Faith in the Last Supper

The Church seems to be divided over the Lord's Last Supper, trying to discern what Jesus was asking us to do in his memory. But in the early centuries of the Church, there was no disagreement. Partaking in this communal meal was an act of faith. Belief in the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ has been essential to the sharing of the Eucharist. And yet, we debate how this Presence comes to be with us. Why does it matter if it occurs by "trans-substantiation" or by becoming "consubstantial" with the bread and wine? There is no practical difference. In either case, it's still a miracle and a mystery. The laws of chemistry in the spiritual realm are not something we can investigate.

Jesus is consubstantial with the Father in his human form, and this transforms his humanity. Two natures become one person. In the Eucharist, we are reenacting Jesus' sacrifice in his memory. According to his Word, the Body and Blood become fully present, and they are God's body and blood. The only question comes with the faith of the believer, whether one sees the bread as a container with invisible contents or as an imperceptibly transformed product. For example, is it a donut with cinnamon, or cinnamon that looks like a donut? Either way, it's made with cinnamon, and it's not just a plain donut. If this still seems confusing, we can accept that it's a mystery. To divide the Church over terminology is nitpicking. 

We all see the "accidents" of bread and wine, and they appear unchanged, but we should believe that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present. In the liturgy, the presbyter (pastor or priest) performs a real "miracle" to call forth the emergence of faith. That is the definition of a miracle: an action or event that serves to draw out our faith. This is where many, if not most, Protestants fail the test. You need to ask yourself whether you believe that Christ's Body and Blood are actually present in the bread and wine of communion, and if not, why not? Jesus plainly said, "this is my body," and "this is my blood" given for you. It is not just a symbol or metaphor. It is the invocation of the Presence of God. The failure to presuppose this is the main reason why there is no unity in the Church as Christ's body. We pretend to call ourselves evangelists, but we don't really share the whole message of Jesus.

Jesus said, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you." It so offended his audience then that many in the crowd, even some of his followers, began to walk away. This sounds like a contradiction to the Law of Moses. We are not supposed to drink blood, ever! So many were leaving that He turned to his twelve disciples and asked if they wanted to go also. But Peter answered, "To whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life." Today, apparently, many of us are still offended by the thought of a man giving us his blood to drink and his flesh to eat. But Jesus is not just a man. He is God, and He has the words of eternal life. He told us to do this, and we have to believe Him. His words are more than powerful enough to change bread and wine. We just need to have a little faith.

If you believe that the sacraments are a means of grace, and you come in a state of grace, or in repentance, then you can be certain that receiving them does benefit you by opening you to the action of the Holy Spirit in your heart and soul. But if you come to the sacraments unworthily... Don't. Your sin is repugnant to God, and you will harm your own soul by further offense. The same goes for the priest or pastor who presents the bread and wine before God and his people. The miracle doesn't work for those without faith or who come without repenting their sin, and pretending that it doesn't matter is another offense. We need to be humble, and approach Him with contrition and repentance. He is quick to understand and forgive. 

However, you can't unintentionally profane the bread and wine if you receive them reverently, even if you only believe that they are symbols of communion among the faithful. A failure to understand is not the same as the rebellion of disbelief. You are obeying Jesus' commands to remember Him and to love one another. If you treat the bread and wine with respect, your reverence and holy intentions are sufficient to please the Lord. He can see your faith and add to it, imparting his grace by opening you to the effects of the Holy Spirit. Hopefully, you may understand later. Not everyone who was present when Jesus fed 5,000 men with only a few loaves and fishes understood the miracle that day.

Everyone is invited to Christ's eucharistic supper. Jesus invited sinners, yes, but all would have been welcome if they could have recognized their need for forgiveness. He called drunkards, prostitutes, tax collectors, money changers, pharisees, rebels, cheats, and thieves. He even called gentiles who practiced idolatry and homosexuality, among other sins that a Jew of his time would have been ashamed to admit. I love Jesus' version of radical inclusivity. We must love all of the sinners who come asking for forgiveness and guidance. But we can't condone the sins and tell sinners that they are okay as they are. If you want the true righteousness of Christ, you can't hang on to the sins that have kept you apart from God. When Jesus granted forgiveness, He would say, "Now go, and sin no more." We have to let his sacrifice begin to change us.

