Today Steve Finamore, Principal of Bristol Baptist College reflects on how Baptists celebrate the Lord's supper:
Firstly, Baptists traditionally insist that the deacons gather with the Minister at the Table. At first sight this looks for all the world like the top table. It is as though the patterns of hierarchy so familiar from elsewhere are being reinforced. However, this turns out to be servants' table for the deacons will go out into the congregation to serve others. Furthermore, the Minister, whom some might have assumed to occupy the pinnacle of the implied hierarchy, then serves the servants on their return. The Minister in turn will be served by a deacon. All are served by others. The whole thing can be read as a parable of the transformed relationships found in the Kingdom of God as expectations are confounded ...
Secondly, many Baptist churches will wait until all have been served before any eats or drinks. A key characteristic of a shared meal is thus retained. No hierarchy is tolerated. All are equal and so they eat and drink as one. There is no question of one person being allowed to eat or drink before others; unity and equality are demonstrated ...
Next, the resources are shared equally and without competition. Again, something significant is said about the nature of the relationships between the participants. This is not a community in which a lion's share will go the wealthy or powerful. There will be contest for resources. Instead, distribution is based on what is perceived to be God's economy ...
A further interesting practice, though one which may be dying out, is the taking up of a communion offering to be given away to those in need within the church. This was one way in which members accepted their responsibility for one another as family. It was an acknowledgement that this responsibility extended beyond sharing around the Table to ensuring that there were funds available to the pastor and deacons that could be used to support those in particular need. In those churches where this tradition has lapsed the officers will usually have access to a church fund which can serve a similar purpose but it may be that something significant has been lost through the separation of this concept from the family table.
Finally, when Baptists share in Communion, there is bread and wine to spare. All who wish to share have been served, and yet there is an abundance left over. It is not put aside for future use or consumed by the priests; it is the overflow and may simply be returned to the created order whence it came. This is an acted parable of grace. There is enough for all and still there is more.
Stephen Finamore, 'Veiled Presence: The Risen Christ in Spurgeon's Great Communion Hymn and Baptist Communion Rituals' in Anthony Clarke (ed.), For the Sake of the Church: Essays in Honour of Paul S. Fiddes (Centre for Baptist History and Heritage Studies Vol. 3; Regent's Park College, Oxford, 2014), pp.75-77.
I really like the theology of abundance (though some might call it theological rationalisation, if not spin!) of the last paragraph. The "created order" to which the "overflow" is returned -- at least now the bin into which it is thrown (sorry - reverently disposed of, as one would reassure Anglicans at ecumenical celebrations!) -- may be labelled "organic recyclable waste" (unless, of course, Francis like, it is fed to the birds).
Question: What about the uneaten/-drunk elements still on the table before the service concludes? In my experience the universal congregationalist practice is to cover them, out of respect/reverence. However, it's a practice to which I have never adhered: at one level, because it strikes me as concealing what has been revealed; and at a deeper, symbolic level, because it strikes me as putting the risen body of Christ back in the tomb. Any thoughts?
Posted by: Kim Fabricius | March 16, 2017 at 11:30 PM
I've never covered uneaten elements & don't think I've ever seen that done in my Baptist experience. Not really thought about it, I like your suggestions why.
There is usually so much leftover because no-one like to take more than the smallest bit of bread possible - i would like to see people receive/take big chunks - hungry for the bread of life!
Posted by: Andy Goodliff | March 17, 2017 at 08:51 AM
I've never covered uneaten elements & don't think I've ever seen that done in my Baptist experience.
That's interesting. Of course when I say "congregationalist" I mean URC (though almost all of these URCs are ex-congregationalist). Also, as a working minister, I never had many chances of being at Communion services in other churches that I wasn't leading. So my "universal congregational practice" is no doubt overstated and misleading. But of course Methodists and Anglicans are indeed fastidious about covering the remaining elements, so whatever we "lower" churches do, I think we ought to have our reasons.
Posted by: Kim Fabricius | March 17, 2017 at 09:59 AM
The problem most of the time with Baptists is our practice is always in search of a theology, that's why I found the Finamore reflections helpful.
By not covering elements, are we are saying that the table remains open, the meal is not over, Christ remains present?
Posted by: Andy Goodliff | March 17, 2017 at 10:29 AM
The problem ... the Finamore reflections helpful.
Me too.
By not [re]covering the elements ... Christ remains present.
Yes, absolutely.
Btw, thanks for including my hymn earlier in your splendid series. And congrats on the new book.
Btw2: Do you know Graham Greene's wonderful Monsignor Quixote? The scene at the end in a monastery, where the little cleric, in a delirium after a car crash, presides at a paten-less, chalice-less Mass and offers his travelling companion and friend, the Marxist mayor, the invisible body and blood of Christ before collapsing and dying -- I suppose it would be impossible to include it in your series without commentary and editing, but it's a literary scene that remains forever etched in my personal list of eucharistic memories. After leaving the monastery (the novel concludes) ...
"The Mayor didn't speak again before they reached Orense; an idea quite strange to him had lodged in his brain. Why is it that the hate of man -- even of a man like Franco -- dies with his death, and yet love, the love which he had begun to feel for Father Quixote, seemed now to live and grow in spite of the final separation and the final silence -- for how long, he wondered with a kind of fear, was it possible for that love of his to continue? And to what end?"
Posted by: Kim Fabricius | March 17, 2017 at 01:28 PM