WEEKLY COMMENTARY: What Is The Reason For Monthly COMMUNION At CPC?

Last autumn, my twenty-five year old nephew Harry visited from the mid-West to attend to some business in New York City.  As it happened, he was with us over a Sunday, so I invited him to attend the CPC Worship Service with us.  Then I remembered that it would be the first Sunday of the month, when CPC regularly offers Communion as part of the Worship Service.  I thought I had better mention that to Harry.

Harry confessed he did not attend church much, but he said he did not remember "Communion." He wondered if it might be the same thing as the Sacrament of The Lord's Supper, which was celebrated at his parents' church.  I told him they were essentially the same thing;  each with perhaps a slightly different emphasis.

At CPC, I told Harry, (not unlike his parents' church) we observe Communion because Jesus told us to do so, and we always try to obey the commands of Jesus.  On the night he was betrayed, Jesus had met in the Upper Room and ate with his disciples.

          1 Corinthians 11:23-26  tells us:

           "The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given 

           thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance

           of me.'  In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new 

           covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. For 

           whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he 

           comes."

Then, in 1 Corinthians 11:28-29:

           "Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink of the 

            cup.  For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ, eat and drink 

            judgment on themselves."

At CPC, I told Harry, we regard Communion (the Lord's Supper) as a sacrament of the New Testament, and that by giving and receiving bread and wine, those that are worthy communicate to Jesus Christ for their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.  At the heart of Communion is our communion or fellowship with Christ.  Hence, our worship exercise is called a "Communion Service."  In attending this Service, the believer intends to meet Christ and have fellowship with him at his invitation.  But, there is self-examination taking place, because it would be hypocrisy for us to pretend that we are in communion with the Holy One while actually cherishing known sin in our hearts.

Unlike Baptism, which is a one-time event, Communion is a practice that is meant to be observed over and over throughout the life of a Christian, I told Harry.  It is a holy time of worship when we corporately come together as one body to remember and celebrate what Christ did for us in his life, death and resurrection.  Indeed, "Communion" testifies to our primary identification with Christ, without which one is not a Christian at all.

Harry asked whether during observance of the sacrament, the bread and wine really became the body and blood of Jesus?  He wondered, as one is seeking to be in communication with Jesus, how could Jesus participate?  I told him that there are three main Christian views on this question:

     ----- First, that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ.  This is the 

           Roman Catholic belief, and it is called Transubstantiation.  Before the Mass, the      

           elements are merely bread and wine.  But in the Mass, through the ministrations of the 

           priest, they are changed so that, although worshipers perceive only the bread and wine,  

           they nevertheless actually eat and drink the body and blood of Jesus.

     ----- Secondly, that the bread and wine are unchanged elements, but Christ's presence by

           faith is made spiritually real in and through them.  This was the view of John Calvin  

           particularly, but also of other Reformers ---- that Christ is present in the Communion 

           Service, but spiritually rather than physically.  Rev. James Montgomery Boice tells us 

           that Calvin called this "the real presence" to indicate that a spiritual presence is every bit

           as real as a physical one.

     ----- Thirdly, the bread and wine are unchanged, and used as symbols representing Christ's 

           body and blood, in remembrance of His enduring sacrifice.  This theory assumes Jesus is

           not present at all, at least no more than he is present all the time and in everything.  To

           those who hold this view, Communion takes on an exclusively memorial character.  It is

           only a remembrance of Christ's death. 

In his book, Foundations of Christian Faith, Rev. James Montgomery Boice discusses the merits of these three theories, as follows:

          "To begin with, we must say that there can be no quarrel with the memorial theory, since it

          is certainly true as far as it goes.  The only question is whether more than remembrance is

          involved.  The real division is between the view of the majority of Reformers and the 

          doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.  Those who favor a literal, physical presence (and

          Luther was one, though he did not accept the theory of transubstantiation) argue from a

          literal interpretation of Christ's words, "This is my body." (Mark 14:22).  But that hardly 

          decides the matter, because such expressions occur frequently in the Bible with obviously

          figurative or representational meanings."

I told Harry that we speak of "the real presence" of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Communion Service as far as we know it, and seek to respond to Him and serve  Him.  But, we readily admit that there are times when this is difficult and the Lord does not seem to be present.  Whether because of our sin, fatigue or simply lack of faith, Jesus often seems to be far away.  Though we continue on in Christian life and in service, we long for that day when we will see him face to face and be like him.  The Communion Service is a reminder of that day.  It is an encouragement to our faith and an impulse to reach for a higher level of holiness.

