Lester Ruth

What do you call that piece of furniture upon which we place the communion elements? A table? The Lord’s table? The communion table? Many worship traditions emphasize this connection to the Lord’s Supper by emphasizing some form of that name. But another common name for that piece of furniture is altar. It’s a name that resonates with the sacrificial nature of Jesus’ death on Calvary, not to mention his ongoing priestly ministry at the right hand of God in heaven. Table or altar: those seem to be the two most common names. But I’d like to suggest another: mirror. The piece of furniture used in communion serves as a mirror in which the church can see—should see—a true reflection of itself. You may be thinking, “How can that be? There’s no glass, no frame, and no metal reflecting the church’s image.” True. But there’s something else there that gives insight into the true nature of the church: bread. Think about it: there’s a playful multivalence in the bread laid on that piece of furniture. We pray, then point to the bread and say, “Look, the body of Christ.” We tear off the bread (at least we did before the pandemic), hand it to one another, and say, “The body of Christ, broken for you.” However, ever since the apostle Paul, we apply the term “body of Christ” to ourselves too. Which is it? Is the bread the body of Christ, or are we as the church the body of Christ? The answer is “yes.” The liturgical way of saying “yes” is “amen,” which is what Christians in many traditions say both when the bread is handed to us and when we affirm the nature of the church in a creed. Augustine of Hippo, that wise pastor of the fifth century, understood this. Drawing on Paul’s theology of the church as expressed in 1 Corinthians 12, Augustine exhorted Christians to understand who they really were—the body of Christ, member for member—and to realize, therefore, that “it is your own mystery that is placed on the Lord’s table. . . . Be what you see and receive what you are.” Moreover, Augustine exhorted believers to live faithfully as the church: “Be a member of Christ’s body, then, so that your “Amen” [when handed the bread] may ring true!” (Augustine, Sermon 272). Indeed, there are parallels in how we make bread and how God makes us the church. As a loaf is formed from many grains of wheat, so the church is made up of many members. As the wheat has to be gathered in a harvest, so too the love of others has brought us in. By our repentance from sin, we are ground. By our instruction in the Word, we are leavened. By our baptism, we are moistened and molded anew. And by the coming of the Holy Spirit, we are baked. Finally this loaf is set on the piece of furniture and the words are spoken: “The body of Christ.” We can see—should see—ourselves in communion as in a mirror. In a culture steeped in consumerism, it is a helpful thing to come to communion expecting to look in a mirror. Without this perspective, we might reduce this holiest of moments to the base questions that drive consumerism: Did I enjoy it? What can I get out of it? But to perceive a mirror in that piece of furniture that is simultaneously table and altar allows us to step into expansive realities. As a table it becomes an occasion for offering ourselves as the body of Christ in love and service to each other and to the world. As an altar it becomes the setting in which we can offer ourselves in union with Christ, as members of his body, in praise and thanksgiving to God. With such an abundance of deep truth resting on it, it is amazing that this piece of communion furniture doesn’t collapse under the weight. Altar, table, and mirror: may our contemplation of and participation in these mysteries bring us into closer communion with God and our fellow believers.

One sentence has haunted me for more than thirty years. The sentence is a parenthetical remark added to the end of a section in one of the most ancient documents in the history of Christian worship: the third-century source known as The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. This document was among the first of multiple instructional guides on worship written for the ancient church. At the end of its section describing how to prepare people for baptism, there is a concluding sentence noting what baptismal candidates should and should not bring to the font. A mere thirty-six words in the most recent English translation, this sentence teases us with a vision of baptism and communion that turns upside down two common assumptions we in the modern church have about the sacraments. The haunting sentence reads: “Let there be no other thing that they bring, those who are to be baptized, except each a loaf for the Eucharist, because it is appropriate for those who participate to offer something at that time.” In the early church the passage would have been unexceptional; it would have haunted no one. Baptized members of the church typically brought the food used in communion; it wasn’t already there, just waiting for them. This practice lasted for centuries before dying out in the Middle Ages. By the second millennium of Christianity, the idea of having the people regularly provide the food for the Eucharist would have seemed strange to congregations, as it probably still does. But there is something to be learned from that thirty-six-word sentence and its ancient practice. The first is the organic connection between baptism and communion. It is easy for us to think of the two sacraments in isolation, existing in different silos of liturgical practice and consciousness. But it wasn’t that way in the ancient church. Baptism was one’s initiation into the church, the body of Christ, and it led to participation in communion, the sacrament involving the body of Christ. Baptism literally led to communion as the newly baptized were taken from the baptistery into the middle of the community to participate in the Lord’s Supper for the first time. Water culminated in bread and wine. Indeed, in a way, communion was the repeating part of baptism. And participating in communion was not a passive experience in which one merely received a bit of food. That is the second thing to be learned from ancient practice: communion was not only something worshipers received, but it was also what they were and what they offered. There were no passive consumers here in the ancient church. As baptism had made them part of a priestly people, communion was where worshipers as a priestly people offered to God themselves, their praise and worship, and their bread. Our modern liturgies still speak of this dimension of the sacrament, usually as a statement within the consecratory prayer (though it too easily glides by without much notice). One of the prayers found in The Worship Sourcebook, for example, says, “And here we offer and present to you our very selves to be a living sacrifice” (2nd ed., Faith Alive, 2013). One way to reclaim the ancient perspective is to reattach communion to all membership rites, including baptism, confirmation, reaffirmation, and even transfers. Let every entrance into a worshiping community, regardless of how one is joining, lead to that community’s table. And let those people bring their bread as they make their commitments to Christ. As the ancient document said, “it is appropriate” for them to do so. (The sentence referenced from The Apostolic Tradition comes from Paul F. Bradshaw, The Apostolic Tradition Reconstructed: A Text for Students, Joint Liturgical Studies #91 (Norwich, UK: Alcuin Club and The Group for Renewal of Worship, 2021), 23.)