The Eucharist is also our sacrament of unification. We come seeking forgiveness for our sins and reconciliation with the God who created us. Every one of us is faced with the record of our deeds and the condition of our hearts, and we must acknowledge that we need a Saviour lest we be lost for eternity. We come just as we are, but we go forth as the Body of Christ, in the process of becoming regenerated and cleansed from sin. The Eucharist is one of the most important means by which we open our hearts in faith to receive the grace of God, so that his will can be done in us. Some day soon, we will all be brothers and sisters, together in the Kingdom of God, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

This has been the teaching of the Church from the earliest centuries, even from the beginning of the Great Commission. If you would call yourself a Christian, you must in good conscience follow the teachings of the Apostles and the early Church Fathers, and not divide over personal interpretations. Do not insist on peculiarities, nor stand with the heretics. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. All of the Ecumenical Councils before the 1054 Schism are valid, and they believed in the real Presence.

The Scriptures are our Constitution

If you rest the authority of the Church on the Scriptures (1 Timothy 3:15) to say that the Scriptures must be interpreted by the Church, then you have a circular tautology. It's not logical. If, on the other hand, you begin the question of authority with Scriptures and they say to listen to the interpretation of the Church, it's okay, because that sets the authority of the Church in second place. You can't have two authorities in first place.  Church authority needs the backing of Scripture, but the Scriptures can stand alone, because a believer can come up with a valid interpretation just by cross-referencing the Scriptures with each other. You might get it wrong sometimes, but so does the Church. The Scriptures are never wrong.

The most unattractive aspect of the Catholic Church is its smug self-assurance and presumption of authority and claims to infallible teaching. Pride is nothing other than a lack of humility, and that is the real problem here. The Catholic Church is not humble enough to admit that they should not be the boss of everyone. "First among equals" does not make them the final arbiter who gets to decide everything. The rest of the Church, as the Body of Christ, also gets a say and can choose how they understand things, so long as they don't contradict the Scriptures. 

"First among equals" means that everyone has to listen to their opinions and consider them. It does not mean they have to adopt them. If you want an authority other than Scripture that we all have to adopt, you need a world-wide ecumenical council to come to a consensus decision. But why do that unless you have a major problem with heresy? 

The foundation that Jesus built his Church on was the declaration of faith. "I say you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!" He was not founding the Church on the man Simon bar Jonah, who 15 minutes later tried to contradict Him and was told, "Get thee behind me, Satan, you are thinking as Man does, not as God does." The faithful recognition and proclamation of the Gospel is the foundation of the Church. Nothing, and no one else. And, just in case you haven't noticed, foundation and authority are not the same thing. 

If you want to bring up the question of the "keys of the kingdom" and the authority to "bind and loose," those were given to all of the Apostles. Once they went out to preach the Gospel to the ends of the Earth, on the Great Commission, they would have had full independence from centralized authority. Having one or two Apostles in any place is enough authority to found a Church. If they had needed consultation with Peter, they would have been ineffective. Any corrections they might have needed would have had to wait for epistles in any case.

I recognize that there isn't quite as firm a foundation for Sola Scriptura as I would like. The Church did manage to muddle along until they solidified their choices of which writings to include or exclude. But lacking a Canon left them wide open to heresy, until they could point to written authority to counter it. Later, with the Scriptures in place, they set an irrefutable standard. The only question comes with interpreting some points that seem obscure. Yet, the obligation to base all doctrines firmly on Scriptures has a salutary effect to keep the accumulation of unnecessary doctrines at bay. 

Once we have a Canon, the authorities of the Church should feel the need to obey it, and not claim a right to use it as they wish. The Scriptures are our Constitution, and the Church's leadership has no more authority than the royal house under a Constitutional Monarchy. The Pope can't declare a chapter of the Gospels to be no longer valid, and he can't add another chapter to the book of Revelations. The claim to Infallibility, and the additions to dogma, do exactly that, add and subtract to the content of belief. I can't go along with that. So, while I hear the useful argument that the Canon was at first dependent on the Church, I insist today that the Church must be dependent on the Canon. We should no longer have to debate what is the core of true belief. 

I truly believe what the Church teaches in every case where there is consensus. Yet, I balk at the claims to dogmatic authority and the accretions. It would be so much better to just make it "recommended piety" and not obligated obedience. There is a necessary core, of course, and some heresies to avoid, but let's not build fortresses on hills that we don't need to die on.