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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this winter at CPC.

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WEEKLY COMMENTARY: Does Life At CPC Imitate Either Baseball or Soccer?

Baseball is a team sport, but it is basically an accumulation of individual activities.  Throwing a strike, hitting a line drive or fielding a grounder, is primarily an individual achievement.  The team that performs the most individual tasks well probably will win the game.

Soccer is not like that.  In soccer, almost no task, except the penalty kick and a few others, is intrinsically individual.  Soccer is a game about occupying and controlling space.  If you get the ball and your teammates have run the right formations, and structured the space around you, you'll have three or four options on where to distribute the ball.  If the defenders have structured their formations to control the space, then you will have no options.  Even the act of touching the ball is not primarily defined by the man who is touching it ---- it is defined by the context created by all the other players.

Soccer is a collective game, a team game, and everyone has to play intelligently the part which has been assigned to him or her.  In last summer's World Cup matches, Brazil wasn't clobbered by Germany because the quality of the individual players was so much worse.  They got slaughtered because they did a very poor job of controlling space.  A German player could touch the ball, even close to the Brazilian goal, and he had ample room to make the kill.

Many of us at CPC spend our days thinking we are playing baseball.  But, much of the time we are really playing soccer.  We think we individually choose what path to take in getting involved in CPC church life.  However, what we perceive as "life at CPC" is, in fact, the context created by all the other CPC members.  It seems analogous to the soccer team's attempt to control space on the playing field ---- our church members define the context, but they do it for proactive purposes, not to put up a defense.

The creation of church context happens through at least three avenues.  First, there is "contagion." People absorb memes, ideas and behaviors from each other, the way they catch a cold.  If your church friends are active in care-giving, for example, you are likely to be similarly active.  If your church neighbors play fair, you are likely to play fair.  We all live within distinct moral ecologies. The overall environment influences what we think of as "normal" behavior without our being much aware of it.

It can work in the opposite direction, as well.  If the majority of the congregation wishes to take a particular action opposed by a minority of members, the latter may well leave the church and worship elsewhere because such conflict will be absent.

Then there is the structure of our social network.  People with vast numbers of acquaintances have more church job opportunities than people with fewer but deeper friendships.  Most organizations have structural holes, gaps between two departments or disciplines.  If you happen to be interested in a leadership position where you can make a contribution to the social network, your visibility may bring an invitation to serve as an Elder, Deacon or in other decision-making roles.

Innovation is hugely shaped by the structure of an organization at any moment.  Individuals in Silicon Valley are creative now because of the fluid structure of failure and recovery.  Broadway was said to be incredibly creative in the 1940's and 1950's because it was a fluid industry in which casual acquaintances ended up collaborating.  If the structure of an organization becomes more rigid over time, often that change in structure will lessen creativity.

Finally, there is the power of the extended mind.  Our consciousness is shaped by the people around us.  Each close friend you have brings out a version of yourself that you could not bring out on your own.  Such close friends may inspire us with new ideas, or help energize us to do something we would never have attempted on our own.

Once we acknowledge that in our life at CPC we are playing soccer, not baseball, a few things become clear.  First, awareness of the landscape reality in CPC life is extremely important.  It means being sensitive to the full width of the CPC environment, feeling where the flow of events is going.  Being an effective CPC member is in practice perceiving more than just conscious reasoning.

Second, predictive models will be less useful.  Baseball is wonderful for statisticians.  In each "at bat" there is a limited range of possible outcomes.  Activities like soccer are not as easy to render statistically, because the relevant spatial structures are harder to quantify.  Likewise, at CPC, many initiatives may quietly be undertaken which ultimately do not take root, even though they looked promising at the outset.

Finally, soccer is said to be like a 90-minute anxiety dream ---- one of those frustrating dreams when you're trying to get somewhere but something is always in the way.  Is this yet another way soccer is like a life of faith at CPC?  Our life of faith may appear at first to be an individual endeavor.  However, as with soccer, at CPC we continue to seek a collective involvement that enriches our lives,whether we are observing from the stands or playing on the field.

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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this winter at CPC.

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WEEKLY COMMENTARY: What Is Islam?

Central to both Christianity and Islam is the belief that God intervened in human history. Furthermore, that God revealed himself to mankind at a specific time and place, directly and decisively, once and for all.  Does this suggest there will be harmony?  Let's take a closer look.