Christmas is for children, the popular saying goes. True enough. But we might ask, “Which children?” The obvious answer, the one popularized in our culture, is young children (chronologically speaking). Indeed, it is one of the delights of Christmas to see the unrestrained joy of children. But what if there was another way to define “children” so that the spotlight was not on chronological age, but on spiritual condition—specifically, on those who had just been born anew in the waters of baptism? Could Christmas be for these spiritual “children” too? This was the case in some ancient churches. Christmas was a time for baptisms, which might be surprising for those more familiar with baptisms scheduled in harmony with individual and family rhythms. But from about the third through the fifth centuries, many churches conducted baptisms according to the rhythms of the church year, with feasts like Easter, Pentecost, Epiphany, and Christmas as common dates. There is a reasonableness to the practice. For example, if baptism is our being buried with Christ and raised to newness of life, then to have baptisms on the day the church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Easter) seems fitting. With that same liturgical logic, it seems harmonious to conduct baptisms on the day when the Spirit is poured out from heaven (Pentecost) or when Christ’s own baptism is remembered (Epiphany, in many ancient churches). And so it was with Christmas in other ancient churches. If the Nativity of Christ had kicked open the door between heaven and earth—if the manger had brought about an appearance of heaven on earth—then it seemed appropriate to take advantage of this open door, step through it, and be baptized into the realm of Jesus Christ. As Christ has been born into our world on this day, some ancient Christians passed through the baptismal waters to be reborn into his. Perhaps the most famous instance of this was the Christmas Day baptism of Clovis, king of the Franks, around the year 500. (His conversion would do much to establish orthodox Christianity across what is now France.) Baptizing on Christmas would probably have given a different shade of meaning to Advent in those churches, too. Instead of simply a general preparation to commemorate the birth of Jesus in the past or to prepare for his second coming in the future, Advent would have been an intensive period of preparing candidates for baptism. Indeed, the ascetic and formational practices of Lent, the other key time to prepare baptismal candidates, would have been pursued throughout Advent too. In fact, there is some historical evidence for an Advent reaching back for forty days into mid-November, making this baptismally connected Advent a parallel to Lent in both purpose and length. As a period of baptismal preparation, such an Advent would have been a rigorous re-orientation for the candidate to be able and ready to follow Christ in belief, belonging, and behavior when Jesus Christ came on Christmas in the waters of his birth and our baptism. Christmas is indeed for children. We just need to make sure our definition of “children” is wide enough.

Do people understand the Scriptures that are read in a worship service? Often, as a worship leader, I have been afraid they don’t. Thus, I must confess, I am a bit envious when I hear a fourth-century pilgrim to Jerusalem describing how “all the people in these parts are able to follow the Scriptures when they are read in church.” How was that possible, especially when the printed Word was rare and few people could read? Or was it just wishful thinking from this pilgrim, a Western European nun named Egeria? Egeria tells us how it was possible: through sustained, intentional teaching of everyone preparing for baptism. Here’s how Egeria’s diary describes their daily instruction during Lent: “During the forty days [the bishop] goes through the whole Bible, beginning with Genesis. First, he relates the literal meaning of each passage, and then he interprets its spiritual meaning. He also teaches them at this time all about the resurrection and the faith. . . . After five weeks of teaching they receive the Creed, which he explains article by article in the same way as he explained the Scriptures, first literally and then spiritually” (Lester Ruth, Carrie Steenwyk, and John D. Witvliet, Walking Where Jesus Walked: Worship in Fourth-Century Jerusalem (Eerdmans, 2010), 60–61). In this way, those approaching the baptismal font gained the ability to hold the whole Bible together, to know its foundational redemptive themes, to identify its chief characters, and especially to recognize its main actor, God as revealed in Jesus Christ. That is what Egeria means when she talks about the bishop teaching both the literal and the spiritual meaning of Scripture. The literal meaning refers to a passage’s original historical significance; the spiritual meaning is its relationship to the salvation wrought by Jesus and experienced by those who believe in him. Egeria’s final comment about the creed indicates how baptismal candidates learned to do the same with the major events in the life of Christ and the major affirmations of the faith. (As a comparison, consider how various New Testament authors used the events of Christ’s life—birth, circumcision, baptism, picking up a cross, death, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection—as metaphors for the Christian experience.) This ancient practice in Jerusalem raises a couple of questions for today: How much facility with the Bible do we expect new members to have? And what have we done to equip them with biblical literacy and understanding? There’s one other thing Egeria mentions about Scripture reading in Jerusalem. When the Bible was read in worship, these well-prepared worshipers responded enthusiastically, sometimes shouting in joy at the good news of God’s grace and sometimes bemoaning evil in an honest appraisal of human nature. May it be so today. Digging Deeper Walking Where Jesus Walked: Worship in Fourth-Century Jerusalem © 2010 Lester Ruth, Carrie Steenwyk, and John D. Witvliet, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

POINT What are we to do with Advent? The lectionary says, “repent and prepare,” but the rhythms of many congregations say, “children’s Christmas program.” The calendar says, “fast and pray,” but Sunday schools schedule Christmas parties with cake and cookies. Advent says, “not yet, not yet,” but church-goers clamor to sing their favorite Christmas carols.