Click here for a PDF file of this sermon series with pictures and footnotes.
Grace, mercy and peace be to you
from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
I’d like to begin today with the words
from 1 Corinthians which says:
Do this in
remembrance of me… For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you
proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth
and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and
our Redeemer. Amen.
Today our sermon will be the
third in a series of four sermons about the Lord’s Supper. In the first sermon,
I spoke about the true presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s
Supper. Last week, I spoke particularly about the benefits of the Lord’s
Supper: the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. And this is particularly
expressed in the blessing which the pastor speaks after the Lord’s Supper: The
body of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy precious blood strengthen and
preserve you in body and soul unto life eternal.
Today, I’d like to speak about
the words: Do this in remembrance of me. The Lord’s Supper is not so
much something that we do—the most important thing about it is that we receive
this wonderful gift of the body and blood of Christ to eat and to drink. But
also, the church is also called to do something. We don’t sit around
while the body of Christ drops out of heaven at random. Jesus has called us to
particular actions that are to be done in remembrance of him.
And so, when we think about these
things, we should remember that the church has always sought to pass on this
wonderful sacrament throughout the centuries. And we are called to be faithful
in doing this in remembrance of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. So
today’s sermon will talk about practical things that have to do with the Lord’s
Supper. And these things are part of our mission as Christians, pastor and
people together, as we seek to shine Christ’s light into our community and
world.
So what are these things which we
are called to do? Well, our Lutheran teaching is that there are three
actions that make up the Lord’s Supper: consecration, distribution, and
reception. The word “consecrate” means to “set something apart as holy”.
That has to do with Christ’s words where: he took the bread and spoke
the words: this is my body, this is my blood. This is the first thing
which Christ calls us to do in remembrance of him.
The second thing is distributing
it. This is where we read: He broke the bread and gave it to his disciples.
And the last thing is receiving it. Jesus says: Take, eat. Drink of it all
of you.
So there’s three actions that
form the Lord’s Supper: consecration, distribution and reception. The
Book of Concord often states that “nothing is a sacrament without the divinely
instituted action”. So it’s important for us to know what this action is.
So let’s focus on the first
action: the consecration.
This task is performed by a
pastor. The pastoral ministry comes as a continuation of the ministry of the 12
apostles. On the night Jesus was betrayed, he gathered the 12 disciples for the
Last Supper, and then sent them out after he rose from the dead. St Paul says: I
received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. The apostles ordained
new pastors, who in turn carried on these things. And this structure still
continues today in the church. St Paul says: This is how one should regard
us [pastors], as slaves of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
And so, what is the consecration?
The consecration is where the pastor speaks the word of God over this
particular bread and this particular wine, so that from that point on the body
and blood of Christ are truly present there in those elements. Sometimes in the
Lutheran Church, it was taught that the body and blood of Christ were only
present when a person ate and drank them. But this is not our Lutheran
teaching, even though it was taught sometimes in the Lutheran church. The
presence comes about because of the words of Christ which are spoken at the
consecration. Otherwise, Christ’s words would not be true. Jesus says: This--which
I am about to give to you--is my body. Otherwise, Christ would have
needed to say: This will be my body, or it is about to be my body when you eat
it. That’s not what Jesus said.
St Paul says: The blessing cup
which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? St Paul
says that the blessing cup is a participation in the blood of Christ, because
it is blessed. And blessed with what? Blessed with the recitation and
repetition of Christ’s words which he said on the night he was betrayed.
So what is it that Christ
actually consecrated? We read: He took bread and wine. Now—it is
important that when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper that we use bread and wine,
and not something else, like chips and coke! Our wafers that we use are
actually a type of bread, just not the kind that we often make into toast in
the morning. There’s also a kind of wholemeal wafers that are available that
are a bit more substantial and taste a bit more bread-like.
But it is also important that we
use wine. We often use a fortified wine, like port, because the higher alcohol
content is good for sharing the common chalice, and it’s a little bit sweet so
that most people won’t dislike the taste too much! Now Jesus calls it in Luke
the “fruit of the vine”. But this doesn’t mean that we should use unfermented grape
juice. First of all, Jesus didn’t use unfermented grape juice, and in the
history of the church, the only people who have used grape juice have been
those who don’t believe in the real presence of Christ’s body and blood anyway.