On the one hand, Christians believe that God, in the form of Jesus Christ, became a human being and redeemed human nature by taking it on for himself.  This was how the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was born.

On the other hand, to Muslims as well as to Jews, the notion of the Trinity seems blasphemous because it detracts from the absolute oneness of God and thus opens the door to idolatry. Muslims believe that the Word of God was communicated to a human being.  And, they believe that the chosen human being was the prophet Muhammad, who thus became the "messenger" of God.

While Muhammad is believed to have possessed some special talents, no Muslim believes that he was anything other than a man, or that he actually was the author of the Word of God (which in time was transcribed as The Koran, or Qur'an).  They believe he merely passed along the Word of God initially by reciting it to his fellow human beings.

Thus, Muslims do not regard themselves as followers of Muhammad, but only as people who have accepted the Word of God as given to Muhammad, and surrendered themselves to God's will. "Islam" translates as "surrender," and a Muslim is one who "surrenders."  The importance of Muhammad is that he was the human vehicle through which the Word was communicated.

QUESTION:  How have Christianity and Islam handled the relationship of church and state?

Jesus of Nazareth was born into a community whose religion was an expression of its national independence, at a time when that national independence was in the process of being crushed by the Roman Empire.  Given the overwhelming power of the Roman Empire, a revival of the Jewish religion in its nationalistic form was bound to lead to disaster ---- and did so forty years after Jesus' death.

In his book, Faith & Power:  The Politics of Islam, Middle Eastern scholar Edward Mortimer suggests that Jesus offered a way out of this blind alley by expounding a non-political interpretation of Judaism:  "My kingdom is not of this world."  Claiming not to be the national warrior leader (Messiah) whom Jewish prophets had predicted, Jesus offered salvation only in the world to come, to be achieved by individuals through faith, hope and charity, rather than by the nation through organized revolt.  By implication, salvation in this sense was not reserved for Jews only.  After Jesus' death, Christianity became an invitation to all who suffered under the Roman Empire to hope for a better world after death.

Yet the notion of a non-political religion was a novel one, which the Roman Empire itself could not take at face value.  The expression of allegiance the Roman Empire expected from its subjects was to acknowledge the divinity of the emperor.  Christians who refused this were persecuted, with varying degrees of intensity, until the day came (three centuries after Jesus) when the emperor himself became a Christian.  Once that happened, Christianity was no longer non-political.  A Christian ruler was naturally expected to follow Christian precepts, to advance true Christian doctrine, and to suppress heresy.  

It was more than a thousand years before a school of political thought arose suggesting that religious belief was a matter for individuals, with which the state need not concern itself.  Yet all this time, says Edward Mortimer, Christians kept alive the notion of "the church" as something distinct from the state.  Though church and state might be composed of the same people, they had separate leadership whose roles were in theory distinct and complementary, even if in practice overlapping and often conflicted.

While for many centuries a number of European countries declared their monarch to be the head of the Christian church in that country, as countries evolved a parliamentary form of government, the power of the monarch was diminished and "the church" became less and less an agency of the state.  Even our Founding Fathers included in the U.S. Constitution wording that to this day requires the separation of church and state.

Because church and state have been moving apart over the past 200 years in many Christian societies, many people of Christian background have expected something similar to happen in the world of Islam.  But Edward Mortimer says that involves a profound misunderstanding, since in most Muslin societies there is not and never has been such a thing as a church.  Mortimer believes that the community of believers founded by Muhammad was virtually from the beginning, what we should call a state.

Therefore, it is fair to say that the conflicts today sponsored by many Muslim groups flying the flag of Islam, are simply attempts to gain or retain political power. They seem to be using dedication to their particular interpretation of the Word as a sort of smoke screen to boost their political power.  While not all Muslim groups are motivated in this way, the radical Muslim group ISIS is a fine example of how extreme the political side of Islam can become ----- they even describe the territory they now have taken and rule, as "The Caliphate Restored.".

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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this winter at CPC.

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WEEKLY COMMENTARY: What Presbyterians DON'T Believe

While generally living as committed Christians and followers of Jesus Christ, Presbyterians hold some beliefs different from what other Christians believe.  A while back, the Presbyterians Today magazine cited eight such belief differences in an article by Presbyterian pastor James Ayers.  

Where do you stand on each of these eight topics?

