The Holy Eucharist: Essential for True Community

Dear Matt and Pat,

Perhaps it is some kind of curse, but I often find it very difficult to walk away from conversations. They linger in my mind, they return to me again and again. Sometimes, as a release, I write about them. Sometimes in the form of a note. Sometimes I even send the note. If you are reading this, I have sent the note.

Matt, I lament the fact that we see the Body of Christ in such strikingly different ways. I wonder how our image of Christ himself must be different based on the different ways we visualize his Body. If our vision of Christ is different, one wonders if we are worshiping different Christs, even, perhaps, incompatible Christs. It seems to me a matter of first priority that the person of Christ himself is clear in our minds. We very well may find our different visions to be compatible, but as it stands now it seems like you reject what I consider to be key aspects of Christ's body on earth. As I said, where our views our incompatible, we should search the Scriptures to see which vision is correct. I would be interested to hear the Biblical texts you rely on for your vision of the Church, and I would be eager to share with you the texts I find illuminating on this question.

Pat, I by no means want to diminish the ecclesial angst that you are experiencing. Who among us has not suffered such angst? However, I must reject the method by which many modern Christians go about finding a Church. Church is not primarily for us, it is for God. It is the Body of Christ offering itself to God the Father in the union of the Holy Spirit. Worship is something primarily done eternally by the Triune God himself; from our perspective, we participate in that triune life of God here on earth. We, as members of Christ's body, are united with Jesus in his total self-offering to the Father. This is not something we do, not something that we can do, outside of union with Christ. It is only in union with him that we can make of ourselves pleasing sacrifices. This sort of total self giving, this "gifting" of ourselves, creates within us a sense of peace and joy because we were created to be in this type of perfect union with Christ. However, it is not the peace and joy we seek, rather, it is the self-sacrificing unity through, with, and in Christ Jesus, by the unity of the Holy Spirit, for the glory and honor of the Father. That is why we can say that church is Heaven on earth, because through the liturgy we are united to God in the same way we are united with him for eternity in heaven.

It is the Eucharist itself that is at the heart of this divine event. Through the Eucharist we unite ourselves to Christ. It is by partaking in his very body and blood that we become one with Him, and as we are united with him, we are united to his perfect sacrifice to the Father. We are united to his death, and united to his resurrection. We receive new life through unity with his everlasting life. Unless we eat his body and drink his blood, there is no life in us. To eat and drink the body and blood of Christ is to be united with him as a man is united to his wife. A man and woman become "one flesh" through mutual self-giving. To partake in the Eucharist is a similar event; Christ offers himself, his very body and soul, to me. By God's grace, I offer myself, my body and soul, to him. Christ is the Groom, the Church (myself included) is the bride. As the groom approaches his bride and enters her, giving her the seed of life, Christ the groom approaches me and enters me, giving the seed of life. We become one flesh, he and I.

In this action, I also become one flesh with all other Christians throughout the ages, because we are all one body in Christ. By becoming one flesh with the one Jesus Christ, I am also one flesh with the men and women who kneel at the same Communion rail with me. I am one flesh with all those who profess the catholic faith around the world. I am one flesh even with those who profess the true faith across the centuries. Thomas Aquinas and I are one through mutual participation in the body and blood of Christ. St. Francis and I are one. Mother Teresa and I are one. St. Paul and I are one. By eating and drinking of the same body and blood, we are One Body in Jesus.

This is the true meaning of community--communion. This is a community more profound than any other possible community. Two individuals who share in Christ's divine feast are perfectly united in Christ. They have a oneness that is ontological, it is real. Communities that are not based on the unity of the Eucharist are, I believe, objectively different. They are based on friendship, common interests, common empathy, genuine love and kindness, and all of this is to be truly sought after. The level of unity, however, is necessarily diminished, and these communities all too often break apart. Look at the experience of churches. Those churches that diminish the unity of Christ's Body as experienced in the Eucharist tend to divide and divide and divide. Too often, there is little to hold them together. The Catechism teaches that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. For the Church throughout history this has been the case. I include the very earliest Christian communities. Go to the earliest apostolic writings and you will find the emphasis placed on the Eucharist. The Eucharist was the source and summit of all worship. When it is not that, when the real presence is denied, communities break apart.

