbles to the surface—while my
human reason cannot grasp the sacramental mystery of Real Presence, I
understand what the LCMS teaches about it. If I approach the rail and kneel
next to a person who may know less about the Lord’s Table than I, are we
participating in bona fide confessional fellowship?
A better way to approach this might be to identify those
persons who place their soul in peril by drinking the cup of the Lord in an
unworthy manner—the unbeliever and the person unwilling to repent. The desire
to amend one’s sinful life is produced by genuine faith.[7]
The repentant sinner who approaches the Lord’s Table in genuine faith does so,
then, in accordance with Scripture per Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians
11:27-29. Lockwood reminds us that Paul did not intend that the overseers of
the church in Corinth were to determine who should be invited to Communion, but
that right administration of the Sacrament involves pastoral oversight.[8]
I remember serving as an Elder years ago. There was a
missionary pastor who was a member of our congregation. Occasionally he would
fill in for the senior pastor. During Communion, he would not proffer the host
because he could never be sure who was eligible for reception. I thought I
understood where he was coming from at the time; however, looking back and
knowing what I know now, I would say that no pastor can be certain of every
parishioner’s heart and faith, member or not. Is it wrong to believe that an
unintentional error during distribution is an error on the side of grace? Certainly
no well-meaning, Scripturally-sound confessional pastor would intentionally
inflict judgment upon a communicant’s soul—besides, judgment comes from the
Lord, not the pastor, well-intentioned or otherwise.
My wife came into this world LCMS; she was raised in the
church, attended parochial school, and when we were married I had very little
understanding of what it meant to be Lutheran. I was baptized in a Presbyterian
church and my family seldom went to a worship service. My experience with
Communion was nil until well after we were married. I can recall many a Sunday
sitting in the back pew with a baby and a toddler, waiting while my wife went
forward to the rail (I remember asking her if she wanted me to go with her and
her answer was something to the effect of “you need to take a class first”).
After worshipping some months, I decided that, if being
Lutheran meant taking Communion, then that is what I have to do. So I did. I
followed my wife somewhat surreptitiously to the rail one Sunday, knelt beside
her, and when the pastor got to me with the wafers the scowl on his face was
totally unexpected! My wife lectured me and then spurred me on to make an
appointment with the pastor who could better answer my questions about all the
fuss—and, honestly, I just wanted to be a part of all that was going on at the
service. I really enjoyed worship and I wanted to have the same experience that
my wife and others were having during the Sacrament. Again, looking back, the
question still remains: Did either of us—the pastor by giving or I by
receiving—place my soul in peril? Though not yet formally instructed, I
believed then what I was hearing, that I was receiving the Body and Blood of
Christ, my Savior who died for me on the Cross. I believed then that my faith
in Christ would mean that when I died I would go to Heaven. Was I in
confessional unity with the others who were invited to receive the Lord’s
Supper? Did I act unworthily by inviting myself (in a manner of speaking) to
the rail? (Of course, I know now that the answers to both these questions are
“no” and “no,” and I realize that I put my pastor in an awkward position, which
I regret. But I add this experience to help focus the bigger question at hand.
Who is invited to the Lord’s Supper? Perhaps the answer lies
in the pronoun “you,” on which Luther keys in how the communicant understands
for whom Christ died[9]:
Therefore, when you consider who they are
of whom he says “for you,” you will discover that it is for you and me,
together with all human beings, that he died. But if we are the ones for whom
he died, it must follow that we were subject to sins, death, hell, and the
devil, even as the words clearly convey: “Shed for you for the forgiveness of
sins.” If sins are present, then certainly death is also present; if death is
present, then certainly hell and the devil are present. Such consideration
therefore helps you to thank him more diligently and to participate in the
sacrament more readily in honor of his suffering, for what heart can comprehend
with increasing adequacy what a benefit and grace it is that one is redeemed
from death and the devil, from sins and all evil, and is righteous, alive, and
blessed without one’s merit and help, only through the blood and dying of the
Son of God? Still, he desires nothing in return other than praise and thanks,
and that we acknowledge and believe it and do not despise it so shamefully or disregard
it.
