Should Non-Christians Be Allowed to the Communion Table?
Fresh from the sacramentalism brouhaha, I found a friend asking the above question. While I have some thoughts, I’m more concerned for the outworking of all this sacrament talk. Maybe this is one of the places where it plays out in practice; if Protestants are re-opening the conversation on sacraments, how then does that play out in the mission of the church? In particular, opening or closing communion?
I’ve been thinking about blogging on this. Probably will now…
The question assumes that we know when a person passes the magic line from “Christian” to “non-Christian”. What if we invite anyone who is exploring relationship with Jesus to the communion table? I’m assuming that anyone outside of that definition probably isn’t interested in communion.
stumbled upon this gem and it hits a home run:
“The bread and wine are not the important things in the Supper. They are only the simple means, in company with which we receive something unseen and unexplainable… What do we receive in company with the bread and wine? When the bread (and wine) comes, it does not come unaccompanied… when you receive the broken bread in the Supper, then you receive in and with the bread the broken body of Christ… a few cannot understand it, they throw the whole thing overboard and say that the bread symbolizes the body of Christ and the cup symbolizes the blood of Christ. Then you receive from the Lord’s Supper only a lovely picture of Christ, but not the reality. We have more in the communion than a beautifully painted picture. We have the real, the essential”
- August Pohl, First Covenant Church of Chicago, 1898.
- Sacraments are not necessary for salvation
BUT
– Sacraments are necessary for participation
divine participation
communal participation
participation as the subverting idea to our individualistic (and nominalist) tendencies
“One should therefore emphasize that the divine means of Word and sacrament are concerned with the inner man. Hence it is not enough that we hear the Word with our outward ear, but we must let it penetrate to our heart, so that we may hear the Holy Spirit speak there, that is, with vibrant emotion and comfort feel the sealing of the Spirit and the power of the Word. Nor is it enough to be baptized, but the inner man, where we have put on Christ in Baptism, must also keep Christ on and bear witness to him in our outward life. Nor is it enough to have received the Lord’s Supper externally, but the inner man must truly be fed with that blessed food.” – Philip Jacob Spener, Pia Desideria (Fortress, 1964), 117.
John 6:48-58
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%206:48-58&version=NASB
John 6:48-58 (New American Standard Bible)
48″(A)I am the bread of life.
49″(B)Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
50″This is the bread which (C)comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and (D)not die.
51″(E)I am the living bread that (F)came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, (G)he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give (H)for the life of the world is (I)My flesh.”
52(J)Then the Jews (K)began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”
53So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of (L)the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.
54″He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will (M)raise him up on the last day.
55″For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
56″He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood (N)abides in Me, and I in him.
57″As the (O)living Father (P)sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.
58″This is the bread which (Q)came down out of heaven; not as (R)the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread (S)will live forever.”