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One Love
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| Posted 10/28/2007 8:12 AM (GMT -6) |   | E: I understand all that. That's what I told him too. I know that it's nothing personal. I just think it's funny that…, from Fr. Proctor's perspective, I had an especially good grasp about what the Divine Litugy was all about and the incredible reality that it represents...but, as I see it, none of that ultimately matters. I can't participate because of my non-chrismatic state. It's just funny to me.
Tom: Not 'funny' but perhaps 'tragic'.
Tragi-comedy, perhaps? 
It's GREAT to hear from you, Tom. God's got ya, man!
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit of Christ, who is in you, whom you have received from God the Father? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."
"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." Post Edited (Epiklesis) : 10/28/2007 8:16:14 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/28/2007 8:45 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Theosis
One of the quotes used...
"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . . "
—C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
And I found this statement interesting when I looked at this page again...
"The divinized Christian is a living Eucharist, a vessel presenting God's spirit to the world, constantly welling up within them. He is transforming this world, by living within us, and we are his hands, feet, and mouths."
How about that?
Post Edited (Epiklesis) : 10/28/2007 8:52:17 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/29/2007 8:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Something interesting...
From Dallas Willard's "Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ". Chapter 9: "Transforming the Body", pp. 172-173. All italics Willard's. All other emphases mine.
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So, now in approaching the spiritual formation of our body, what should we do? There are a number of things:
1. We must actually release our body to God. That is what Paul means when he tells us "to present our body to God as a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1, par). It needs to be a definite action, renewed as appropriate, perhaps on a yearly basis. (Epiklesis' Note: Yearly? How about DAILY! ) You will not drift into this position before God, and you will not, without decisive action, stay there.
Perhaps you could do it like this. Decide to give your body to God on the basis of understanding how important it is and that scriptural teaching requires it. Know, therefore, that it is a good and indispensible thing to do. Then take a day in silent and solitary retreat. Quiet your soul and your body, and let them get clear of the fog of your daily burdens and preoccupations. Meditatively pray some central Scriptures before the Lord, especially those dealing directly with the body, already cited and emphasized in this chapter.
I recommend that you then lie on the floor, face down or face up, and explicitly and formally surrender your body to God. Then take time to go over the main parts of the body and do the same for each one. What you want to do is to ask God to take charge of your body and each part, to fill it with his life and use it for his purposes. Accentuate the positive; don't just think of not sinning with your body. You will find this following naturally from active consecration of it to God's power and his purpose. Remember, a sacrifice is something to be taken up in God.
Give plenty of time to this ritual of sacrifice. Do not rush. When you realize that it is done, give God thanks, arise, and spend some time in praise. An ecstatic reading (chant and walk or dance) of Psalms 145-150 would be an excellent exercise in this context. Put your body into it. Later, share what you have done with a spiritual friend or pastor, and ask him or her to bless it. Review your ritual of sacrifice in thought and prayer from time to time over the following weeks, and plan to renew the same ritual surrender year by year.
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So, Dallas Willard specifically talks about
1) offering the body sacrificially in surrender to God's Spirit
2) actively consecrating the body to God
3) allowing God to "take charge" over all of the body
4) allowing God to "fill" the body with the life of God in Christ.
Now...the epicletic prayer again...
"Again we offer unto Thee this reasonable and bloodless worship, and we ask Thee, and pray Thee, and supplicate Thee: Send down Thy Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here offered. And make this bread the precious Body of Thy Christ.
And that which is in this cup, the precious Blood of Thy Christ.
Making the change by the Holy Spirit.
That these gifts may be to those who partake for the purification of soul, for remission of sins, for the communion of the Holy Spirit, for the fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven; for boldness towards Thee, and not for judgment or condemnation.
Let me make some amendments...and see something. See what you think about this:
(Said while having an "Orans" position. Eyes and hands to heaven, ready to receive... )
Again, Lord, I offer unto You this reasonable and bloodless worship, and, with all humility and supplication, I ask You: Send down Your Holy Spirit upon these gifts here offered...the members of my body. And make this "body and blood" that I inhabit into the Matchless, Precious Body and Blood of Your Holy Christ.
