Doing fellowship: A pragmatic perspective on the Lord's Supper

“According to the Gospel, God is not confined to the sanctuaries of the Church. He is not enshrined in any altar. The reason Christians gather now and then in their sanctuaries is not because God is there but rather to celebrate and proclaim God’s presence and action outside the sanctuaries in the common life of the world. Worship which has integrity in the Gospel is always an intercession by God’s people for the cares and needs of the world, and always a thanksgiving - a eucharist - for God’s love for the world. Worship at the altar is thus authenticated by the constant involvment of the people of the Church in the world’s life and by the public witness of the Church in the world.” (William Stringfellow)

It might seem strange to want to base an ecumenical argument upon the views of ‘sectarians’. But by formulating an ecumenical view on the eucharist with reference to anabaptists such as Menno Simons, this is, to some degree, what the following proposes.

There can be no doubt that many anabaptists, following Zwingli, regarded the Lord's Supper as a symbolic memorial meal. Menno Simons claims that the Lord's Supper is merely symbolic and that what is important is the fellowship of the Church represented by the Supper. But this, it could be argued, was not in order to formulate a theory of the Supper as such, but to prioritize practice over theory. As such this tradition seems to be inclined to what could fairly be called pragmatism – something which, if construed properly, can serve as the basis of a common ecumenical ground for an understanding of the eucharist without blurring denominational differences.

From the anabaptist view, an obvious reason for not engaging in theological speculation on the Lord's Supper is precisely the pragmatic bend of the anabaptist tradition. What is important is not what happens or does not happen, metaphysically, in the Lord’s Supper, but that Christ himself told us to do so, and that doing so has certain practical consequences in our lifes. Menno Simons writes that,

"[...]we do not seek our salvation in works, words or sacraments, as do the learned, although they blame us therefor, but we seek them alone in Christ Jesus and in no other means in heaven or earth. In this only means we rejoice and in no other. We trust, by the grace of God, to abide therein unto death. But that we abhor the carnal works and desire to suit ourselves to his word and commandment, according to our weakness, we do because he has so taught and commanded us. For, whosoever does not walk according to his doctrine, proves in fact, that he does not believe on him nor knows him, and that he is not in the communion of the saints, 1 Jn. 3:10; 5:10; 2 Jn. 1:6." (Menno Simons, The complete works of Menno Simons (Elkhart, Ind., 1871), p. 262)

In 1524 Conrad Grebel wrote to Thomas Müntzer, that

“The Lord's Supper was ordained by the Lord as a means of fellowship. Nothing more nor less should be used than the words found in Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, and 1 Corinthians 11. The minister of the congregation should read them from one of the Gospels or from Paul's letter. One should eat and drink in the spirit and in love. Even if it is only bread, if faith and brotherly love precede, it should be partaken of joyfully; and as often as it is practiced within the congregation it is to signify that we are truly one body and bread and are and wish to remain true brethren together” (Geiser, Die Taufgesinnten-Gemeinden, 330)

The ”even if” suggests a minimalistic view with continual fellowship as its primary aim. Similarly, the Schleitheim Confession (written by Michael Sattler), article III states that,

“III. Concerning the breaking of bread, we have become one and agree thus: all those who desire to break the one bread in remembrance of the broken body of Christ and all those who wish to drink of one drink in remembrance of the shed blood of Christ, they must beforehand be united in the one body of Christ, that is the congregation of God, whose head is Christ, and that by baptism.[...]” (The Seven Articles, III)

Only in the seventh article on congregational order do we have something that can, at best, be called a sacramental theology:

“The Lord's Supper shall be held, as often as the brothers are together, thereby proclaiming the death of the Lord, and thereby warning each one to commemorate, how Christ gave His life for us, and shed His blood for us, that we might also be willing to give our body and life for Christ's sake, which means for the sake of all the brothers.” (Congregational order, VII)

The Lord's Supper is proclamation and commemoration. But as the words ”that we might also be willing” indicate, such proclamation has a practical function. It should lead to discipleship.

The above affirms the primacy of practice over metaphysics. For this reason the statements about the bread's 'symbolical' quality should not always be taken as ontological, but rather as anti-ontological claims. Of course Menno Simons and others held a symbolical semiotic. But their practical use of this should inspire us to adopt this as a sort of apophatic methodology: be denying the significance of the traditional metaphysical claims we can point beyond the merely speculative realm, into the practical. In this 'denial' can be used seemingly positive claims (about the symbolicity of the Supper), which, however, are only meaningful in their apophatic-pragmatic context, by their negative contents.

In pragmatic terms, the ‘true view’ of the eucharist is the one that best establishes the Church as an actual community. It is not the beliefs about the Supper that establishes the Church. Only Jesus Christ himself can do that. Hence, if the Supper fails to establish the Church, it is because it centers around our beliefs about its elements, whatever these might be, rather than Christ. This is obviously the case when denominations refuse to share the eucharist due to dogmatic disagreement.

Hence focus on metaphysical views are at best superfluous, at worst destructive. Only a truly christocentric eucharist, with Christ as the signified object, can establish and affirm the Church as an actual fellowship of believers. The Lord's Supper, as a sign of the living Jesus Christ, is indeed effective in establishing a true community. This efficacy, however, does not depend on the theoretical views held by the community. These views are at best by-products of such community-building, and at worst dividers working against community.

The claims of William Stringfellow quoted above, from a context much different from the anabaptists’, should remind us that the process of establishing the Church as a community is something that is always also related to the surrounding world. The Supper signifies Christ, and thereby establishes the Church as community, and through the Church the world is critically linked to this signification, and thus Christ. The eucharist is a political witness, not a metaphysical happening. At any rate, what we can learn from the anabaptists is to hold practice over theory, life over doctrine...