Eucharist: Gratitude, Community, Civil Disobedience- III
The Rite
Holy Week marked the end of our study of the liturgy as a community. At our celebration of Maundy Thursday this week, we used a Eucharistic liturgy I constructed from the words of I Corinthians 11 as well as a line from the Gospel of Mark. A version of the berakah prayers of Judaism over bread and wine (which Jesus, like any devout Jew, may well have spoken in communal meals) were inserted into the liturgy as well as some explanatory comments.
The liturgy began just before our usual potluck supper with the blessing, breaking and passing of the bread. And then we ate our fill. After supper we concluded with the passing of the wine.
I close this entry with the rite we used:
Maundy Thursday Eucharistic Rite
[I Cor. 11] On the night when he was handed over, Jesus took bread, and he said:
“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe who gives us bread from heaven.”
And then he broke the bread and said, “This means my body broken for you. Do this to remember me.” And he passed the bread and they ate.
[The bread is passed among the members of the community after which supper commences. After supper the following commentary is offered]
Between the blessing, breaking and sharing of the bread, everyone has their fill. No one is left hungry. By its very essence, this meal embodies the Kingdom of G-d, where the hungry are fed and the poor are blessed. And by its very essence, it rejects the kingdom of Caesar, where the poor are exploited to produce the excess of the beneficiaries of empire and where the hungry are turned away empty.
This meal is an act of civil disobedience. The Kingdom of G-d is embraced and embodied, the kingdom of Caesar is rejected and denied. And in the midst of this meal, we remember Jesus, who taught us this way of being human, and when we eat it together, he is truly present here with us.
[The rite continues with the following]
After the meal, he took the wine cup, and he said,
“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe who gives us this wine to drink.”
And he continued, “This cup means the new covenant ratified by my blood. Whenever you drink this, do it to remember me. So every time you eat and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the death of the lord until the day when he returns.”
[Here the cup is passed among the members of the community after which the rite continues with the following.]
“So, then, my friend, when you gather to eat, wait on one another. Any of you who thinks only about his own hunger should eat at home…”
[MK 14] : And they sang a hymn and left for the Mount of Olives.
In this night of betrayal, may we keep faithful witness with Jesus, our Lord. On this eve of his crucifixion, let us go to the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus. And as we go,
May the Lord bless and keep us, may the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us, may the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us peace. AMEN.
[I Corinthians taken from The Authentic Letters of Paul, A New Reading of Paul’s Rhetoric and Meaning, The Scholars’ Version (Salem, OR: Polebridge, 2010). References to the Gospels taken from The Complete Gospels, 4th ed. (Salem, OR: Polebridge, 2010). ]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Eucharist: Gratitude, Community, Civil Disobedience- II
A Devolving Sacrament
The textual history reflected in scripture above evidences the developmental history of the theology of the Eucharist. From its beginning as a celebratory communal meal,
• It loses its communal context
• It loses the actual meal and the act of eating together
• It becomes focused on sinfulness
• It becomes tribal
• it becomes polemical
• it becomes secondary to other narratives and theological concerns
I believe the Eucharist has changed to our detriment as followers of Jesus. These changes include the following shifts:
Community-Focus to Self-Absorption: Paul was insistent that Jesus saw the Eucharist in terms of community, not self-gratification. Paul’s Jesus (admittedly a result of hearsay given that Paul never knew Jesus) states that if you feel the need to focus on yourself and your own desires, eating all you want to the exclusion of others or drinking your fill (to the point of drunkenness) while others have nothing to drink, stay home. That understanding is lost in this evolution which comes to focus on sinfulness, tribal participation and individual salvation. Even sadder, a full meal becomes reduced to fish food wafers and an occasional drop of wine which themselves over the centuries became fetishized and idolatrized.
Gratitude to Existential Angst: The shift from a communal meal of gratitude to a focus on sin and forgiveness is also an enormous loss. The Eucharistic meal was a time of celebration, not self-focused breast beating. The concern was not “Will I get to go to heaven?” - an inherently egocentric focus which I would say evidences sin in itself– but rather “Who is my brother and sister and how can we live together in community as Jesus taught us?” The focus was on this community, this world.
In short, the eucharist reflected the Way of Jesus with its very Jewish focus on this life, on that about which we can be sure and over which we have much control. It was not driven by speculative existential anxiety about afterlife that may or may not actually exist (even as we hope that it does). These shifts in the understanding of the Eucharist reflect an implicit rejection of the religion of Jesus and the embracing of a religion which purports to be about Jesus but in all actuality shows little evidence of his life, his values or his practice.