Making the change by the Holy Spirit.
That the gifts of my members may be to those who interact with such for the purification of soul, for remission of sins, for the communion of the Holy Spirit, for the fulfillment of the Kingdom of Heaven; for boldness towards You, and not for judgment or condemnation.
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Now, what if a person were to do this every day...or even hourly?
What then?
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit of Christ, who is in you, whom you have received from God the Father? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."
"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." Post Edited (Epiklesis) : 10/29/2007 10:47:24 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/29/2007 8:53 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/29/2007 9:08 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/29/2007 11:33 AM (GMT -6) | | More gems from Dallas Willard’s ”Renovation of the Heart”
Chapter 4: “Radical Goodness Restored to the Soul”, pp. 73-74 All emphases mine.
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The advice found in Thomas a Kempis is very good as a antidote to improper sensitivity:
Choose evermore rather to have less than more.
Seek ever the lower place and to be under all.
Desire ever to pray that the will of God be all and wholly done.
So, such a one enters the land of peace and quiet.
If this plan were followed and were sufficiently accompanied by the movements of God's Spirit within us, we might make substantial progress toward what John Wesley described as the "Character of a Methodist":
His one desire is the one design of his life, namely, "not to do his own will, but the will of Him that sent him." His one intention at all times and in all things is, not to please himself, but Him whom his soul loveth. He has a single eye. And because "his eye is single, his whole body is full of light." Indeed, where the loving eye of the soul is continually fixed on upon God, there can be no darkness at all, "but the whole is light; as when the bright shining of a candle doth enlighten the house." God then reigns alone. All that is in the soul is holiness to the Lord. There is not a motion in his heart, but is according to his will. Every thought that arises points to Him, as is in obedience to the law of Christ.
This may be a bit more than many people could find credible for this life, but it is clearly the direction in which we can and should be moving as apprentices of Jesus. What we surely can say is that those who are dead to self are not controlled in thought, feeling, or action by self-exaltation or by the will to have their own way, but are easily controlled by the love of God and neighbor. They still have some sensitivity to self-will, no doubt, and are never totally beyond the possibility of falling under subjection to it. Only a proper discipline and grace will prevent this from actually happening. But they no longer are locked in a struggle with it.
Here’s another…
Chapter 8: Transforming the Will (Heart or Spirit) and Character, p. 143-144
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Now we ask, What does a will or heart look like that has been transformed into Christlikeness? How is it to be characterized?
Jesus said of himself—and of course he is always the pattern—“He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).
And Paul had this to say: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20).
We also recall John Calvin’s words: “The only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads. Let this, then, be the first step, to abandon ourselves, and devote the whole energy of our minds to the service of God.”
So we have the answer to our question: Single-minded and joyous devotion to God and his will, to what God wants for us—and to service to him and to others because of him—is what the will transformed into Christlikeness looks like. That is the outcome of Christian spiritual formation with reference to the will, heart, or spirit. And this outcome becomes our character when it has become the governing response of every dimension of our being. Then we can truly be said to have “put on Christ.”
But how far this is from the usual human will and character we hardly need say! Instead of being simple and transparent through a constant and coherent devotion to God, the usual human will is a place of chaotic duplicity and confusion if not darkness, because it is the playing field of pride and fear and lack of confidence in God, shrouded in layer upon layer of destructive habits.
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"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit of Christ, who is in you, whom you have received from God the Father? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."
"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." Post Edited (Epiklesis) : 10/29/2007 12:03:12 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/29/2007 11:36 AM (GMT -6) | | Meister Eckhart.
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If you would know and recognize the really sane and genuine seers of God, whom nothing can deceive or misinform, four and twenty signs can detect them.
The first sign is told to us by the chief exponent of knowledge and wisdom and transcendental understanding, who is himself the truth, our Lord Jesus Christ. He says, "Thereby ye shall know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another and keep my commandment. What is my commandment? That ye love one another as I have loved you," as though to say, you may be my disciples in knowledge and in wisdom and high understanding but without true love it shall avail you little if anything at all. Balaam was so clever he understood what God for many hundred years had been trying to reveal. This was but little help to him because he lacked true love. Moreover, Lucifer, the angel, who is in hell, had perfectly pure intellect and to this day knows much. He has the more hell pain and all because he failed to cleave with love and faith to what he knew.
