From
Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church In America
Volume 2, Number 4
Epiphany 1998
Ecumenism and Full Communion
William D. Roberts
One of the issue editors of Let’s Talk invited me to respond to the
failure of the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America to approve the Concordat of
Agreement by answering two questions:
1.
Is
it desirable for The Episcopal Church to have full communion with The
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America?
2.
If
so, can this happen without the ELCA somehow embracing the historic episcopate?
In answer to the first
question, I want wholeheartedly to embrace the desirability of being in full
communion with the ELCA on the basis of the Concordat
of Agreement and the years of mutual prayer and theological reflection
which it represents.
By way of beginning an answer
to the second question, we need to enjoy the ironies of the present ecumenical
moment.
First, I write as an
Episcopal priest ordained by a bishop in apostolic succession through the
historic episcopate, which is the gift which the Concordat extends to the ELCA.
And yet, according to the decree of Pope Leo XIII in 1896, “the Sacrament of
Order and the true priesthood of Christ has been totally expunged from the
Anglican rite...” (Of course, to the Orthodox Churches, the validity of Holy
Orders in the Roman Catholic Church is as moot as those in the Anglican
Communion because neither of our Churches is in communion with Orthodoxy, which
understands itself as possessing uniquely the fullness of the ancient Church.[i]
Second, the ELCA voted to
affirm that “the Lutheran condemnations in our confessional documents regarding
justification do not apply to the Roman Catholic Church today,” yet entered
into full communion with three Reformed Churches whose understandings of the
Lord’s Supper, at variance with Lutheran confessional documents,[ii]
do continue to apply to their Churches today.
Third, while the ELCA thus
advanced its ecumenical conversation with the Roman Catholic Church---which
would make restoration of the historic episcopate a condition of full
communion---, it defeated the Concordat
of Agreement which “recognizes now the full authenticity of the ordained
ministries presently existing within the [ELCA],” and which, as The Assenting Report stated, “has made
it possible, not necessary, for us to
propose simultaneously...the joint consecration of future bishops...in the historic episcopal succession.”[iii]
The final irony is that the
Anglican Church, often stereotyped (to put it most charitably) for its
theological carelessness, has
faithfully and consistently maintained its eucharistic doctrines in ecumenical
conversations, while the ELCA, often stereotyped (to put it most charitably)
for its theological integrity, has
entered into a Formula of Agreement
which “insists that, while remaining differences must be acknowledged, even to the extent of their
irreconcilability, it is the inherent unity in Christ that is
determinative.”
I offer the following
examples of Anglican and Lutheran fidelity to the undivided church’s
eucharistic teaching from the Reformation Period through recent ecumenical
dialogues up to the present Concordat
and Formula documents.
Reformation Period
A whimsical verse for the doctrine of the
Real Presence attributed variously to Queen Elizabeth I and Richard Hooker:
His was the Word that spake
it,
He took the Bread and brake
it,
And what his word doth make
it,
That
I believe and take it.
And from the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the
Church of England:
XXV. Of the Sacraments.
Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges
or tokens of Christian men’s profession, but rather they be sure witnesses, and
effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will towards us, by the which he doth
work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and
confirm our Faith in him.
XXVI.
Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the
Sacraments.
Although
in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the
evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and the Sacraments,
yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ’s, and
do minister by his commission and authority, we may use their Ministry, both in
hearing the Word of God, and in receiving the Sacraments. Neither is the effect
of Christ’s ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God’s
gifts diminished from such as by faith, and rightly, do receive the Sacraments
ministered unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ’s institution and
promise, although they be ministered by evil men.
XXVIII. Of the Lord’s Supper.
The
Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have
among themselves one to another, but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption
by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith,
receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of
Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.
From Martin Luther’s Brief Confession Concerning the Holy Sacrament (1544):
They
[the radical reformers] have (I say) been admonished sharply and often enough.
They do not want anything to do with me; therefore I do not want anything to do
with them either...
First of all, they were
warned right at the outset by the Holy Spirit when they separated into seven
spirits in their interpretations of the text, each one differing from the other
at all times.
The
first spirit, Karlstadt, interpreted the text, “This is my body,” to mean: Here
sits my body. Therefore the text should read thus: He took bread, gave thanks
and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, Here sits my body which
will be given to you…”
The second spirit,
Zwingli,...interpreted the text by another holy
spirit [emphasis added] of his thus: “Take,
eat, This signifies my body which is given for you.” Here “is” had to mean
“signifies.”
