Sacramental Theology
Sacramental Theology
10th September 2023
Matthew 18: 15-20
Christian theology seeks to express who God is.
Although perhaps seemingly contradictory, Christians have reason to say that God is both transcendent and imminent.
God is both other than us, and with us – in Christ.
In today’s reading we hear the promise of Jesus to be with us.
where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them. (v20)
Where might we expect Jesus to be among us?
What gatherings would we include?
…Sunday worship service
…Peer groups
…Youth group on Friday
…Young Adults Group and house groups, MB
…Music groups, choirs
… getting together with work mates to pray
…In the gathered work of our groups and Committees
(Clubs Day next Sunday is a chance for us to celebrate and get more involved!)
…With groups of the wider Church – presbytery and national committees.
(The Presbyterian General Assembly coming up at the end of the month in Auckland.)
In these gathered moments we consciously commit ourselves with prayer, expressing our trust in Christ’s presence with us.
By doing this; by focusing our attention and action, is there an intensification of our awareness of Christ’s presence…?
When we gather for worship, do we expect to encounter Christ’s presence…?
When we gather at this table (here), what do we believe about the presence of Christ with us…?
This is the specific question I want us to consider today:
‘Are these elements of bread and cup symbols – or something more?’
There are two main ways that Christians tend to understand Communion.
1. Communion is the meal in which we remember what Christ did on the cross (the memorialist position),
…or…
2. Christ is really present in the meal (the sacramentalist position)
The first understands the bread and cup as signs/symbols of Christ.
The second sees these communicating the actual presence of Christ with us.
So, are the bread and cup mere symbols of Christ?
Let me use an analogy for these two understandings…
A road sign with a kereru symbolises the presence of kereru in the area – with the purpose of prompting drivers to slow down.
Drivers won’t veer away from the road sign for fear of hitting the kereru that is symbolised on the road sign.
The reason is obvious: the symbol of the kereru and the kereru perched on the powerline are two completely separate realities.
The former is a sign referring to the latter, but in no way do the two co-inhere. It is not as though the road sign carries a mysterious quality, participating somehow in the kereru that perches nearby.
In this diagram symbol x and reality y merely have an external relationship.
The distance between the two makes clear that there is no real connection between them.
But in the relationship here, x doesn’t merely point to y, it participates in the reality of y.
Can you see how these express
· the memorialist understanding,
· and the sacramentalist understanding?
In the first, the bread and cup are signs/symbols of Christ.
In the second, Christ is real and acting in the present; participating in this community meal.
You probably know that the Protestant Reformation was when the Reformers (like Luther, Calvin and Knox) challenged some of the thinking and practices of the Roman Catholic Church.
And you may also know that the Reformation was characterised by the divergent theological understandings about the presence of Christ in Communion.
The early Reformer who influenced Presbyterianism was John Calvin.
You may be surprised by the fact that, alongside those Roman Catholics who believed in the real presence of Christ in Communion, Calvin agreed.
Calvin did not regard the bread and cup of Communion as merely symbolic;
Christ is really present.
But (importantly) Calvin identified the importance of the mode of the presence of Christ.
Calvin rejects the suggestion of
bodily presence,
local presence,
substantial presence –
not because he prioritises scientific materialism, but for theological reasons:
1. Since the body of Christ has Ascended to heaven, it cannot also be in the elements.
2. a bodily, local, or substantial presence of Christ in the elements threatens the sovereignty of God (it puts the presence of Christ under our control)
Cavin denies that the ‘substance’ of Christ’s body is present, excluding the idea of physical presence of Christ in Communion.
BUT, at the same time Calvin insists we receive the very body of Christ in Communion.
Calvin asserts that the “life-giving power from the flesh of Christ is poured into us through the medium of the Spirit.”
Christ’s body is really given and received in Communion, but the body of Christ remains in heaven.
The mode of Christ’s presence in Communion is that of a personal or relational presence, not that of a natural object.
Christ is present, not as an object on the Table, but as the Lord of the Church for the purpose of nourishing his people and uniting them to himself.
Union with Christ is the dominant emphasis in Calvin’s theological understanding of Communion.
If Christ is really present in the meal of Communion in a personal and relational way, how do we understand his presence to come to us…?
It is the role of the Holy Spirit to bring the presence of Christ in the sacrament and who sanctifies believers through it.
In the meal of Communion we pray for the Holy Spirit to do this for us.
This is the prayer of epiclesis (Latin for “to call upon”).
Pour out your Holy Spirit on us, gathered here,
and on these gifts of bread and cup.
Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ,
…
By your Spirit make us one with Christ,
[and] one with each other…
It is not an incantation, but rather an expression of the trust we have in relationship with God.
We pray this way believing God will accomplish His purposes as we celebrate this meal: to nourish, encourage, and strengthen the Church.
Have you ever wondered if the Holy Spirit is at work in your life?
As a younger person, I was desperate to know if the Holy Spirit was doing anything with me – even interested in me?
Christian theology expressed by Calvin (and Paul for that matter) insists that the response of faith is only possible with the Holy Spirit at work in you giving you this as a gift of grace.
So, (put simply) if you love God, the Spirit is at work in you.
So in the sacrament of Communion we have not only signs, but the real presence of Christ here with us.
Hearing the promise in today’s Gospel reading, we understand that the presence of Christ with us – not just with me; not just with you (in an individualistic sense), but communally.
For the Church, the presence of Christ is most recognisable in the meal we share.
This meal which “we celebrate in obedience to Christ’s example and mandate.”
Communion is an act at the centre of the life of the Church, the community of believers.
Communion unites us with Christ by uniting us as the members of Christ’s body with one another, and with Christ our head.
You may not “feel” Christ.
But, in this instance your feelings aren’t authoritative.
Feelings are a dodgy basis for assessing our unity with the living God.
It is the promise of Christ himself that counts.
Not our comprehension of love, but the love which comes to us in grace, engulfing us.
where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.
Glory be to God, today and forever!