The second sign is selflessness: they empty themselves out of themselves giving free furlough to things.
The third sign: they have wholly abandoned themselves to God: God works in them undisturbed.
The fourth sign: wherever they still find themselves they leave themselves; sure method of advancement.
The fifth sign: they are free from all self-seeking: this gives them a clear conscience.
The sixth sign: they wait unceasingly upon God's will and do it to their utmost.
The seventh sign: they bend their will to God's will until their will coincides with God's.
The eighth sign: so closely do they fit and bind themselves to God and God to them in the power of love, that God does nothing without them and they do nothing without God.
The ninth sign: they do not think of themselves and make use of God in all their works and in all places and all things.
The tenth sign: they take no single thing from any creature, neither good nor bad, but all from God along, albeit God effects it through his creature.
The eleventh sign: they are not snared by any pleasure or physical enjoyment or by any creature.
The twelfth sign: they are not forced or driven by insubordination: they are steadfast for the truth.
The thirteenth sign: they are not misled by any spurious light or by the look of any creature: they go by the intrinsic merit.
The fourteenth sign: armed and arrayed with all the virtues they emerge victorious from every fight with vice.
The fifteenth sign: they see and know the naked truth and praise God without ceasing for this gnosis, this knowledge of spiritual truth.
The sixteenth sign: perfect and just, they hold themselves in poor esteem.
The seventeenth sign: they are careful of words and prodigal of works.
The eighteenth sign: they preach to the world by right practice.
The nineteenth sign: they are always seeking God's glory and nothing at all besides.
The twentieth sign: if any man fight them, they will let him prevail before accepting help of any sort but God's.
The twenty-first sign: they desire neither comfort nor possessions, of the least of which they view themselves all undeserving.
The twenty-second sign: they look upon themselves as the most unworthy of all humankind on earth; their humbleness is therefore never failing.
The twenty-third sign: they take the life and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ for the perfect model of their lives and in the light of this are always examining themselves with the sole intention of removing all unlikeness to their high ideal.
The twenty-fourth sign: to outward appearance they do little who are working all the time at the virtuous life, thus the disesteem of many people, which, however, they prefer to vulgar approval.
These are the signs of the true ground wherein lives the image of the perfect truth and he who does not find them in himself may account his knowledge vain and so may other people.
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Signs of "epicletic living"? 
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit of Christ, who is in you, whom you have received from God the Father? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."
"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." Post Edited (Epiklesis) : 10/29/2007 11:39:59 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/29/2007 12:18 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/29/2007 12:32 PM (GMT -6) | | POW:
Someone in Sunday School was recounting that the wife of the Stephen Baldwin laid on her face and prayed for one hour every day for nine-months until he finally accepted Christ.
I was at an annual "Recovery in Christ" conference a month or so ago. It's an annual get-together for Christian addiction and recovery ministries in the Twin Cities. (WHC's Refuge Ministry is a participating ministry.) It was very cool. Prayer and the whole works. Anyway, Stephen Baldwin was the keynote speaker for that. He went into depth about just what you've mentioned here. From his testimony, his wife's consistency and diligence with those hourly prayers, over time, gave him the impetus to begin changing his own life. And change it did! God is something else, ain't He?
"Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit of Christ, who is in you, whom you have received from God the Father? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."
"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/31/2007 4:33 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Tom: 'tragic' [re: the EO's refusal to celebrate the Table with D]
POW: I think everyone laments, agreeing.
Tom: I missed something then, because I don't think the EO laments what I'm lamenting. I'm lamenting their viewing communion in the closed manner they do, in a manner you said limited both them and D, a limitation you said was "honest and necessary." I don't doubt it's honest. I doubt it's necessary. And it's the EO viewing it as such that I lament. Do you lament the EO view as well?