The Oxymoron of Closed Communion: The rejection of an inclusive community for the gathering of the righteous within the circled wagons of the tribe is perhaps the greatest damage done to Eucharistic practice. A friend of mine who is a sister in the Catholic Sisters of Providence is prone to say that “Roman Catholic is an oxymoron; it’s either catholic (universal) or it’s not.” I certainly agree with her. But I would take it one step further: any practice of closed communion is by definition an oxymoron. It’s either communion or it’s not.
In all honesty, I find it odd to be taking what is an essentially Reformer’s position here regarding the Eucharist, a liturgical practice that for most Protestants is generally truncated at best if not ignored altogether. In all fairness, the myth of a Golden Age of the “Early Church” in which a pure religion was practiced, a religion captured in the Bible only to be later corrupted by Roman Catholicism, is not terribly credible for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of church history. In all honesty, I am much inclined to agree with my independent Catholic priest friend who remarks “I could more easily be a Buddhist than a Baptist.” But I do think there is something to be said in this particular case for looking seriously at the pre-institutional church practices of Eucharist in communities seeking to follow the Way of Jesus.
Civil Disobedience
Last weekend I attended the Jesus Seminar on the Road up at the Church of the Resurrection in Longwood. The Eucharistic practice related in St. Paul’s First Corinthians excerpt was the subject of some parting comments there by biblical scholar (and self-acknowledged Roman Catholic) Bob Miller. He noted that in this excerpt, the passing of the bread and wine are separated by a full meal in which everyone is able to eat their fill. It is only after everyone is full that the cup is passed with the exhortation that it is in this activity of eating together as community that Jesus is remembered. Jesus, the self-described “human one,” becomes real, becomes present when human beings eat and drink together as community in his name.
Contextually, this runs completely counter to the Empire of Caesar in which Paul and the community at Corinth resided. In the Roman Empire (and I would say in its American counterpart as well) the poor are poor because they are necessary to produce the excesses enjoyed by the wealthy and powerful. The hungry are hungry because those at the top of the pyramid of exploitation have more than enough.
Profits are made by not paying workers the value of their labor, according to both Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Taxes are paid by those at the bottom because the wealthy who make the laws exempt themselves from the duties of supporting the society which produces their privilege. (Are you listening, Congressman Ryan?) The stratification of the population into a tiny minority of the wealthy enjoying their privilege at the expense of vast numbers of poor and starving people is part and parcel of Caesar’s exploitative empire. The anawim, Aramaic for the poor and the oppressed at the bottom of the pyramid, are necessary for the empire to work serving essentially as disposable and interchangeable cogs in an exploitative machine.
The communal meal of “G-d’s Empire” (as the Jesus Seminar translates the Greek basilaea) occurs in the face of Caesar’s Empire. It not only reverses the values of that empire, it emphatically rejects them in practice. At a very basic level, the sharing of communal meals which include everyone without question and in which everyone eats their fill without exception is an act of civil disobedience. It violates - and thus draws into question - both the social order of the Empire as well as the religious institutions – with their hierarchies of righteousness - which legitimate that order. In G-d’s Empire the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. In G-d’s Empire, everyone has a place at G-d’s table.
That kind of good news could change the world. It could also get a guy killed.
[Continued]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A Devolving Sacrament
The textual history reflected in scripture above evidences the developmental history of the theology of the Eucharist. From its beginning as a celebratory communal meal,
• It loses its communal context
• It loses the actual meal and the act of eating together
• It becomes focused on sinfulness
• It becomes tribal
• it becomes polemical
• it becomes secondary to other narratives and theological concerns
I believe the Eucharist has changed to our detriment as followers of Jesus. These changes include the following shifts:
Community-Focus to Self-Absorption: Paul was insistent that Jesus saw the Eucharist in terms of community, not self-gratification. Paul’s Jesus (admittedly a result of hearsay given that Paul never knew Jesus) states that if you feel the need to focus on yourself and your own desires, eating all you want to the exclusion of others or drinking your fill (to the point of drunkenness) while others have nothing to drink, stay home. That understanding is lost in this evolution which comes to focus on sinfulness, tribal participation and individual salvation. Even sadder, a full meal becomes reduced to fish food wafers and an occasional drop of wine which themselves over the centuries became fetishized and idolatrized.
Gratitude to Existential Angst: The shift from a communal meal of gratitude to a focus on sin and forgiveness is also an enormous loss. The Eucharistic meal was a time of celebration, not self-focused breast beating. The concern was not “Will I get to go to heaven?” - an inherently egocentric focus which I would say evidences sin in itself– but rather “Who is my brother and sister and how can we live together in community as Jesus taught us?” The focus was on this community, this world.