Who is invited to the Lord’s Supper? Maybe the answer can better
be found in a different question: Who is not
invited to the Lord’s Supper? Luther, quoted in the English translation of Commentary on Luther’s Catechisms by
Albrecht Peters, enumerates certain conditions beyond abject unbelief and
unrepentance that would preclude reception of the Lord’s Supper, chiefly “those
who are cold and careless, who use Christian freedom as a cover for their
disinterest with respect to God; the impudent and wild, who discount their sins
and grace.”[10]
However, the Christian Church is not in the business of not
inviting or turning away sinners, and ought not to do so, whether at the front
door or at the altar. Yet the Communion policy from congregation to congregation
is far from homogeneous (and, in some congregations, may even seem capricious).
The few LCMS churches my wife and I visited about a year ago had differing
Communion practices—at one we were asked about our church background, at
another no one inquired about our beliefs, and still another had an open
practice, during which the pastor supervised but did not distribute (one of the
assistants distributing the Body was a woman).
Franz Pieper wrote, “But it is a strange thing that diversities
and divisions should appear within Christendom. For the Christian Church has
only one principle of cognition, namely, the Word of Christ, given by Christ to
the Church through His Apostles and Prophets, only one source of the saving
knowledge, therefore only one doctrine, one faith.”[11] It
is as if confessional unity is in the eye of the beholder, or, perhaps, the blind eye of the beholder. In general, the
LCMS policy opposing the practice of open Communion is quite clear and easy to
understand: “‘Open Communion,’ the admission of individuals to the Sacrament
with minimal or no concern for Baptism, repentance, faith, self-examination, or
unity of confession, is intolerable for any who take seriously that our Lord
gave the Supper only to his disciples (Matthew 26:20), Paul’s plea that a
church be of one mind or judgment and without division (1 Corinthians 1:10),
and his insistence on self-examination and discerning the Lord’s body (1 Corinthians
11:27-28).”[12]
Yet a glance at a service bulletin’s Communion statement—if a congregation even
publicize one—will hardly contain the word “intolerable,” but will likely offer
a friendly, albeit generic, explanation of who is welcome at the rail. I offer
my current congregation’s statement as an example:
We welcome communicant members and
confirmed Lutheran guests (or those who have received instruction in the Lord's
Supper) to examine their faith and receive Jesus' body and blood in the Lord's
Supper. We Invite you to read and agree with the statement on Holy Communion[13]
printed on the attendance cards. Please speak with one of the pastors or any
Elder If you have questions. We invite all non-communing guests, especially
children, to come to the Communion rail and cross your arms to receive a
blessing.
My congregation is not unique. There is no mention of the LCMS
or Baptism (or confessional unity), neither in the bulletin statement nor on
the attendance card.
I think that a widely published (newsletter, website, etc.),
more concise statement would help to alleviate misunderstandings. The pastor
should point it out in every service. And on-going catechesis would help to
cement such a policy in place. I particularly like the nuts and bolts of this
LCMS example statement (verbose as it is):
The Lord’s Supper: God’s Word teaches the
real presence of Christ’s body and blood invisibly in, with and under the bread
and wine for the forgiveness of sins. We take seriously the spiritual care of
those who commune at our altar. The Word of God states that no one offend against
Christ and His Word by denying His true presence and its promise and seal of
forgiveness. Because those who eat and drink our Lord’s body and blood
unworthily do so to their great harm (see 1 Corinthians 11:27-29), and because
Holy Communion is a confession of what is taught and believed at this altar (1
Corinthians 11:26), any who are not yet instructed, in doubt, or who hold a confession
(beliefs) differing from that of this congregation (that is, belong to another
church body or denomination) and yet desire to receive the sacrament, will want
to first speak with the pastor before communing. As a courtesy, guests from
sister congregations of the LCMS or from congregations of the American
Association of Lutheran Churches (AALC) are also asked to introduce themselves
to the pastor before communing.
I have accepted my first Call and want to become the best
pastor I can be for the Lord and to the people I will serve. I want to serve
with integrity and the trust of the Church that raised me and the parishioners
who called me. I intend to teach, preach, and, especially, administer the
Sacraments in conformity with the Confessions and God’s Word.