T
Post Edited (PLANIS) : 10/31/2007 4:36:58 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 11/1/2007 5:10 AM (GMT -6) | | | I don't lament the necessity of "guarding the table." Nor would I dispute that this has to happen at the local level. What I'm lamenting is that a local EO church, for example, would grant D's status as a brother in Christ but disallow his participation in the Table because he's not "EO." You see my point. We allow or disallow participation in the Table based on our ecclesiologies. I lament any ecclesiology that permits a local church or leader to say to D for example, "I have no doubt you're a brother in Christ," but then go on to deny D participation in the Table because he's not "EO." Again, you see my point. What kind of ecclesiology equips us to say, "So and so is my brother in Christ, yes," that is, which permits us to make the most fundamental affirmation about a person's identity with respect to the Christian community, but which then constrains us to deny that same brother participation in the most fundamental communal expression of that identity there is--i.e., participation of the Table? It's wrong (IMO). We either have to share the Table with D if we're convinced he's a brother in Christ OR, if we want to disallow his participation, reject his claim to faith. That's my ecclesiology as far as I'm able to distill it from the New Testament.
So I don't think you and I are lamenting the same thing are we? Tom
Post Edited (PLANIS) : 11/1/2007 6:04:29 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 11/1/2007 6:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for your reply, Tom.
Before I give particular answers to the ideas in your post, I have to put up here something that I anticipated needing to post ALONG WITH my last post. It, too, addresses ecclesiology.
Remember the flap, recently, when Rome repeated that protestant churches are not "particular" churches? They meant that you yourself are Christian, and to a degree a part of *their* church, but your church was not part of thiers. That follows Roman understanding of the passage where Jesus says "upon this rock I will build..." The Roman pontif is the majesterium, and the referent--for them--in that passage.
But Orthodoxy does NOT have a majesterium. The rock is not the pope. The rock is the local believing and confessing pastor/bishop.
If D. is part of an EO church, then according to the ecclesiology of that local church he can come to the table. If he is part of another church, then, as a favor to that church -- provided that church and the EO we are talking about -- are "concelebrating" with each other, THEN the local parishoners may also come.
As I said, the issue is local. But the dots have to be connected. As you said, they are serious about that.
The don't take a person's say so; they check you out spiritually. Which I think is good.
Communion belongs to the Body. It does not belong to individual persons.
And that belonging is LOCAL.
Thanks.
Bruce
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Tom
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| Posted 11/1/2007 7:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Sure, communion is denied parishoners who are not prepared as form of communial discipline for immorality. But the EO's refusal to permit D's participation in the Table can hardly qualify under this rule. My point is pretty clear I think. A local EO pastor could be as convinced of D's morality and right relatedness to God as he is of any of his own parishoners that he serves communion to BUT STILL disallow D's participation. Why? Because he's not a member of the (or any) EO Church. That's all. I'm lamenting this essclesiology. I think it's mistaken and unbiblical. I'm not suggesting local churches shouldn't be careful or that we should serve communion at drive-through windows to just any stranger who drives by. I'm only suggesting that an ecclesiology--an understanding of a shared faith at work among us--in which there is room enough for a local church, say an EO church, to affirm D as a brother in Christ but not room enough to permit his participation in communion with them because in addition to being a fellow believer in Christ D isn't a member of the EO, is a lamentable ecclesiology.
Do we agree or disagree on this B? That's what I'm trying to figure out.
POW: If D. is part of an EO church, then according to the ecclesiology of that local church he can come to the table.
Tom: Right.
POW: If he is part of another church...
Tom: A non-EO church?
POW: ...then, as a favor to that church -- provided that church and the EO we are talking about -- are "concelebrating" with each other, THEN the local parishoners may also come.
Tom: Concelebrating?
Let me give an example. The pastor who discipled me in Florida years ago (Pentecostal Evangelical church) made efforts to befriend local pastors, Evangelical and otherwise. He became aquainted and later close friends with a local EO priest. They prayed together, had lunch together, discussed theology and life, etc. There was no doubt regarding the spiritual status of the other in either mind. The Evangelical pastor takes a short sabatical and while on retreat visits his EO friend on Sunday AM. Is the Evangelical invited by the EO priest to participate in the Lord's Table or not? In my view, an ecclesiology that answers "No, the Evangelical shouldn't be invited to participate," is lamentable. There's no good reason I can imagine for why refusing participation would be a 'good' ecclesiology. And I'd say the same thing if the scenario were turned around the other way.
