Regarding Weekly Communion

From the Session

Beloved St. Andrew community,
​
We are writing to you to ask for your prayers in our discernment around moving to weekly communion. This is a question we took up at our October meeting in response to the attached letter from Pastor Scott, which we encourage you to read and consider as well. Deacon co-moderators Laurie Rossnagel and Judy Paulsen joined us in the conversation.

Download a copy of the letters here...

While we understand the decision is ultimately our responsibility, we are grateful for your partnership, prayer, and engagement. For perspective, our current standard practice had been to celebrate communion weekly during the Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter seasons and monthly during ordinary time, which worked out to about half the Sundays of the year. We did increase communion to twice a month during Ordinary Time just this summer, which seems to have been an instigator for recent considerations.

We are well aware that the question is complicated by a number of factors, including each of our personal experiences, and deep memories that shape our engagement with worship generally, and in particular, with communion. We come from diverse backgrounds which shape how we come to the table. In addition, we are aware that the Presbyterian Church’s emphasis on weekly communion is relatively new. It has evolved in recent years and was not the experience of many of us who were raised within the denomination. It is, of course, a time of profound change, and we seek to respond faithfully together as a church “reformed, and always being reformed.”

We are very glad to be in conversation with you. Please feel free to seek any of us out individually if you’d like to pray with us, share your experiences, or ask questions. We will also provide an opportunity for questions and conversation during Aftertalk on November 3rd.

With love and gratitude,
Your St. Andrew Session

Scott Anderson, Moderator
Julie Kae Sigars
Don Patterson, Clerk
Marie West-Johnson
Mike Dittmar
Pattie Holt
Richard Crummett
Amber Oakes
Teresa Platin

Letter from Pastor Scott

​September 17, 2019
 
My Dear Session members:

I write to you because I believe it is time for us to make the celebration of the Lord’s Supper a regular part of our weekly worship. Recent conversations with the deacons and in our last stated meeting have clarified and cemented in me this conviction.
Let me try to explain why, first of all, by naming what I’ve observed and have come to believe.

1. We must elevate our reasoning. Too often the arguments I hear whether to support increased/weekly practice of communion or to not increase it default to some form of personal preference—I like it, or I don’t. I’m afraid people who don’t like it will be estranged if we do increase it, or people who do like it will be discouraged if we don’t. I have nowhere found in this gospel to which we have mutually submitted ourselves any notion anywhere that supports the idea we make judgments according to our personal preference. Indeed, if anything, we understand such reasoning to be a form of tyranny, i.e., sin, that harms both ourselves and others. The scriptures are our authority. Christ is our Lord, our life, our hope, and our foundation.[i] We submit ourselves to the gospel, we die to self. As disciples, we become the servant of all. 
2. We will not find consensus (on this side of the Kingdom!). On this issue of communion, I’ve been listening and engaging and responding and seeking to both understand and be understood for at least 12 of my 15 years with you. While, for some, perspectives have evolved, conviction for or against weekly communion has only hardened for others. I see no evidence nor am I convinced any longer that more time of inaction will substantively change anything. Neither, I suspect, will more conversation, for when it is offered in some public or private forum, nonparticipation has become the norm. If anything, there is, in my judgment, a sense of exhaustion (I certainly feel it!) about our current reality that is detrimental to the quality and character of our life together. For our well-being, we need to act and move forward.
3. Love gives way to freedom. This does not have to be a zero sum, either-or choice. We can cultivate an environment that allows freedom (of conscience) for all in weekly celebration, but not in our current practice. When we do not come to the table weekly, those who hunger for the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation are denied it. If it is not served, there is no way for them to opt in. On the other hand, if, for reasons of conscience, some of our members do not wish to receive communion, they may opt out, even if we institute a practice of weekly communion. Indeed, based on my observations, some already choose to opt out on occasion. I have at times, as a spiritual practice. Moreover, we as leaders and as a community have, and we can increasingly and intentionally shape a worship environment that specifically invites and encourages participation and non-participation in these matters as equally authentic spiritual acts of worship.[ii]

 
 
Let me also highlight what I understand about our tradition.

1. Our theology, our tradition, and our best current understanding within the Reformed tradition is unequivocal that the proper shape of worship on the “Lord’s Day” includes both Word and Table, the interpretation of the scriptures and the breaking of bread.[iii] Our Book of Common Worship, in its commentary repeats clear instruction that appears verbatim in our Book of Order: “The Lord’s Supper shall be celebrated as a regular part of the Service for the Lord’s Day, preceded by the proclamation of the Word, in the gathering of the people of God.”[iv]
2. Sacramental practice, including the regular practice of communion is one of the greatest tools we have to be formed around the grace and extraordinary love of God.[v] The Lord’s Supper “offers an abundant feast of theological meaning,”[vi] or, as you’ve heard me describe it many times before, a surplus of meaning, a deep well, a bottomless cup, a rich and seemingly endless supply of imagery and metaphor and perspective from which we can draw again and again without exhausting the possibility for refreshment and renewal.
3. The celebration of the Lord’s supper, together with the sermon proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in a way that the sermon alone (or the table alone) cannot. To say it simply, the table (and the font) “preach” in a way that the sermon, or the sermon alone, simply cannot. This idea is evident both from our best theology, and our best pedagogy (i.e., theory and practice of Christian formation), as well as from observation and conversation within our own community that demonstrates we learn differently, and are transformed more fully when our whole selves, all of our senses are engaged, not just one or two.

 
Simply put, to neglect the regular and combined practice of both Word and Table, and a fulsome practices of both is, for me as a pastor, akin to a doctor engaging in malpractice, to holding back “care” consistent with known best practices and substituting instead something “substandard” in my call to “equip the people for ministry in Jesus’ name.”[vii] While I have held this view for some time, my pastoral judgment to this point in my ministry with you and those entrusted to us regarding our sacramental practices has been to seek understanding in patient, active listening and faithful teaching. I am persuaded that this line of action, in this case, is no longer wise or beneficial to our life together.

My recommendation, therefore, is that session institute the practice of communion every Lord’s Day beginning with Advent (December 1, 2019) and the beginning of our new liturgical year. Given our current practice, the difference will only be functionally evident when the Christmas season gives way to Ordinary Time in January when we would normally revert to twice-monthly communion. Of course, the institution of these changes should and will be accompanied by ample communication and instruction.
​
Grace & Peace,

Rev. Scott Anderson, D.Min.
​
Notes:
[i] Cf., Book of Order, F-1.02.
[ii] See, for example the historic principle of mutual forbearance (F-3.0105).
[iii] Examples to support this are numerous. Specific to the weekly celebration as normative, see among others in the Book of Order (and note references to scripture and confessions) W-1.01, W-3.0102: The Pattern of Lord’s Day Worship; W-3.04: Sacrament—especially W-3.0409 and W-3.0415.
[iv] Book of Common Worship, 2018, Commentary, p. 9, and W-3.0409,
[v] W-3.0401: Theology of the Sacraments.
[vi] W-3.0409: Theology of the Lord’s Supper.
[vii] W-2.0304.