While the gospel is to be preached to "all nations,” the
Lord's Supper is intended only for certain Christians. It was given to nourish
and strengthen those who already know Christ as their Savior. The Lord has
placed restrictions on its use. These the church is to observe lest someone
receive the sacrament unworthily and bring judgment on himself. The practice of
close Communion is rooted in Scripture. The pastor, called as steward of God's
mysteries (1 Corinthians 4:1), administers the Lord's Supper for the
congregation. The Lord bids him watch for the souls of the flock (Hebrews
13:17) and warn them against sin (Ezekiel 3:17-21), responsibilities that he
must remember in his stewardship of this Sacrament.
Who is invited to the Lord’s Supper? I as the pastor must
know who for sure, according to Scripture, but I know there will be sticky
wickets to get through! But a well-crafted, doctrinally sound Communion
statement will help, one that is consistent with Lutheran teaching and practice
and encourages visitors to speak with the pastor before communing. Preaching
and teaching about sin, repentance, and forgiveness will likely foster a
healthy Communion culture within the congregation. Lockwood’s’ reminder that
Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 does not forbid anyone from the Lord’s Table is
important, and leads to a simple enough rule of thumb regarding Paul’s
Communion policy[14]:
Before you continue communing change
these sinful ways; don’t commune if they still exist.
I read the following statement in a WELS textbook I used in a
seminary class: “Whoever holds membership in a heretical church must first
clarify his confessional position before being received at the Lord's Table. It
must be clear that he cannot promiscuously receive communion in two churches
with diverging confessions.”[15]
I have to agree that a communicant cannot serve two masters,
in a manner of speaking. I am quite aware of the fact that the LCMS considers
all other Lutherans with whom there is no altar fellowship heterodox (and many
other Christian churches downright heretical) and I can certainly understand
why.
In the course of researching and reading for this paper,
asking a lot of questions, and listening to the lectures and comments in class,
I have encountered differing opinions about (and definitions of) “open” and
“close(d)” Communion practices and what awaits me in Parrish life. I do not
believe that there are few gray areas in the care and feeding of the souls of
one’s congregation; on the contrary—I fully expect to face a wide range of
issues, attitudes, and traditions.
I happened across one pastor’s blog post[16]
that would seem to confirm that, while on paper the management of communicants
may seem to fall within a prescribed set of guidelines, in reality the need for
vigilance is greater than ever in the world today. The following was posted by
a Ft. Wayne seminary graduate with nearly 20 years in the ministry (and who,
coincidentally, is the officiant in today’s chapel service):
One of the thorniest issues any LCMS pastor
has to deal with is admission to the Lord’s Table. As pastor of a congregation
in the inner suburbs of a major metropolitan area that sees frequent visitors
for work, military service, and vacation, I’ve had all of the following kinds
of experiences, sometimes on the same Sunday:
·
Someone
communes and I later realize I should not have allowed it
·
Someone
refrains from communing when I would have allowed it
·
Someone
is discretely asked about their church membership and/or confession but takes
offense even when they are admitted to the communion
·
Someone
is given a blessing instead of the Sacrament but is profoundly gracious about
it
There are numerous issues at work, but the
most challenging is the utter disconnect between our culture’s emphasis on
individual piety vs. the concern of closed communion practice with church
membership/fellowship among churches.
It may be that, upon examination [a visitor]
might give the right answer to any doctrinal questions we would ask in
determining what makes an individual a worthy communicant (see the Small
Catechism and especially the Christian Questions with their
Answers). But the issue is not simply a matter of the individual’s faith,
but also the public confession of their church body. That’s the point of closed
communion: altar fellowship is church fellowship.
It’s unpleasant, and rare indeed is the
pastor who in any way enjoys turning someone away from the Sacrament. In
certain cases, people end up regularly attending my Missouri Synod congregation
regularly (either every Sunday for a few months to a year, or on repeated
visits to the area for work or family) where there is no local congregation
with which their home church is in fellowship (e.g., they are a member of a
micro-synod). What to do? The closed communion formulations came about in a
simpler age, where people moved around far less, and where there were not so
many denominations.