Tom
Post Edited (PLANIS) : 11/1/2007 7:24:54 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 11/1/2007 4:26 PM (GMT -6) | | If D. is a member of another church then he can take it there. If he wants to take it at the EO church he has to have the permission of Bishop Job.
Lets not have this be academic abstraction. If this is just your issue, Tom, then that is all it is. If it is D.'s issue (I haven't heard that it is) then he can call the bishop's office Most Rev. JOB , Bishop-Rector Office: 312-202-0420 http://www.xcthesavior.org/ .
Btw, it is directly across the street from Moody Bible Institute in the building that Burnham used to plan the city of Chicago after the fire burned the city down.
And, no, I do not lament "closed communion" -- which seems to be your real issue. A parish can and should practice it.
Another issue you should address, Tom, is whether D.'s pastor would "allow" him to take communion in an EO church.
A second issue you should put more clearly on the table is the difference between Communion having its basis in the congregation versus in the individual.
D.'s neighborhood EO church would gladly have him join! That seems to be the only delaying factor. But that would certainly involve moving from one church to another.
And if you can't get the two churches (D's present one and the EO one) to move into intercommunion, then that is all you are left with.
I think he's been going to a BGC church, and having grown up in that I don't think they acknowledge the real presence of Christ in the elements. (as even Calvinistic churches do). Slight chance then to have intercommunion...
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 11/1/2007 4:36 PM (GMT -6) | |
PLANIS said...
Is the Evangelical invited by the EO priest to participate in the Lord's Table or not? In my view, an ecclesiology that answers "No, the Evangelical shouldn't be invited to participate," is lamentable. There's no good reason I can imagine for why refusing participation would be a 'good' ecclesiology. And I'd say the same thing if the scenario were turned around the other way.
Tom The priest does not, himself, have the authority to celebrate communion AT ALL. That rests with the Bishop, who's signature is on the altar cloth.'
Your scenerio REALLY involves the issue of what would it take for the Bishop to ordain the evangelical to be an Orthodox priest. Even if he converted that may not happen. Evangelicals can decide for themselves that they want to be a pastor, then get some abstract eduction, do some job hunting, and bing, they are ordained. But Orthodoxy is different: many former pastors have become Orthodox without being ordained.
But perhaps, kind of like Pope Benedict your friend might be asked to read the Epistle?
"Good ecclessiology" has to have both a charismatic/pneumatological and a apostolic/christological element to it. (J. Zizioulas) Bot the individual and the congregation aspect must be recognized. Both the Episcopal and the individual.
We evangelicals want the individual aspect to trump, to be enough. And we want the ecclessiastic to conform to that.
And we want it now.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 11/1/2007 4:41 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 11/1/2007 4:43 PM (GMT -6) | |
PLANIS said...
POW: ...then, as a favor to that church -- provided that church and the EO we are talking about -- are "concelebrating" with each other, THEN the local parishoners may also come.
Tom: Concelebrating?
That means that the two Bishops would be in-communion, or the two priests.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 11/1/2007 4:46 PM (GMT -6) | | | Tom, get your answer at this OCA office HERE:
Minneapolis Dean:
VRev. Thaddeus Wojcik
Holy Assumption Church
send correspondence to:
1867 W. Ryan Ave.
Roseville, MN 55113
(651) 631-0265
Email
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Tom
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| Posted 11/1/2007 5:18 PM (GMT -6) | | | I don't think I could have expressed myself any clearer. I don't need all the addresses and phone numbers, B. Thanks anyhow. I just wanted to zero in on whether or not we were in fact lamenting the same thing with regard to D. We weren't (and aren't). It wasn't D per se that I was concerned about as much as I was the differences in essclesiology his experience hightlighted. That's all I wanted to know.
D is more sanctified than I am. He SAYS, "I thought it was funny that..." but I know him well enough to know he wasn't laughing at it, i.e., didn't think it was humorous. What it was is lamentable and sad.
Thanks all!
Tom
Post Edited (PLANIS) : 11/1/2007 5:28:57 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 11/1/2007 5:45 PM (GMT -6) | | | Bare each other's pain? We're causing the pain B. You can't cause it and also bare it.
