ASBO Jesus is often too close for comfort. (and rightly so).
Today I was continuing a sermon series on what makes Baptists Baptist ... and this week we reached Communion / Lord's Supper. I towed the theological 'party line' as best I understand it for much of the twenty minutes but then at the end, began some speculation on whether or not we'd got it all a bit wrong. If Jesus is the Child of Humanity /Son of Man, and all his previous meals with people were about breaking down religious boundaries so that he stood in solidarity with us all, maybe the supper is given for all ... ??? It is, after all, his table not that of the Church and he invited some dubious folk to eat with him without prerequisite of belief or behaviour. Maybe this bread and wine is for us to share with the whole world but to have their share they need at least to be welcome at the table. If our hospitality were as generous as heaven's who knows what angels we may be entertaining unawares.
However even as I announced the next Hymn I sensed the prophetic edge of the above cartoon would be waiting for me at coffee with the more orthodox opinions of 'Communion for Baptised Believer's alone' placards ... or at least one that had in brackets (well ... Christians only at the very least.)
So much of me wants to agree with them
but I have a niggly feeling about all this
Anyone else getting niggled too?
Today I was continuing a sermon series on what makes Baptists Baptist ... and this week we reached Communion / Lord's Supper. I towed the theological 'party line' as best I understand it for much of the twenty minutes but then at the end, began some speculation on whether or not we'd got it all a bit wrong. If Jesus is the Child of Humanity /Son of Man, and all his previous meals with people were about breaking down religious boundaries so that he stood in solidarity with us all, maybe the supper is given for all ... ??? It is, after all, his table not that of the Church and he invited some dubious folk to eat with him without prerequisite of belief or behaviour. Maybe this bread and wine is for us to share with the whole world but to have their share they need at least to be welcome at the table. If our hospitality were as generous as heaven's who knows what angels we may be entertaining unawares.
However even as I announced the next Hymn I sensed the prophetic edge of the above cartoon would be waiting for me at coffee with the more orthodox opinions of 'Communion for Baptised Believer's alone' placards ... or at least one that had in brackets (well ... Christians only at the very least.)
So much of me wants to agree with them
but I have a niggly feeling about all this
Anyone else getting niggled too?
2 comments:
Stopped niggling ages ago. Come one come all.
When I first became a Christian, the bit that we Baptists always read about anyone who eats the bread and drinks the cup "in an unworthy manner" scared the willies out of me. Maybe that's why we read it? Who knows. Though presumably we'd have to understand where Paul was coming from in terms of the original target audience.
So if we take a step back to the original. The instruction "Do this in remembrance of me" seem to imply that, whatever your take on it, communion is designed for people to whom Jesus has at least something they find worthy of remembrance. It would seem to me that this, to an extent, means believers. The tricky bit is that while this is nice and simple to define, package up and put in a box for people who've had a "Damascus Road" experience, those who gradually come to faith are not (by definition) so clear-cut and black and white.
Which raises the question "is this a problem?". I wonder whether the issue is not "Who did Jesus intend communion to be for", but "Is it the church's job to police this?" On the latter, my vote is no.
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