First of all, this is Christ’s
institution and it has continued right through many dark times of history where
Christians haven’t lived in clean and hygienic environments. We read in the
parable of the Good Samaritan, that when he saw the man beaten up on the side
of the road, he poured over his wounds wine and oil. Oil was used as a lotion
to soothe his wounds, and wine was used as a disinfectant. I have heard that
even now, Bedouin people who live in the deserts of Arabia and North Africa
often still carry wine and oil as part of their supplies for this very reason. Now
in Israel, grapes would have been harvested in June or July, so by the time
Passover came around in March, it would have been well-fermented by then.
Sometimes, people have rejected wine for tee-totalling reasons. But Jesus
himself was not a tee-totaller. He turned an enormous amount of water into wine
at the wedding in Cana. People even accused Jesus of being a glutton and a
drunkard. Of course, Jesus wasn’t either of these things, but this is
because he ate food and drank wine with people. Wine is the drink of
celebrating—Isaiah says that God will prepare a feast with well-aged wine. We
see right in the book of Genesis, where the king Melchizedek brings out a gift
of bread and wine to Abraham, and Jesus surely has this in mind since he was
there when Melchizedek met Abraham. Grape juice and Ribena is not the
drink of celebrating, in fact, it’s the opposite—it’s a modern substitute. It’s
like what carob is to chocolate, or like what soy is to milk. Sure, that doesn’t
mean that people should get drunk, but we have to be careful that we don’t put
our own ideas above Jesus’ ideas. This is his supper, this is the Lord’s
Supper, and he knows what he’s doing.
Sometimes, people think we should
have grape juice to accommodate people who might have an alcohol problem. And
of course, there have been all kinds of Christians who have struggled and
fought with alcoholism. Addiction is a terrible thing, and we Christians love
these people and want to be friends to them in their hardship. But this is a
different issue, and it’s not a reason to change the sacrament. Christ’s body
and blood could never be the cause for someone to fall into temptation.
So when the consecration is
performed, it is like baptism. In baptism, we need water and we need God’s
word. It wouldn’t be a baptism if you used honey or tomato sauce instead. In
the Lord’s Supper, we need bread and wine, and we need God’s word.
So that’s the consecration. The
second thing we’ll talk about now is: the distribution. The sacrament
needs to be distributed, just as we read: he broke [the bread] and gave it
to the disciples.
At some point in history, it
became the practice in the Roman Catholic Church not to distribute the wine to
the people. There were all kinds of reasons given—perhaps some of the reasons
were well-intentioned, in that they didn’t want to spill it or desecrate it.
But Christ’s words still stand: Drink of it, all of you. This was one of
the major issues of the Reformation, where gradually it was brought in that
people also commune from the chalice, not just with the bread alone. Since the
1960s, the Roman Catholic Church have allowed the chalice to be given, but often
the bread is distributed alone, as is the case in our local area.
Now one thing that is quite clear
in the Book of Concord is that it was always considered the duty of the
pastoral ministry not only to consecrate but also to distribute
the sacrament in both kinds. Until the last couple of years or so, I always
thought like many Lutherans today that our normal practice was that a pastor
distribute the bread and a layperson could distribute the chalice. But I have
since learnt that this is not the teaching of the Book of Concord. Now, people
might simply dismiss this as a “human law”, but the reason given for this is
because St Paul says: This is how one should regard us, as servants of
Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Being a steward doesn’t mean
that we are “delegators” of the mysteries of God.
Most people today would protest
that if the pastor distributed both kinds himself, it would take too long. But
even though the practice of having lay-assistants is quite common in the
Lutheran Church of Australia, it is a relatively recent practice and is not
necessarily common all throughout the world. In the Slovakian Church in
Melbourne, the practice is that communion is celebrated once a month, they are
a congregation of 200 of people or more, and the pastor goes around once to lay
his hands on each person to give them individual absolution and forgiveness,
then he goes around a second time with the body of Christ, and then a third
time with the chalice. Of course, it takes a very long time, but this is their
practice and it’s just accepted that it be done like this.
In the old days in Australia, the
pastor would simply do two rounds, one with the plate and then with the
chalice. In the 1973 hymnbook, the instructions say: “When the Minister gives
the bread, he says”. “When the Minister gives the cup, he says.” But then only
16 years later in 1989, when they published the Supplement, the words were
changed: “When the minister and his assistants give the bread and the cup, they
say”. The older practice was changed sometime in between. I don’t think the
change came about because of malice, but just out of ignorance.
