You may have picked up on the peculiar debate within the Church of England over gluten free bread and non-alcoholic wine over the past few days. I’ve written a couple of articles linked to the topic. Stephen Kneale has also written, picking up helpfully on the missional aspect to our decisions about communion. We need to be alert to what the choice of food will mean in different cultural contexts.
I think the argument made both by Steve and myself can be summed up as follows. For a means of grace to be effective, it needs to function as such to those who intended to receive it. What do I mean by this? Well, first of all, it is worth remembering what we mean by “a means of grace.” This term is used normally to refer to baptism and communion. Some people call these “sacraments”. However, the word “sacrament” is often associated with the Catholic idea that grace is a substance which is infused or poured into you through baptism, marriage, confession, the Mass, Last rites etc. This substance also leaks out of us whenever we sin so that we need a weekly top up.
We want to be clear that this isn’t how we are meant to think about grace or baptism and communion. We do not believe in baptismal regeneration, that the water is special and holy so that it saves you. Nor do we believe in transubstantiation so that the bread and wine become Jesus’ body and we actually eat him to receive new grace.
By grace, we mean specifically God’s loving kindness to us in Jesus, the free gift of salvation. We experience the fruits of this grace because we are reconciled to God in Christ, one such fruit is assurance. When we talk about a means of grace, we are not saying that we receive the grace itself through baptism and communion, first because grace isn’t a substance to be infused and secondly because we have received grace already. However, there is a sense in which grace is applied to our lives, that we want to have a full grasp and experience of it. Baptism and communion make visible and tangible the things they symbolise. You might argue that Christian worship offers us a fully immersive experience.
This means that communion is more than a memorial. This was a point of disagreement between two of the reformers, Zwingli and Calvin. Zwingli wanted to emphasise that the elements do not become Christ and so he emphasised that they are symbols and that we are remembering Jesus. Calvin thought that this went too far in the other direction. Communion is doing more than that. So, his emphasis was that as we eat the bread and wine, physically, we feed on Christ, spiritually, in our hearts.
Therefore,for communion and baptism to do their jobs, first of all, there needs to be a close affinity between the symbol and the things symbolised. This means, for example, that ideally a person should be fully immersed in plenty of water. This is because the symbol picks up on three crucuial images:
- A passing through water and being kept safe, through death to life on the other side. Think of the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan. Think too of the way that Peter links baptism to those kept safe in Noah’s Ark through the Flood.
- A cleansing. It’s a proper bath!
- Being buried with Christ in his death and raised with him to new life as per Romans 6.
We cannot pick and choose what we use for communion, mars bars and coke don’t really cut it. The primary reason, of course as to why bread and wine were used by Jesus was because they were part of the Passover Meal. The bread in that meal reminded the people of a meal prepared in haste with unleavened bread. The wine is seen as sealing a covenant. There is perhaps imagery in the fruit of the vine representing God’s people, often pictured as a vine. Many people do find the red colour a reminder of blood poured out. Although the New Testament does not seem to major on blood colour in quite the same explicit way that we sometimes do today, the point is that the New Covenant is sealed with Jesus’ blood.
As far as it is possible, I think we should try to keep as close as possible to the symbol. However, we should not over narrowly specify when Jesus doesn’t. Indeed, it is helpful to observe that no ingredients list is provided. This is important because we need to ensure that those who are meant to be included are, without exception. So, a means of grace that excludes coeliacs and alcoholics is deficient. It is no good to suggest that they can just pray in their hearts. Indeed, you cannot get so uptight about the ingredients and then suggest that actually participating, eating and drinking doesn’t matter. The bread and wine are not just visual aids to prayer to be kept at the front.
The other side of the coin is that whilst communion is inclusive to all who truly trust in Christ, it is exclusive. There are those who should not be eating the bread and wine. We don’t want them to live with false assurance about their relationship to Christ and each other. So, if it is for believers, then it is also not for unbelievers. It must also surely be for those who are right with each other, hence the primary instrument of church discipline is the removal of membership and access to the Lord’s Table. Otherwise the meal becomes meaningless, if all are included in the Means of Grace, then in effect all are excluded because we rob it of its meaning and purpose.
Whilst the CofE debate is frankly silly, I hope that we are encouraged and challenged to think about how we do communion in order to ensure that it fulfils its intended purpose.
Faithroots 