The third spirit,
Oecolampadius...interpreted the text...thus: Take, eat, this is the sign of my
body.”...
The sixth holy spirit interprets
it thus: “Take, eat, This is my body for a remembrance.”
...at the outset they taught
that there was nothing except mere bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper. They
scolded us and reviled us in this respect as cannibals, drinkers of blood,
Thyestians[iv]...and
called our Lord the baked God, the God made of bread, the God made of wine,
etc., as extant books forever testify.
Recent Ecumenical Dialogues
From “Standards of Eucharistic Sharing,” approved by
the 1979 General Convention of the Episcopal Church:
The
positive response to the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission’s Agreed
Statement on the Eucharist [Windsor 1971] undergirds the strong agreement in this church on the
Eucharist as a mystery offered by God to his gathered Church, and the
recognition of Christ’s real presence in this sacrament.
They
shall approach the Holy Communion as an expression of the Real Presence of
Christ whose sacrifice once upon the cross was sufficient for all mankind.
On the pain of broken communion:
One of the realities of life
within a divided Church is this very brokenness at the Table of the Lord. There
is great temptation to pretend that this is not true.... This is an experience
of the Cross in a sinful world. Often it is more appropriate to bear the pain
and give testimony to the integrity of the faith and discipline of one’s church
than to act as though full unity existed where it does not.
From “Joint Statement of Eucharistic Presence” in Lutheran-Episcopal Dialogue in the U.S.A.,
Series II (1980):
4.
The Church’s celebration of the Eucharist rests upon the Word and authority of
Christ, who commands his disciples to remember him in this way until his
return. According to his word of promise, Christ’s very body broken on the
cross and his very blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins are present,
distributed and received, as a means of partaking here and now of the fruit of
that atoning sacrifice. This is also the presence of the risen and glorified Christ
who pleads for us before the throne of God.
From “Epilogue, VI, Faith and Worship, Church and
Eucharist,” in Anglican-Orthodox
Dialogue: The Dublin Agreed Statement (1984):
108
(a) We are agreed in describing the Eucharist as an anamnesis and participation
in the death and resurrection of Christ.
111
(d) We are agreed that through the consecratory prayer, addressed to the
Father, the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of the glorified Christ by
the action of the Holy Spirit in such a way that the faithful people of God
receiving Christ may feed upon him in the sacrament.
From “Some Proposed Elucidations” to The COCU [Consultation on Church Unity]
Consensus: In Quest of a Church Uniting, by the 1988 General Convention of
the Episcopal Church.
Reservation (6)
...the
document entirely ignores the issue of the elements [bread and wine]
appropriate to the Lord’s Supper as noted by the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.
Similarly, Trinitarian language is safeguarded in the document only with
respect to the Creeds and the rite of Holy Baptism, whereas we would want, for
example, to ensure its inclusion in the rehearsal of salvation history featured
in the Great Thanksgiving of the Eucharist also.
The Concordat
itself does not address eucharistic theology; rather it explicitly states that
the ELCA and the Episcopal Church “recognize in each other the essentials of
the one catholic and apostolic faith as it is witnessed in the unaltered Augsburg Confession (CA), the Small Catechism, and The Book of Common Prayer of 1979
(including the ‘Episcopal Services’ and ‘An Outline of the Faith’), and as it
is summarized in part in Implications of
the Gospel...” which includes this paragraph:
47. Two themes are of
particular significance for our churches. Lutherans have historically
emphasized the “real presence” of Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness
of sins as the heart and center of the Eucharist. The intent behind such an
emphasis was to trust the word and promise of Christ, assuring the faithful
that it is not their believing which gives meaning to the bread and cup but
rather the objective body and blood promised by Christ which is offered to
them. In short, faith does not effect the presence of Christ; rather, it
receives the promise of Christ...
Now contrast paragraph 47 of Implications of the Gospel with these paragraphs from the Leuenberg Agreement (1973) cited in the Formula of Agreement:
In
the Lord’s Supper the risen Jesus Christ imparts himself in his body and blood,
given for all, through his word of promise with bread and wine. He thus gives
himself unreservedly to all who receive the bread and wine; faith receives the
Lord’s Supper for salvation, unfaith for judgment (Leuenberg
Agreement,
III.1.8).
