A Glass to the Mind

By Robin G. Jordan

My reaction to Douglas LeBlanc’s article, "Solemn Rite or Happy Meal" (Episcopal Life Online, 12/9/08) was that the author is at best very poorly informed. First, anyone who has been following developments in the Diocese of Sydney and has visited the sydneyanglican.net web site and read "Whose Supper?" knows that Sydney’s proposal for lay administration is restricted to lay persons who meet Sydney’s rigorous qualifications for licensing as a Reader and who are licensed to conduct public services of worship and to preach at these services. Since they are ministers of the gospel, preaching the gospel every Sunday, Sydney sees no reason that they cannot be licensed to administer the gospel sacraments.

Reformed Anglican theology views the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as the only true sacraments. They are regarded as gospel sacraments because they were instituted or ordained by Christ and are a means by which the gospel is made visible. Through these means God quickens and strengthens the faith of the believer. It is by faith that the believer appropriates the benefits of Christ’s death upon the cross for our redemption.

From a Reformed Anglican perspective the gospel sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are a part of the public ministry of the Church. Those to whom Christ has given warrant and authority to administer the gospel sacraments are those whom he has called to preach the gospel. This is normally the pastor of a cure of souls but it may include other ministers who assist him since they are also called to preach the gospel.

In Sydney’s view these other ministers include deacons and licensed Readers who have preaching and teaching ministries. They have been selected and called to the work of public preaching by those who are entrusted with public authority in the Church to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard and therefore should be accepted as lawfully called and appointed to also administer the gospel sacraments (Article XXIII). Their license to preach is recognition of their calling, training, and spiritual gifts.

The Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia establishes the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1661 Ordinal along with the Thirty-Nine Articles as the province’ standard of doctrine and worship. Sydney runs into a snag with the 1661 Ordinal that specifies that a deacon is to assist the priest in the administration and distribution of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Sydney interprets "assist" to include administration of the sacrament in the absence of a priest or in the presence of a priest. Reformed Anglicans are divided between those that accept Sydney’s interpretation of the ordinal and those who espouse a stricter interpretation of the ordinal. They are, however, united in their rejection of the Catholic view that the administration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is more important than the preaching of God’s Word.

LeBlanc claims an equivalency between lay administration and open communion, asserting that the proponents of lay administration and open communion both point to the silence of the Scriptures in regards to their particular issue. However, the New Testament is not silent on the matter of open communion. While Jesus graced a wedding at Cana with his presence, accepted invitations to dine at the homes of Pharisees, ate with tax collectors and other sinners, and miraculously fed the five thousand and the four thousand, he ate the Last Supper with only the most intimate circle of his disciples. In his admonitions to the church in Corinth on the Lord’s Supper Paul addresses the members of that church and not those outside their fellowship. Proponents of open communion fail to distinguish between the table fellowship that Jesus shared with many different groups of people and the special meal that he instituted as a "perpetual memory" of his death upon the cross for our redemption. The witness of the New Testament is that this meal was not open to everyone. This was also the understanding of the early Church.

Christians should certainly share the hospitality of non-Christians and eat with them, following Jesus’ example. They should invite them to their homes for meals and to church for meals. But the Lord’s Supper is a special meal for believers only. Only to believers will the broken bread and the poured-out wine have any meaning. Only to believers is the Lord’s Supper "a glass to the mind, a monument for the memory, a support of faith, a provocation to love, a quickening to obedience, and a sign and seal of all the mercies of God in Christ Jesus." [1]. This is not to suggest that non-believers might not benefit from being present at the Lord’s Supper. However, it should be explained to them so that it will be edifying to them.

LeBlanc’s view that the Holy Spirit "infuses" the bread and wine with the presence of Christ in response to the prayer is just one of a number of views of the Eucharist represented in Anglicanism. One Reformed Anglican view is that Christ is effectually present at the Lord’s Supper. He is not present in any way in the bread and wine but is present to the heart of the believer. After the consecration the bread is bread and the wine is wine. The only change that it undergoes is in its use.

Another Reformed Anglican view is as the believer eats the bread and drinks the cup, the Holy Spirit works in the heart of the believer in such a way that in a sense the virtue or power of Christ’s body and blood can be said to be conveyed in conjunction with the eating of the bread and the drinking of the cup at the time of the communion. However, this virtue or power is not attached or tied to the bread and wine itself. They are just symbols.

In either Reformed Anglican view those without a vital faith and the wicked receive no benefit whatsoever from eating the bread and drink the cup. Rather they eat and drink to their own condemnation.

LeBlanc’s view of the Eucharist, on the other hand, is open to the interpretation that since the Holy Spirit infuses, or instills, Christ’s presence into the bread and wine, even those who lack a vital faith may receive some benefit from it. The idea that even non-believers may receive a blessing is sometimes used to support the idea of "open communion," of inviting to the Table those who are not baptized believers.

In relaxing the requirements of admission to the Lord’s Supper and not barring from the Table those whom previous generations of Episcopalians would have regarded as "notorious sinners," The Episcopal Church has already taken a large step toward "open communion." It is clearly the direction in which The Episcopal Church is heading.

LeBlanc also fails to mention that the Evangelical Lutheran Church into which The Episcopal Church has entered a concordat permitted the lay administration of the Lord’s Supper at the time of the signing of the concordat. One of the Lutheran objections to the concordat was that The Episcopal Church did not countenance this practice.

Diaconal administration of the Lord’s Supper, while it was not a common practice, was not unknown during the first five centuries of Christianity. Instead of delegating the presidency of the Eucharist to one of the presbyters, the bishop would delegate it to a deacon. Presbyters jealous of what they regarded as their prerogative and bishops sympathetic to their view brought about the suppression of the practice.

Lay administration was practiced in a number of Italian monastic communities in Medieval times. These communities developed their own rites for consecrating the eucharistic elements outside of the Mass in the absence of a priest.

The Lutheran practice of lay administration of the Lord’s Supper can be traced to Martin Luther himself. Luther advocated groups of mature Christians gathering together in private homes to read and study the Bible, to pray, to minister to each other, and to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Luther taught that it is not the words of the priest or pastor that consecrate the bread and wine for the eucharistic meal but the verbum—the Words of Institution that Christ used at the Last Supper. They are God’s Word as Christ is not only the incarnate Son of God but also the living Word.

Rather than lamenting the decline of reverence toward the eucharistic elements in The Episcopal Church, LeBlanc should be more concerned with the disappearance of a recognized need for a vital faith, which is so much a part of classical Anglicanism. The very sacramentalism that LeBlanc himself embraces has contributed to its disappearance. Only a renewed understanding of the place of faith in the sacraments can lead to a renewed appreciation of the place of the sacraments in the Church.

Endnotes:
[1] James Ussher, A Body of Divinity, (Birmingham, Alabama: Solid Ground Christian Books, 1648, 2007) 388.