“Communities of Remembrance”

“How Large Is Our Christian Fellowship?”

Text of a sermon by Rev. Dr. Paul Numrich at MTSO chapel, October 26, 2005.

Text: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, key verse: “Do this in remembrance of me.”

Hymns: “Let Us Break Bread Together,” “Become to Us the Living Bread.”

Theme: Is our Christian fellowship large enough to cover our differences?

“Do this in remembrance of me.”

When we gather at Christ’s Communion table, we celebrate our unity of Christian fellowship in remembrance of him. That’s our theology, right?

During our graduate school days, our guest from Asbury Theological Seminary, Dr. Terry Muck, and I studied ritual as one dimension of religion. We learned about ritual’s social functions and explored the concept of communitas, a Latin term used by the anthropologist Victor Turner, best rendered “fellowship” in English.[1]

Communitas is an intimate sacred fellowship celebrated—even created—through collective rituals that form a bond—and boundaries—of spiritual kinship.

Sociologists of religion analyze how rituals demarcate groups, setting “us” off from “them.” Paradoxically, the more alike “we” and “they” are, the more important the demarcation function of rituals, since a group must distinguish itself from its closest rivals and competitors.[2]

Why this social science analysis of religious ritual during a seminary chapel service? I wish to use it as an entrée to a reality check of our Christian fellowship, using the Eucharist as a case study.

Our theology says that we are one Christian fellowship of remembrance around the Communion table. The final stanza that we will sing today includes the lines: “May Christians all with one accord / unite around the sacred board.”

But the hopeful language here gives us away: May we unite around the sacred board. We know that the whole Christian fellowship is not united in its Eucharistic rituals. Remember, the more alike “we” and “they” are, the more important the demarcation function of rituals.

The rituals of Communion and Baptism have been flashpoints of controversy throughout Christian history. Ecumenical dialogue has brought many Christians closer together in recent decades, including in this very area of ritual differences.

Case in point: The recent ELCA-UMC agreement of “Interim Eucharistic Sharing.” “Interim” is an important qualifier. The goal, reading from the document, is “a relationship of full communion.” The document ends with both a reality check and a fervent hope: “Each of our communions remains a broken and incomplete witness to God’s mercy. Longing for that glorious day when all are one, . . . [w]e prayerfully commit ourselves to this continuing journey together.”[3]

Sounds like these two Protestant denominations think Christian fellowship is large enough to cover their continuing differences, and they are making notable strides toward that ultimate goal of “full communion,” a ritual communitas or fellowship.

II.

There are many Christian sub-fellowships of ritual remembrance around the Communion table. I chuckle when I observe Protestants attending a Catholic Mass, fumbling with the liturgy book, “visitor” boldly written across their faces!

One scholar of religion has said, “Ritual is the melody of faith.”[4] When we visit another church, we find that their ritual “melody” sounds slightly different than ours.

When I visit an unfamiliar Christian worship service, I inquire whether I am invited to partake of the Eucharist, aware of the demarcations and boundaries of ritual fellowship.

At a recent ELCA chapel service, I noted the statement in the bulletin, “All baptized persons, at Christ’s invitation, are welcome to commune.” So I went up to the table.

At a recent Catholic Mass, I asked the official next to me whether I should partake. He counseled that I should refrain since he did not know offhand the policy of the local diocese. So I remained seated—all by my lonesome.

In each instance, the Lord’s table was closed to someone.

Both my denomination, the Church of the Brethren, and the United Methodist Church have relatively open Communion policies, with more porous boundaries of ritual fellowship. We will follow a Eucharistic liturgy today that draws primarily upon the Brethren form, with a strategic insertion from the United Methodist form. Both forms are quite compatible with each other in theology and wording.

The UM Book of Worship states: “We have no tradition of refusing any who present themselves desiring to receive.” That sounds very open, doesn’t it?