However, there is a practice
which is used in Scandinavia, where an assistant holds the plate, the pastor
takes the chalice, and then the pastor leans over and gives the bread and then
the chalice. This is much quicker than the Slovakian way, and only takes a few
minutes longer, especially if the pastor communes two or three people with the
bread and then doubles back with the wine. People would still have enough time
to peel their potatoes or whatever they do before lunch! It can also be a good
thing to use retired pastors and visiting pastors to help out when they around.
When a pastor gives both kinds,
as I often had to do in some small churches in my previous parish, it can
actually bring about a lot of benefits. For example, let’s say someone is
an alcoholic. They might ask me privately to make sure I only give them a tiny
sip. But if we have assistants always giving the chalice, then I have to tell
all of them their secret when otherwise I could keep it to myself. Of course,
the body and blood of Christ are still the body and blood of Christ, and if we
do make a change to our current practice, it’s good for us to talk about it in
bible studies and such like and test my opinion to see it is actually right or
not. It seems to me that our church’s teaching in the Book of Concord is that
the Sacrament should be received in both kinds from the hands of the pastor,
because they are set aside as the steward of God’s mysteries.
So—so far, we’ve talked about the
consecration and the distribution. The last thing: the reception.
Of course, this is simply the other side of the coin from the distribution.
But there’s a question: who
should receive the Lord’s Supper? You might remember from our sermon last week
about how the Lord’s Supper can be received to our blessing or to our judgment.
As pastors, we want to make sure that people who come know what the sacrament
is and what it’s for. People should believe that it is the body and blood of
Christ, and that it is given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. If
people don’t believe that, they shouldn’t be given the Lord’s Supper. This is
not because we don’t think these people are Christians, or because we don’t
love them. No—far from it! We love these people, and we don’t want them to
receive the sacrament to their judgment. Especially, the Lord’s Supper should
not be given to someone who is not baptised, or is not a Christian. We want
these people to be taught our church’s teaching, and be welcomed to the Lord’s
Supper publicly and properly. It was always the teaching of the Lutheran Church
that the Lord’s Supper should not be given to people who don’t believe in the
Lord’s Supper. And those who receive it should be examined and absolved.
They should be taught about it. This is what pastoral care is. It treats God’s
real things as real, and teaches people how to enter into the presence of our
living Lord Jesus. Our common faith in the real presence of Christ’s body and
blood given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins is what makes us a
church, and binds us together in Christian love. As I said last week, there’s
only one kind of unworthy guest to the Lord’s Supper, and that is a person who
does not believe. I would like to commend it to you how we as a congregation
can best build each other up in a good practice and strengthen our mission in
this area, so that people can be welcomed to the Lord’s Supper with good
teaching, and with Christian love.
We should also remember St Paul’s
words: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord’s death until he comes. When you come to the altar, this is where
you proclaim your faith. As a pastor, I have the privilege of proclaiming my
faith in the pulpit, but you get that wonderful privilege at the altar. So,
when we come to the altar, we come on our knees as a united church. It’s not consistent
to be also taking communion in another church where the beliefs about various
things are different. We can’t make two conflicting confessions of faith. It’s
inconsistent to commune at one church where we teach that we are saved by
grace, and commune at another where they teach salvation by works. That would
be a bit like being married to two people!
So let’s read together what
Luther says in the Catechism about receiving the Lord’s Supper.
Who receives this sacrament
worthily?
Fasting and bodily preparation
are certainly fine outward training. But that person is truly worthy and well
prepared who has faith in these words: “Given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of sins.” But anyone who does not believe these words or doubts
them is unworthy and unprepared, for the words “for you” require all hearts to
believe.
Can you see? A person’s
worthiness doesn’t come from themselves, but from the words, and from the faith
in the words: Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
Sometimes people might also fast on a Sunday morning, and there’s an old custom
which is still practised among many Christians throughout the world of skipping
breakfast on a Sunday morning, so that the first thing you eat and drink for
the day and the week is Christ’s body and blood. You might have some bodily
preparation—you might have some special Sunday clothes that you wear. All of
these things are good things, but are free and people can do them if they like.
But what is most important is the word of God, and the heart that believes
God’s word. You can also see that Luther tells us that those who don’t believe
in the realities of the Lord’s Supper are not prepared to receive it, and
shouldn’t be given it.