The problem is that the core division is driven and maintained by infected ecclesiologies. I think we ought to address those ecclesiologies and seek to overturn them. Seek a new day, a new way, that will follow from embracing a new perception of what the Church is, of our oneness in Christ.
What we have NOW is what you say you want to avoid, namely, people doing on the surface what doesn't exist IN FACT. The FACT is we're one in Christ (which our sectarian division of the Body and Blood of Christ essentially denies). For any local church leader to perceive THAT and invite ANY known brother or sister in Christ to the Table of Remembrance JUST BECAUSE that person is a brother or sister and IN SPITE OF their belonging to a different denomination or tradition, now THAT is doing on the surface what exists in fact. What we now sometimes have on the surface is a the sectarian-driven divisions that amount to a denial of the facts.
Tom
Post Edited (PLANIS) : 11/1/2007 5:48:55 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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| Posted 11/1/2007 8:22 PM (GMT -6) | | | I hear ya Tommay...I blog on this at my myspace: http://www.myspace.com/brandonblakecanada
Over the years I've become increasingly dissatisfied with communion in my church/denomination. For the most part I've felt as if I was going through some sort of lifeless ritual. Of course it doesn't help when my church does not recognize the sacramental value of The Lord's Supper. By sacramental, I mean the bread and the cup are windows or doors to divine reality (I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" movie and the big door into another world). That these "things" are more than their aggregate selves. That somehow, Jesus is made present (setting aside Roman Catholic teachings on Transubstaniation) in our shared meal of bread and wine. But it isn't only the issue of sacramental value that has been lost but that of proclamatory value as well.
What I mean is this. Throughout Jesus ministry he had what one could reasonably call, an "open table." It was at meals (with public sinners) that Jesus' major and most provocative proclamations of the new order of the Kingdom are given. Though the Last Supper was more intimate and restricted to his disciples, those included were women and the would be traitor Judas which is to say that the table of the resurrected Lord was STILL an open table for apostate disciples. It was what Mortimer Arias calls a "rehabilitating table" for the runaway disciples invited to become again the apostles of the Kingdom.
Ironically those ecumenical Christians who would gather for preaching, singing, praying, discussing sharing concerns and resources, eating and drinking together and sharing the sufferings of Christ in their witness to the world often go their separate ways when it comes to the Communion table. Sadly, we have quite a long way to go until we recognize that we are not the owners of the table. That it is the Lord's table in which we have no right to reject anyone that HE wants to recieve and claim as his own. It seems to me that just as there were many signs that manifested the Kingdom, i.e. healing of the sick, it could very well be that a powerful sign of the Kingdom is the open table.
As such, it is has been a long time in coming for us to recover the EVANGELISTIC or proclamatory dimension of the table. In evangelicalism, nothing has been more unrelated to evangelism than the Lord's Supper. We have our rallies, our altar calls and our crusades but have you ever heard of an evangelistic call to "accept" or "recieve the Lord" by sharing at the Communion Table? Look at some scriptures:
Luke 22:19 "And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
Mark 14:24 "'This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,' he said to them."
Luke 22:17 "After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you."
1 Cor 11:26 "For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."
The Lord's Table is an act of proclamation! It is evangelistic! And let's remember that this was BEFORE there ever was a Story in written form (though please don't misunderstand, I would never advocate that we not "preach," a strenght in the Prostestant tradition)! The Lord's Supper was the very first form to tell the story. Yet we as Christians have made it into an esoteric (meaning for a limited group) celebration for an in-group instead of a public proclamation and open invitation. Surely this is "eucharistic hospitality." It means open homes and open churches and open communities. Is this not a sign of the inbreaking of the Kingdom? Is this the very reign of God? Is it Church growth? Prospective members? No. Evangelism looks beyond this. It looks for the rejects and the marginalized. Jesus is at the center and is always moving toward the periphery. His life started in the periphery (inn) and moves within a peripheral framework (sinners) and dies on the periphery (outside the gate). Wherever the periphery is, there we are called to be with open arms, open doors....AND open tables.
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
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