Confessing Evangelical

What are we to make of celebrations of the Lord's Supper which don't include the Words of Institution? I was reflecting on this yesterday, as I sat uneasily through the "Lord's Supper" at our current church (where we were spending our final Sunday as regular attendees - next week we plan to go to our local Lutheran church). It followed the usual pattern - a separate service after the main service had finished; the pastor read a passage from Scripture and said a few words on it; and then two laypeople "gave thanks" for the bread and "wine" (i.e. grape-juice). The Words of Institution did not feature at any point.

So how do we describe this event? Was it indeed the Lord's Supper? Well, here's what Luther has to say about the "Sacrament of the Altar" in the Large Catechism:

It is the Word ... which makes and distinguishes this Sacrament, so that it is not mere bread and wine, but is, and is called, the body and blood of Christ ... The Word must make a Sacrament of the element, else it remains a mere element ...

Now here stands the Word of Christ: Take, eat; this is My body; Drink ye all of it; this is the new testament in My blood, etc ... It is true, indeed, that if you take away the Word or regard it without the words, you have nothing but mere bread and wine...

If all this means anything, it is that a "Lord's Supper" without the Words of Institution is not the Lord's Supper at all. Remembering the Lord's death for us is certainly an edifying activity, and employing bread and wine/juice as an aide memoire may or may not be helpful. But that's not the same thing as the Lord's Supper, which operates according to the equation:

(Bread & wine) + Word of Christ = (Body & blood) + forgiveness of sins

There is a parallel here with "re-baptism": if someone has already been baptised (whether as an infant or otherwise), you can immerse them in water as much as you like, but you won't be baptising them - baptism is actually done by the Triune God through human ministers ("in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"), and He only does it once.

Language matters: if we refer to Word-less meals as the Lord's Supper, and "re-baptisms" as baptisms, then this undermines the true meaning of the words - words whose meanings are not ours to fiddle about with. I did toy with the idea of using the term, "edification meal" to describe the former, as suggested in the title to this post, but can see that this is less than diplomatic, and is likely to cause more confusion than it solves!

Better perhaps to say (in ordinary conversation with another believer) that "they concluded the service by remembering the Lord's death with bread and wine", and "Fred was immersed last week" - factual and honest, without seeking to cause needless offence. Then if someone picks up on the use of such a circumlocution, that provides an opportunity to explain the Lutheran position (which is, in itself, a sharing of the Gospel with them - always a healthy thing for Christians to do for one another!). If they let it pass, at least one has maintained honesty and precision of language.

That last point isn't intended to sound "precious": our God is a God who makes promises, and promises depend on language. If we allow the currency of language to be devalued, then this makes it harder for faith to latch on to the promises that are addressed to us by God in human language.

(PS - I have to admit that I lacked the courage of my convictions, and took the "mere symbols" anyway. I am English, after all - mustn't rock the boat, old chap. "His blog posts are weighty and forceful [OK, I wish], but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.")