A few years ago I had occasion to speak
with one of these potential communicant’s pastor (formerly ELS) about how we
should handle this challenge. He said something that I haven’t been able to
shake: “Church membership is an important, but not the only, consideration in
admission to the Supper.” Part of me wants to embrace that. Another part of me
thinks it would just enable me to take the coward’s way out.
An epilogue…
The pastor who sat by himself as the rest of the circuit
pastors went to the Lord’s Table has since broken ties with the LCMS and is now
serving an independent congregation (which may or may not be Lutheran) of about
two dozen followers. I still do not know what happened to cause a schism in
doctrine between him and his brother pastors.
Who
is invited to the Lord’s Supper? As I
close, I must carefully consider my thesis question, from this point on, which has
given me much to pray about.
[1] "Who Is Invited to the Supper of Our
Lord?," LCMS News & Information, June 17, 2014, accessed April 24,
2017,
https://blogs.lcms.org/2009/who-is-invited-to-the-supper-of-our-lord-2-2009.
[2] The
1967 LCMS Convention resolved that “pastors and congregations of The Lutheran
Church–Missouri Synod, except in situations of emergency and in special cases
of pastoral care, commune individuals of only those Lutheran synods which are
now in fellowship with us” (Res. 2-19). This position was reaffirmed in 1986 when
the Synod resolved “that the pastors and congregations of The Lutheran
Church–Missouri Synod continue to abide by the practice of close communion,
which includes the necessity of exercising responsible pastoral care in
extraordinary situations and circumstances” (Res. 3-08).
[3] "Denominational
Differences," LCMS Frequently Asked
Questions, accessed April 23, 2017,
https://stlukesmanhattan.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Denominational-Differences-Lutherans.pdf;
confessional unity is defined as “[the preservation of] the integrity of
witness to the gospel of Christ as it is revealed in the Scriptures and
confessed in the Lutheran confessional writings.”
[4]Armin
W. Schuetze, "Joining Together In Prayer And The Lord’s Supper: The
Scriptural Principles of Fellowship Applied to Prayer and Holy Communion,"
WLS Essays, accessed April 23, 2017,
http://www.wlsessays.net/bitstream/handle/123456789/3064/SchuetzeJoining.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
[5] Gregory
J. Lockwood, 1 Corinthians (Saint Louis: Concordia Pub. House, 2000), 404.
[6] Admission to the Lord's Supper, Commission
on Theology and Church Relations report, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
(1999), 36.
[7] Admission to the Lord's Supper, 38.
[9] Luther’s Works, Vol. 38, 125.
[10] Albrecht
Peters, Thomas Harvey Trapp, and Gottfried Seebass, Commentary on Luther's Catechisms: Baptism and Lord's Supper (Saint
Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2012), 209.
[11] Franz
Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, Vol. I
(Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publ. House, 1953), 22.
[12] Guidelines for Congregational, District, and
Synodical Communion Statements, Report, Commission on Theology and Church
Relations, The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (2014), 1.
[13] Prepared
communicants for the Lord's Table are believers who REPENT of their sins,
wanting to turn away from them; BELIEVE in Jesus as their personal Savior for
full forgiveness of all their sins and in the presence of His body and blood in
the bread and wine; INTEND to grow, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in a more
committed life with Jesus and His Church.
[15] Armin
W. Schuetze and Irwin J. Habeck, The
Shepherd Under Christ: A Textbook for Pastoral Theology (Milwaukee:
Northwestern Pub. House, 1981), 85.
[16] "Communion
refused?," Esgetology, February
06, 2013, , accessed April 24, 2017,
http://www.esgetology.com/2013/02/06/communion-refused/.
While thumbing through the latest issue of Christianity Today, the following article caught my attention: Do Children Go to Heaven When They Die?: God's love for children is clear in Scripture, but the 'age of accountability' is harder to find. Before I even read a word of the article, I pondered the question a moment. How awful to be a parent and be vexed in such a way!
