Spent Saturday morning training four members of Pacific Parks Uniting Lay Ministry team – with a focus on the Eucharist. I’m ordained as a minister but in my local church I’m part of a ‘lay ministry team’. The Uniting Church in Australia in 1995 made provision for lay presidency of communion and baptism in situations like ours where we celebrate the sacraments in house churches without relying on a ‘Rev’ to be there.
We spent the first half of the morning looking at the sacraments from a Uniting Church perspective. According to the Basis of Union, a sacrament is a visible act that proclaims the gospel, given as a norm by Jesus, through which Jesus acts through the Holy Spirit. We looked at the two symbolic acts Jesus explicitly told his disciples to carry out, but made a note of the many sacramental actions that we see pointing to the gospel as well. We looked at the ways in which Christ acts in our worship, noting that an action sheet for a worship experience may have action from the leaders, action from the participants, but always action from the Holy Spirit.
The second half of the morning we spent looking at a traditional communion service, working through the Uniting In Worship service. At first glance it looks like a hymn sandwich. But as we explored the meaning behind the rubrics we found ways we could develop a relaxed, relational and relevant experience of the Lord’s Supper that holds the richness of two thousand years of litrugy. We noted the freedom throughout Uniting in Worship for the local people to choose what kind of bread and grape juice (fermented or unfermented) they’ll use. There’s freedom about who distributes the elements.
One interesting point of theological reflection was the place of the confession. Traditional Presbyterian understandings of communion tend towards a feeling that only the worthy should take part in communion. It’s an interpretation of Paul’s warning to the Corinthians not to participate unworthily. I believe, with Gordon Fee, that Paul is referring to the relational side of the communion services in Corinth, not to the individual sense of worth. We need to take care that our experience of the eucharist really does reflect our prayer that the Holy Spirit will make us one.
Some of us grew up with an approach that said we could not take part in communion until we really understood what it was all about. This interpretation of Paul’s phrase,”discerning the body” in 1 Corinthians 11 assumes he is talking about the bread being the body of Christ. But what if he’s talking about us being the body of Christ? Discerning the body in this case means we should take care to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Our inclusion of children from an early age fits with the latter approach. Knowing that ‘Jesus loves me’ and following in his way is a simple enough grasp of the communion service.
Gordon D. Fee, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians,, Eerdmans, 1987.
Yes Michael we’ve got another session coming up next month focusing on baptism.
I’m encouraged by the approach your congregation is taking to lay presidency of the eucharist. I’d be curious to know if a similar approach is planned in relation to baptism (especially Infant baptism).