1.)  Good works or grace?  Conventional wisdom says that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell.  Are you good enough for heaven?  Are you sufficiently righteous to go to heaven when you die?  Presbyterians have always insisted that, as we all are sinners at birth, no one is good enough to deserve salvation.  We are saved only by God's grace.  Despite our failures in life, God already has decided to save us as evidenced through the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.

2.)  Reincarnation or eternal life?  Some Eastern religions say that after we die, we are reborn as another person or as an animal.  They believe that the world is an endless cycle of death and rebirth.  Therefore, that one continually gets "another chance" until we finally get it right. Presbyterians believe that Scripture does not teach reincarnation.  Instead, it points us toward eternal life in the presence of God.  Think about it ---- isn't belief in reincarnation just a severe form of believing in righteousness by one's works, as one lives over and over until we have attained a certain level of goodness?

3.)  Fate or predestination.  Some believe that every event may be caused by previous events.  If so, they say, it is an illusion to suppose that your decisions actually change anything.  If you do a good deed, that is what you were fated to do.  If you do something evil, that is just the outworking of your predetermined fate.  This is different from the Presbyterian doctrine of predestination, which says God chose to redeem us, long before we could even understand what that might mean. Because God chose us before the foundation of the world, that means we are predestined to make life's choices.  We make many free choices every day.  Predestination teaches us that God has given us a new and bigger freedom ---- the freedom to fulfill our destiny as we understand it.

4.)  Alter or table?  An alter is a place where a sacrifice is offered, and it is often viewed with special reverence.  In the traditional Roman Catholic understanding the priest during Mass re-offers Christ on the alter as a sacrifice to God.  Presbyterians believe the sacrifice of Christ has already been offered once and for all.  The sacrifice needs no repetition, and the action of a priest cannot make it occur again.  Therefore, Presbyterians see the Lord's Supper as taking place at a table rather than at an alter.  Although many communion tables are rather ornate, the table itself holds no particular significance or holiness for Presbyterians.

5.)  Purgatory, heaven, hell.  Where do people go when they die?  Many people would say "heaven or hell."  Yet in the Middle Ages people thought that if heaven is where the saints stand in the holy presence of God, and hell is where the wicked get sent, what about those people who have not had a chance to have all of their sins forgiven?  Our lives are still impure when we die, so how can we exist in heaven, alongside the holiness of God?  Thus, the doctrine of purgatory was created ---- a place where any sins not forgiven since our last confession, would be purged. Presbyterians believe God will indeed redeem us and cleanse us from all our sins, and we will be readied for heaven, without needing to postulate a third possible place to go when we die.

6.)  Ranking sins.  In Roman Catholic thinking when you die you are carrying the guilt of all the sins you have committed since your last confession.  If your sins are venial (relatively slight), you will now work them off in purgatory.  A mortal sin, in contrast, cannot be resolved in purgatory.  An unconfessed mortal sin means you are damned to hell.  Presbyterians do not believe that sins can be graded this way.  Sin is sin.  Forgiveness is God's free gift in Christ. Confession and assurance of pardon are not what enable God to forgive us, but rather what enables us to recognize or feel or experience that we are forgiven.

7.)  To whom do we pray?  When you have problems, you may ask your friends to pray for you. But why restrict yourself to present-day friends?  Why not also ask radiant Christians from previous centuries to offer up their intercessions on your behalf?  This is perhaps the most positive way to think of praying to the saints.  Yet there is a problem here.  Asking Mary (the mother of Jesus) or Saint Joan to pray for you becomes praying to Mary or Saint Joan.  But praying is an act of worship and devotion, and this should be offered only to God, in the Presbyterian view.

8.)  Authority figures.  Where is the authority of the church based?  Our differing understandings of appropriate church governance are perhaps the greatest source of disagreement among Christians.  We have different ways of ordering our lives together as communities of faith. Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopal churches believe that temporal authority is carried in the office of the bishop.  The doctrine of the "historic succession of bishops" means that bishops receive their authority from previous bishops, all of whom received their authority from still earlier bishops.  Catholics and some Anglicans trace this authority back to the apostles themselves. Presbyterians believe church authority is not carried in individuals this way.  Instead, church leaders can declare the will of God only on the authority of Scripture.  Presbyterians are on record that our way is not THE way, but simply the way that works best for us.

Now that you have taken the test, how "Presbyterian" do you think you are?

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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this winter at CPC.

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