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The world gives meritoriously, conditionally, and reciprocally. Jesus gives indiscriminately, w/o conditions, and w/o expectations.
So, how does the church give?
Whenever I’m on vacation (not preaching and teaching @ my congregation) I enjoy visiting other places of worship (technically, this is work for me since I spend much of my time perusing the halls and literature and worship bulletins to learn how different communities do their thing). One of my…litmus tests, if you will…comes with the invitation to the Lord’s Supper.
You see, there are some churches that practice what they call ‘close communion’. Only those who are active members in good standing of the congregation or denomination are welcome to receive the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. Others (sinners, outsiders, non-members) might be invited for a special blessing, but no sacrament. It would be more appropriate to call this ‘closed’ communion…the doors are closed for the unwelcome. But to be ‘closed’ is bad PR, so they opt for ‘close’ as in ‘nearby.’
You might know what this experience is like. For example, if you are a lapsed Baptist who attends the funeral Mass of a Roman Catholic friend, how welcome are you to receive the Holy Communion? Or perhaps you’re a liberal ELCA Lutheran who finds herself in more a conservative Missouri Synod Lutheran congregation one Sunday morning…can you receive the Lord’s Supper?
Justification for this practice often comes from scripture and pastoral concern. Let me explain. Two thousand years ago, a fanatic follower of Jesus named Paul writes in a letter to a church he founded in a city called Corinth the following warning: those who eat and drink w/o discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves (just FYI—Paul wrote in ancient Greek, and the word he uses here for judgment is krima, where we get the word...crime!).
The pastoral concern, then, is that if you let anyone willy-nilly receive the Lord’s Supper, they might heap judgment upon themselves if they receive it without knowing what it is or believing the right things about it or living the right kind of life or confessing the right kind of creed.
But is that how Jesus gives?
Paul isn’t talking about someone rotting in hell for believing or not believing in one thing or another regarding actual bread and wine. In fact, what he’s griping about is the cultural snobbery of his day when rich Christians would gather and feast but clear the table before the poor Christians arrived…then they’d celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Hide the silver and break out the paper plates! What Paul is getting at regarding the discernment of the body wasn’t what fancy Christians call the real presence or transubstantiation or mystical union…Paul is talking about the people (the living, breathing people) who make up the actual body of Christ in the world. Paul’s point is not about communion, it’s about community.
Don’t believe me? Read it yourself: 1 Corinthians 11v17-32.
In contrast to ‘close communion,’ there are some churches that practice what they call ‘Eucharistic hospitality’. That is, they open the closed door and invite any baptized Christian, regardless of standing or denomination, to receive the Lord’s Supper. When churches began practicing this form of ‘Eucharistic hospitality’ it was revolutionary! It was controversial! It was transformative!
And sadly, it still falls short of the mark. Even still, this is not how Jesus gives. The world gives with conditions and strings attached; Jesus gives w/o conditions, w/o strings, w/o discrimination.
If the church is to give as Jesus gives, even baptism cannot be a condition of sharing the sacred meal.
Think about whom Jesus ate with. The miracle of loaves and fishes involved thousands. How many of them were baptized? Jesus ate with rich and poor, men and women, elites and prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners and socialites, insiders and outsiders. Oh, but the last supper! Yes, the last supper was attended by Jesus’ disciples and their families. As far as we know, only those who were once followers of John the Baptist would have been baptized (Andrew perhaps?). And remember, the last supper included Judas Iscariot…who didn’t leave to do his dirty deed until after he had taken and eaten.
Oh, but apostles were later baptized by the holy Spirit at Pentecost! If that’s your case, then the Lord’s Supper must be reserved for those with their hair on fire!
If you visit the congregation I serve on Sunday morning, you will find the following invitation to the Lord’s Supper:
Jesus Christ invites and welcomes everyone to his sacred meal.
Everyone.
This flies contrary to the official line of my congregation’s denominational teaching, of typical church practice, and two thousand years of (what I maintain is bad) liturgical and theological tradition. And I am convinced it is exactly what Jesus has in mind.
If the church (the body of Christ) is to give as Jesus gives, there can be no condition/prerequisite/stipulation to the sacred meal…not even baptism. To do so would fail to discern the body of Christ.