The Lord's Supper
There have been several comments about the Lord's Supper in our discussion concerning Baptism.
Maybe it should have its own thread.
Some questions:
When Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, he said "This is my body..." Likewise when he took the fruit of the vine. What does the word "is" really means? Is it referring to a real presence or to a symbolic presence "is like."
If it is a real presence, how do you explain you are eating and drinking bread and the fruit of the vine?
What do you mean by "fruit of the vine?" Is it okay to use grape juice, or does it have to be wine?
In celebrating the Lord's supper do you reenact the actual passion of the Lord, making it present in the here and now? Or are you remembering a past action?
No doubt there are other questions. Feel free to bring them up.
I am looking forward to the discussion.
Maybe it should have its own thread.
Some questions:
When Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, he said "This is my body..." Likewise when he took the fruit of the vine. What does the word "is" really means? Is it referring to a real presence or to a symbolic presence "is like."
If it is a real presence, how do you explain you are eating and drinking bread and the fruit of the vine?
What do you mean by "fruit of the vine?" Is it okay to use grape juice, or does it have to be wine?
In celebrating the Lord's supper do you reenact the actual passion of the Lord, making it present in the here and now? Or are you remembering a past action?
No doubt there are other questions. Feel free to bring them up.
I am looking forward to the discussion.

Comments
The big thing is to understand the differences. BTW--this is Purgatory. Where else to bring up such topics?
No more Dead Horses.
I know that doesn't always help discussion but I'm a "I know what I think about that today but I might think differently about it next week" kind of person about quite a few things.
My current thinking about the Lord's Supper is that it is both remembering a past event and making of it a present one and I don't think the bread and wine embody "real presence" in terms of making those particular elements special. It is, for me, more of an expression of and reminder that the divine presence is in everything, as close to us as the air we breathe and the food we eat and drink, and like them can become part of us. An "everything is sacred" thing.
[tangent] Re Dead Horses - I don't think it's possible to post there any more and all the threads are closed. [/tangent]
Biblical infallibility
Homosexuality
Closed communion
Ordination of women
Evolution and creationism
Bitching about church music
and one other that I cannot recall...
If I was to remember a good day out with a friend, then simply recalling the facts of where we were and what we ate for lunch would be a very poor act of remembering. Remembering in that sense brings all the emotions of friendship into a form of present reality. It's not a do-over of the day, but it is a re-enactment of the day within my imagination.
I have seen it cited as support for directly contrary understandings of Holy Communion. What I take it as meaning, is that whatever Jesus meant by what he was doing, that is what happens. It is not for us to say that he meant more, or less. She accepted that it means whatever he intended even if neither she nor the rest of us don't know or don't agree what that was.
Nuff said IMHO...
This.
And this (though just how one does the remembering is important to many people, too).
This is where I think 1 Corinthians 11 applies. Some people in Corinth were excluding other Christians from the meal because, well they were too poor. To me, this is not much different than excluding other Christians because they don't fully agree with your teaching.
Paul says it is important to discern the Body of Christ. Now quite a few would say that refers just to the elements in the Lord's Supper. However, in 1 Corinthians 12 Paul goes on to say anyone who says Jesus is Lord is part of the body as he details in the second half of that chapter.
My opinions. What are yours?
There's some practicality there. I was quite happy for grape juice while I was pregnant.
Not only at communion, but often when I go to a regular service, I feel I might be jettisoned from the church if anyone knew the hurdles between me and the Bible. Having said that I am genuinely a seeker and I do keep trying to understand things more. I also find it telling that I get as much as I do from the services, and especially as much as I do from communion.
Yes, I’d say that is basically the consideration that led me to change my mind. Let’s say there are three basic answers that any one church can give to the question.
( A) It was wine at the Last Supper and that means it can only ever be wine at any celebration of the Eucharist/Holy Communion/Lord’s Supper.
(B) It was wine at the Last Supper but we have our reasons for using grape juice instead.
(C) It was grape juice at the Last Supper.
After following those online discussions I came to see the merits of B, mainly, I think, because it gives due recognition to our underlying Biblical reason for doing what we do, while explicitly accepting full responsibility for departing from the strict observance.
So when Jesus says "do this in remembrance of me", it is not just an injunction to bring a past event to mind (like a nice holiday or a wedding) but to be an active receiver of the benefits of that event.
That would be pretty much my personal position as well. I am happy to receive wine but would not be upset if it were grape juice. I think I would have a problem, though, with the kind of argument that I have heard in the past along the lines of "you can have communion with coco cola and some potato chips"
An action now that "re-members" us with God and with one another; which welcomes and affirms the presence of the risen Christ in us and amongst us; which challenges us to proclaim - that is live out - the Kingdom until its fulfilment.
And - to take a different point: I guess that all these Zoom services, where people are encouraged to join in at home with whatever elements they deem appropriate, has really made some people think about what is "right" and "necessary" for Communion. (As it happens, our church had Zoom Communion last Sunday. In church we use ecclesiastical non-alcoholic wine; but this time I actually used real wine, left over from supper the night before! Some will probably see that as sacrilege).
Some might. I’m considerably more bemused by the idea of leftover wine. I’ve never heard of that. What is it?
I hold to what is, I think, a fairly classic Reformed view—affirming that we truly receive the body and blood of Christ when we eat the bread and drink the cup, but hesitant to say that the presence of Christ is necessarily contained in the bread and the wine. Some—including Calvin, I think—refer to this Reformed approach as “True Presence” rather than “Real Presence.”
I think we do ourselves few favors when we try to explain how this works, whether by transubstantiation, consubstantiation, sacramental union, transignification, pneumatic presence or whatever; so often these explanations are reactions to disputes of the day, focusing on responding to specific issues.