We cannot separate communion
with Jesus Christ in his body and blood from the act of eating and drinking. To
be concerned about the manner of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper in
abstraction from this act is to run the risk of obscuring the meaning of the
Lord’s Supper (Leuenberg Agreement, III.1.19).
One cannot help noticing
that in both paragraphs the odd syntactical style obscures their semantic
substance. For example, what does it mean that “Jesus Christ imparts
himself...through his word of promise with bread and wine”? If it means that
through his word of promise the bread and wine become his body and blood, why
not say it? If it means that Jesus imparts himself through his word of promise
which is merely accompanied by the
act of eating and drinking, then we have abandoned the Concordat’s “objective
body and blood promised by Christ” for a doctrine which holds that it is
“believing which gives meaning to the bread and cup,” and that faith effects
the presence of Christ. (One further notes that the phrase “his body and blood”
is as far removed as grammatically possible from the phrase “bread and wine.”)
Speaking personally, it
seems to me that the ELCA’s adoption of the Formula
of Agreement tends toward compromising Lutheran fidelity to the undivided
church’s eucharistic teaching. Moreover, no Church that has claimed the
historic episcopate has ever abandoned that teaching. Consequently, although
many Lutherans have questioned the necessity of the historic catholic
episcopate, the case can be made that bishops in apostolic succession have in actuality “served the Gospel” by
their unerring fidelity to the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, which, as Luther
also maintained, is a sacrament of the gospel.
Therefore, again speaking
personally, although I continue to be willing to recognize “now the full authenticity of the
ordained ministries presently existing in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America” [emphasis added], I am all the more convinced that the historic
episcopal succession is a gift which the ELCA should embrace in order to
safeguard its future fidelity to the Lord’s Supper and the Gospel of Jesus
Christ as it lives out its full communion with the Reformed Churches, as well
as (God willing) with the Episcopal Church.
William D. Rober
[i]. “...in 1922 the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized that Anglican orders possessed the same validity as those of the Roman, Old Catholic, and Armenian Churches, inasmuch as all the essentials are found in them which are held indispensable from the Orthodox point of view for the recognition of the Charisma of the priesthood derived from Apostolic Succession.” Similar recognition was given by the Church of Cypress (1923) and by the Patriarchates of Jerusalem (1923), Alexandria (1930), and Romania (1936). Such recognitions have no practical effect until all Orthodox Churches act and until all recognize that the Anglican Communion is orthodox in faith.” See Handbook for Ecumenism, 1995, Section E: “Inter-Church Relations.”
[ii]. Compare Augsburg Confession, X: “...the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present in the Lord’s Supper...” and Smalcald Articles, VI: “The Bread and the Wine at the supper are the true Body and true Blood of Christ, and not only good Christians but the wicked themselves receive them” with the statement of Gregory P. Sammons of Toledo, Ohio in The Wall Street Journal, August, 1997: “As a Presbyterian...We affirm the “Real Presence” of Christ in the Eucharist and celebrate that the true transformation is not that of wafer or chalice but of heart, mind, and life of Christ’s body, the Church. While the ways we understand Christ to be present may differ from our Lutheran, Catholic, and Anglican brothers and sisters, we devoutly affirm and joyously trust that the Lord truly meets us at the Table.”
[iii]. Concordat of Agreement, 4, and “The Assenting Report” of Lutheran-Episcopal Dialogue, Series III.
[iv]. “It is highly significant that Luther reports these particular charges against him. At the Last Supper Jesus probably said not “This is my body,” but “This is my flesh” [cf. John 6:51], because for many years Christian writers continued to speak of the Eucharist by referring to Jesus’ flesh and blood. For example, Ignatius of Antioch in Syria (d. ca. 115) uses “flesh” when he wrote about the Eucharist (e.g. Romans 7:3; Philadelphians 4:1), as did Justin Martyr (d. Ca. 150). This talk about eating the flesh of Jesus opened the Christians to the scandalous charge of being cannibals. Justin’s contemporaries, Athenagorus, an Athenian, and Tertullian, an African, both mention that Christians are accused of holding “Thyestian Feasts.” This was a reference to Greek mythology, in which Thyestes was tricked by his brother Atreus into eating his own sons.
“Why would Jesus have used such scandalous language, and why would Christians many centuries later continue to refer to the eucharist as eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking his blood? Because behind the scandal of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking Jesus’ blood towers the scandal of the crucifixion. The scandal of the Eucharist is the scandal of the Cross.” [From the author’s sermon, August 17, 1997]