Even so, both Brethren and United Methodists use language in the ritual words of “Invitation” that implies some demarcation, e.g., inviting those who “earnestly repent” of sin. The Methodist Invitation ends with these words: “Therefore, let us confess our sin before God and one another.”[5]

But what of someone who has no concept of God, or of sin, or of confessing sin before God? I suppose an atheist comes to mind first. But I think of the Thai Buddhist monk in the Chicago temple I studied years ago who asked me to take him to a church service because he just couldn’t understand this “God concept.”

He and his monastic brothers confess their wrongdoings before one another on a regular basis, but not as “sins” and not before “God.” Is he invited to our Lord’s Communion table?

I know of an American Baptist congregation that celebrates World Communion Sunday—they call it World Community Sunday—by inviting interfaith representatives to the Lord’s table. The pastor sees this as being as “radically inclusive” as Jesus was in his own table fellowship. Jesus ate and drank with everyone, creating a scandalous feast under the banner of the kingdom of God, welcoming those whom others would exclude from the kingdom.

“It’s more important to be related than right,” says the pastor, probably having in mind also the idea that being related is more important than using the correct “rite.” Here’s the clincher: He even has Buddhist monks bless the Communion elements.[6]

One of my United Methodist students last year was so incensed at such a radically open Communion that she could hardly contain herself in her paper. I challenged her in the margins: Can you remain in Christian fellowship with such a pastor as this?

How large is our Christian fellowship?

Perhaps I am sensitive to this issue because I was raised in a denomination with a relatively closed Communion policy, that other big Lutheran denomination, the Missouri Synod.

Except in extraordinary circumstances of pastoral care or emergency, Communion there is offered only to members of those Christian bodies considered to be in “fellowship” with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, defined primarily by doctrines of the Eucharistic elements.

Their reason is worth considering by those who practice a more open Communion: It would be inappropriate to give an appearance of Christian unity when no such unity exists.[7] Have you ever seriously considered such a theology?

I talked with someone just last night who was incensed at being excluded from the Communion table at some church or another. (I seem to run across a lot of incensed Christians!) I knew by his words and manner that he had not seriously considered the theology behind this ritual practice.

I know now that my current affiliation with the Church of the Brethren places me outside of the Missouri Synod ritual fellowship, so I am not invited to their table.[8]

But I didn’t know that 15 years ago when I visited the California branch of my family and accompanied them to a Missouri Synod church service. During the quiet, reflective time of the Prelude, I asked my uncle whether I should partake in the Eucharist since I was no longer a Missouri Synod Lutheran. His answer, far louder than I wished in that setting: “How the hell do they know what you are! Go on up there and take Communion!”

In deference to my California relatives, but contrary to Missouri Synod doctrines, I went up to the table that day. But I suspect that even if I hadn’t done so, I could have found a way to remain in larger Christian fellowship with such a denomination as this.

III.

Christians differ in a lot of ways—duh!—including how they set the boundaries of ritual participation.

I want to know, how large is our Christian fellowship?

Our ecumenical Christian encounters offer us both opportunity and challenge to maintain our larger sense of fellowship when we disagree with each other in our rituals, or whatever.

Are you willing to grant other Christian sub-fellowships their right to closed Communion? In other words, their right to exclude you from the table of our one Lord?

Remember, I’m using the Eucharist as a case study, so let’s broaden the question: Are you willing to honor your fellow Christians’ right to hear and apply the Gospel in a different way? Do you seriously consider their reasons? Or do you dismiss them as unsophisticated and theologically misguided without even an inquiry? Or, heaven forbid, do you avoid them as dreaded “liberals,” “conservatives,” whatever?!

In my first undergraduate Bible course 30 years ago I learned that Christian love is not an emotion, so I can love people I don’t particularly like. In my experience, it is the rare Christian who can maintain deep fellowship—love—with other Christians who deeply disagree with them.

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus commanded us. He also commanded us to “love one another.” Love is to be our mark in the world. “See how they love one another,” others should say about Christians.

Can we love one another even when we feel distant in Christian thought, word, or deed, even when we don’t like each other’s take on the Gospel?

Christ loves us in spite of ourselves. That’s the least we can offer each other in our larger Christian fellowship.

Amen.