And I think Calvin fell prey to this problem as well. But I’m with him when he said:
As for wine vs. grape juice, my denomination allows either (under option B offered by @Ray Sunshine above). The decision of which to use is left to the Session (governing council of elders) of each congregation, with the proviso that if wine is used, a non-alcoholic option must be available.
I'm not sure you aren't inventing a distinction for your own use that does not inhere in the words you are using.
Future spaghetti sauce.
I'm sure you mean poles.
Orthodox is none of the above. You have to be a member in good standing. Nobody is going to ask you if you agree on all points to all the doctrines before you approach the chalice.
For anyone who can get hold of it, I highly recommend the two-volume The Eucharistic Memorial, by Bro. Max Thurian of the Taizé Community. Thurian was a Reformed theologian when he wrote it; he was a participant, at the invitation of Pope John XXIII, in the reforms of the Roman Mass, and later converted to the Roman Catholic Church. It is a dense and challenging read, but well worth it in my opinion.
Same for RCs.
Communion among other things is an expression of common membership of the RC church. Personally I would never consider going to communion in a Church that I wasnt a member of. Why would I? It would be analogous to sleeping with someone elses wife even if it was in their culture to offer matrimonial hospitality.
Yes. For adult converts you have to agree to the teachings of the church (I forget the exact phrasing) at the point of chrismation, but they don't keep tabs on you after that. Well, I mean, they kept tabs on me and let me know firmly that supporting gay people was off the charts. But I found that not all bishops feel this way (I have a feeling my former bishop was in the same bucket as those people who scream about how evil the gays are, and then gets caught in an airport bathroom with his pants down, although he hasn't gotten caught yet), and managed to land at a new parish where hatred of gays wasn't taken to be part of the Nicene Creed after all.
That seems a false analogy to me. If I am worshipping in a church other than my own denomination, I am presumably acknowledging that they are also part of the One Holy and Apostolic Church that I am a part of (if I don't, why would I be worshipping there?).
It would be natural to accept their hospitality and share communion with them, celebrating that at heart we share the same faith in Christ.
To refuse to receive communion would seem to me to be saying to them "sorry, but I don't think you are good enough for me."
But then, I am someone who would welcome anyone to receive communion if they wanted to - it seens to me to be a suitable expression of the incredible welcome God offers all people. We put up barriers at our peril.
I once went to my friend's RC church with her family and they assured me I'd be welcome to receive communion with them. However, there was a visiting priest that day and he made it clear non-catholics weren't welcome, so I didn't go forward. My friend and her family were deeply apologetic and I was very touched by that, while feeling puzzled ("Are we not all one in Christ Jesus?") and not particularly warm towards the RC church at the time.
If we are saying that things like baptism and the Lord's Supper are more about God's grace reaching us than our worthiness to receive them, where do we draw the line? The very first communion I ever took was before I "became a Christian" (whatever that might mean - for the circles I moved in at the time it meant praying a particular prayer) but it was deeply moving and I knew something important, and good, had happened.
We know that the whole human race makes one family, but we are still through human limitations separated by culture, language and history from many others and do not have automatic right of access ( and understanding of !) to what others are doing.
If we limit it to our own country and linguistic group we do not have automatic access to the most intimate parts of our neighbours' lives,even although we may see them as a closer part of 'our' family.
If we limit it to followers of Christ, we do not always appreciate, nor understand, nor even wish to understand the ideas and beliefs of many who share with us the name of Christian.
Baptism and communion are indeed intensely private moments but also a public affirmation. For Catholics ,if you cannot publicly affirm your faith in what the Church teaches, then you should not participate in that very intimate moment until you are able to give full commitment to it.
It is not saying that anyone is more worthy ,nor less worthy.
Thats fine if you see sacraments as only expressing me and Jesus (vertical) relationships. I tend not to do that. I tend to focus on them as the relationship between God and a particular community and as expressions and enablers of the union within it (horizontal.) To my mind receiving communion in another Church is trying to signify a unity and communion that isn't there.
Are we in communion?
Or are we not?
Who is in?
Who is out?
Istm that many church groupings have spent a vast amount of time rushing around policing their borders and sweating the small stuff.
Then wondering why non believers reckon we are all bonkers.
Apparently others think differently. Maybe I m a universalist after all. I d certainly settle for a fully open table
The doors of Catholic churches are open to all. All are invited to 'come and see'
If they like what they see they are most welcome to remain and formally be welcomed into the family of over a billion members.
If they don't like what they see, they are still welcome but if they do not wish to be come a member of the family we cannot force them.
At least that seems to be the attitude of many "one true churches".
I asked myself the question "are there churches where I WOULDN'T receive communion?" JWs and LDS. Not sure about Seventh Day Adventists - I really don't know enough about what they believe. In the highly unlikely event that I was in a Fundamentalist or Prosperity Gospel place and there was communion, I would certainly think very carefully before receiving on the grounds that I'm really not sure I could recognise them as sharing the same faith as me.
That would assume uniformity of belief with churches.
In reality it is about who we are in communion with and how that is expressed.
And I understand and respect that perspective. But some others might say that receiving communion in another church is acknowledging the foundational, baptismal unity that is there despite how we obscure it.
Only a small percentage of JWs—those who believe themselves to be among the 144,000 who have a heavenly rather than an earthly hope—receive the bread and the cup at the annual Memorial of Christ’s Death. So non-JWs are definitely not among those who can receive.
The previous parish priest here would remind the PCC that John Wesley described communion as a "converting ordinance". He would suggest that it was more likely that anyone who received communion when not baptised or otherwise "suitable" would go on to become a Christian member of the church than someone denied communion officiously. But he does always choose to err on the side of generosity.
Yes: I've always found it a diabolical irony that this symbol of unity has been the source of so much division.