One more thing about receiving
the Lord’s Supper. Often when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, there are some left-overs,
and it is often asked, what exactly we should do with it. It is our church’s
teaching that the action of the sacrament is to consecrate, distribute and
receive it. So, if there has been some bread which is consecrated, it should be
distributed and received. The only thing that Christ has said for us to do with
it is to take and eat, take and drink.
In the Catholic Church, there is
still a practice to keep the consecrated bread left over, and then to put it on
display, for example, in a monstrance, which is a special stand to hold
consecrated bread. People then come and pray it, because, as I said two weeks
ago, they believe that it isn’t actually bread any more. Lutherans have always
rejected this practice, because worshipping the bread like this, would be like
the shepherds coming to the manger and worshipping both Christ and the
manger! The bread is still a thing created by God, even though it is also
Christ body, united to Christ’s body, and is the means by which we eat Christ’s
body. The early Lutherans said that this should not be done, because all the
bread that was consecrated should be distributed and eaten. If this is what
people were doing in the Middle Ages, can you imagine what an offense it would
have been if they then tipped the consecrated wine down the sink!
So what I have described is our
church’s teaching, and was the practice of the church in the early centuries which
Luther and the early Lutherans also sought to continue. In recent times,
because people believed that the body and blood of Christ were only present
when people ate and drank it, they said: “Well, when the service is over, it’s
just bread and wine again, so we can put it back in the cupboard and pour it
back in the bottle or down the sink.” This is why you may have noticed that I
often estimate the number of communicants and consume the leftovers after the
service together with an elder or someone.
So here we have discussed the
three actions of the Lord’s Supper: the consecration, the distribution and the
reception.
One last thing: there is one
practice that makes distribution very difficult and cleaning up the left-overs
very difficult and that is the use of individual glass cups. Now, I know that
this might be a very a sensitive issue for some of you, and it’s not my
intention to go out of my way to offend you. But there’s a couple of things I’d
like to say about it. Firstly, this is still Christ’s blood here which you
receive—it is wine that has had Christ’s words of consecration spoken over
them. But the churches that first began to use individual cups were churches
that didn’t believe in the real presence and they were using grape juice.
Second, I am not aware of a single case where congregations have contracted
disease from sharing a common chalice. In recent news, we have heard about
berries from China giving people Hepatitis A. But have you ever heard of
something like this being passed around a congregation? Surely this would be in
the news? But there have been different studies over the last 50 years--which you
can have copies of if you’re interested—which demonstrate that the common
chalice is hygienically safe. But thirdly, remember that Jesus is the one who
passed around a common chalice at the last supper and said, do this in
remembrance of me, even though the disciples would have had their own
individual cups at the table. All the passages about the Lord’s Supper say, the
cup, the cup, the cup. And wine has antiseptic properties. Jesus Christ is the
God of the universe: He’s not going to poison us. And also, remember what I was
saying last week about how it is a teaching of the bible that when we receive
the Lord’s Supper to our blessing, it is not for illness, weakness and death,
but gives us the opposite of these things: strength, health and life. Let me quote from a Lutheran pastor writing
about this subject: “Our Lord Jesus Christ has never killed a single person,
never caused people to be sick and feeble. He has always done the contrary
things, because His body and His blood are a healing medicine, “the medicine of
immortality”, and not at risk of being contaminated and spreading epidemics.
Let Christians who have a different opinion spend some time with St. Paul: For
he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not
judge the body [of the Lord] rightly. For this reason many among you are weak
and sick, and a number sleep. In the light of these earnest words of St
Paul we must put aside all rationalistic “ifs” and “buts” against the medicine
of immortality, the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the paten
and the chalice before us at the altar and in the hand of the Apostolic
ministry.”
Of course, I’ve made some remarks
today that would possibly raise some discussions for us, which is a good thing.
And it’s not my intention to change these things overnight, without people
talking and asking questions. These things shouldn’t be done by force, but
should be done with teaching. And it would be right for you to be suspicious of
anyone who wants to change things especially if it is something as important as
the Lord’s Supper. But the question I would also put to you is whether the
things I mentioned were that way originally, and whether or not they were
changed for the better.
God’s richest blessings to you
all, and especially as we continue to come to eat and drink this wonderful
supper that our Lord Jesus Christ has spread for us!
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, bless us with
your Holy Spirit, and lead and guide us in everything. Thank you for your
supper, where you give us your body and blood to eat and to drink. Amen.
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