Therefore, perhaps it is now clear why I am dubious about the concept of finding a church that has more community than Church of the Resurrection. Rez has (or purports to have) the central element of all Christian community, the Eucharist. In full conformity with Christian tradition, the Eucharist is the pinnacle of worship at Rez. In communion, community is made perfect. Perhaps this requires eyes of faith, and much of it is mystery, but it is also true. You cannot find more perfect community than this. More so, you cannot find truer worship, because the liturgical actions at Rez bring you to the high alter in heaven, where the lamb stands if slain, and where all the angels of heaven we sing, "Holy, Holy, Holy. Lord God Almighty!" This is true worship, it is the type of Worship required by God Himself. It is self-sacrificial, Christocentric, spirit and truth. It is an act of pure love by the Body of Christ, and it creates and unity that transcends all human understanding.

I believe that most of what I have said above can be defended in Anglican theology. See how many of the themes mentioned above (the one-flesh union with Christ, the mutual sacrifice, etc.) are articulated in a prayer from the Anglican liturgy, which Church of the Resurrection essentially uses:

And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee, that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him. And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice; yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, through Jesus Christ our Lord; by whom, and with whom, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto thee, O Father Almighty, world without end.

What I have recounted here is a small fraction of the Church's traditional understanding of what the mass is. However, even in light of my weak and amateur explanation, I hope it is clear why I am dubious of the quest for a church that is more communal; such a church can hardly be imagined. One of my primary concerns is that we, in modern America, have replaced the traditional conception of what a church service is about with a new vision based more on Freud than Christ. We know how popular this new idea of support groups is in America, and we see the success of the therapeutic culture in a post-Christian world. Modern psychology is great, and it has done some good for some people, but it contains within it, at the level of first principles, many non-Christian ideas. It is worth redeeming, that is true. However, I think it would be an unspeakable tragedy for the Church to swap out the profoundly beautiful and world changing vision of the historical mass, which has sustained Christians--Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant (especially in the Anglican and Lutheran traditions)--for millenia, and replace it with a new Oprah Winfrey model of church. Small groups are great, accountability is nice, transparency is desirable, Biblical application is wonderful, and all of it is to be sought, but it should not take the place of true worship, which is necessarily Eucharistic.

All of this, I believe, is strictly Biblical. Indeed, I think the true centrality of the Lord's Supper is self-evidently biblical for anyone who approaches it with an open mind.

Therefore, Matt, we can see how the man who stands before us in church is not merely another guy talking at us. If he were just randomly chosen, it would be appropriate to question his role. However, we cannot forget that this man is ordained by the church. Through this ordination, administered through the laying of hands, a man enjoys a special grace, given by the Holy Spirit, to administer the sacraments. This is true of the Reformation churches as well as the ancient churches. This is the clear pattern of Scripture, where Christ chose only 12 apostles and gave them special authority (to bind and loose, to retain and remit sins) and then those apostles ordained new men as leaders of the church thereafter (see 1 and 2 Timothy and also Titus). People do not simply receive church authority because they wake up one day and want it, it must be given to them through the the Body of Christ itself. I repeat myself here, but this is the universal model that we see in Scripture and find throughout history, including the earliest patristic writings. It is the current teaching of every major branch of historical Christianity. It is the teaching of the magisterial Reformers of the 16th century. I do not know exactly the origins of the idea that the church needs no leaders and that no man is ordained to preside over the Lord's Supper, but I suspect they are very modern indeed.

All of this, I hope, goes a small way toward explaining why I do not consider therapeutic community the hallmark of true Christian worship. It is important, but it is not central...not even strictly essential. The type of community that is essential is the community formed between God and man in the Eucharist.

If either of you would like to explain what I am misunderstanding, I would be eager to hear it. I would also be interested to discuss the Biblical citations we might use to get a better understanding for the nature of the Body of Christ.

Thanks for hearing me out, guys! I am so thankful for you!

Rick