In short, the eucharist reflected the Way of Jesus with its very Jewish focus on this life, on that about which we can be sure and over which we have much control. It was not driven by speculative existential anxiety about afterlife that may or may not actually exist (even as we hope that it does). These shifts in the understanding of the Eucharist reflect an implicit rejection of the religion of Jesus and the embracing of a religion which purports to be about Jesus but in all actuality shows little evidence of his life, his values or his practice.
The Oxymoron of Closed Communion: The rejection of an inclusive community for the gathering of the righteous within the circled wagons of the tribe is perhaps the greatest damage done to Eucharistic practice. A friend of mine who is a sister in the Catholic Sisters of Providence is prone to say that “Roman Catholic is an oxymoron; it’s either catholic (universal) or it’s not.” I certainly agree with her. But I would take it one step further: any practice of closed communion is by definition an oxymoron. It’s either communion or it’s not.
In all honesty, I find it odd to be taking what is an essentially Reformer’s position here regarding the Eucharist, a liturgical practice that for most Protestants is generally truncated at best if not ignored altogether. In all fairness, the myth of a Golden Age of the “Early Church” in which a pure religion was practiced, a religion captured in the Bible only to be later corrupted by Roman Catholicism, is not terribly credible for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of church history. In all honesty, I am much inclined to agree with my independent Catholic priest friend who remarks “I could more easily be a Buddhist than a Baptist.” But I do think there is something to be said in this particular case for looking seriously at the pre-institutional church practices of Eucharist in communities seeking to follow the Way of Jesus.
Civil Disobedience
Last weekend I attended the Jesus Seminar on the Road up at the Church of the Resurrection in Longwood. The Eucharistic practice related in St. Paul’s First Corinthians excerpt was the subject of some parting comments there by biblical scholar (and self-acknowledged Roman Catholic) Bob Miller. He noted that in this excerpt, the passing of the bread and wine are separated by a full meal in which everyone is able to eat their fill. It is only after everyone is full that the cup is passed with the exhortation that it is in this activity of eating together as community that Jesus is remembered. Jesus, the self-described “human one,” becomes real, becomes present when human beings eat and drink together as community in his name.
Contextually, this runs completely counter to the Empire of Caesar in which Paul and the community at Corinth resided. In the Roman Empire (and I would say in its American counterpart as well) the poor are poor because they are necessary to produce the excesses enjoyed by the wealthy and powerful. The hungry are hungry because those at the top of the pyramid of exploitation have more than enough.
Profits are made by not paying workers the value of their labor, according to both Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Taxes are paid by those at the bottom because the wealthy who make the laws exempt themselves from the duties of supporting the society which produces their privilege. (Are you listening, Congressman Ryan?) The stratification of the population into a tiny minority of the wealthy enjoying their privilege at the expense of vast numbers of poor and starving people is part and parcel of Caesar’s exploitative empire. The anawim, Aramaic for the poor and the oppressed at the bottom of the pyramid, are necessary for the empire to work serving essentially as disposable and interchangeable cogs in an exploitative machine.
The communal meal of “G-d’s Empire” (as the Jesus Seminar translates the Greek basilaea) occurs in the face of Caesar’s Empire. It not only reverses the values of that empire, it emphatically rejects them in practice. At a very basic level, the sharing of communal meals which include everyone without question and in which everyone eats their fill without exception is an act of civil disobedience. It violates - and thus draws into question - both the social order of the Empire as well as the religious institutions – with their hierarchies of righteousness - which legitimate that order. In G-d’s Empire the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. In G-d’s Empire, everyone has a place at G-d’s table.
That kind of good news could change the world. It could also get a guy killed.
[Continued]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Eucharist: Gratitude, Community, Civil Disobedience - I
Changes Over Time
Over the Lenten season, the weekly meeting Francis/Clare Community (F/CC)of which I am convener has worked through the Eucharistic prayers of the various incarnations of the Book of Common Prayer beginning with its first version in 1543. One week we were led by an independent Catholic priest in our community in the Latin pre-Vatican II Tridentine mass.
The Eucharistic liturgy has changed much over the years. In the Anglican and later Episcopal traditions, it has gone from a very paternalistic format in which clergy did most of the speaking - often in condescending terms to a laity seen as children - to an increasingly participatory format. And it has embodied a gradual peeling away of layers of the medieval obsession with sinfulness and punishment while moving towards a restoration of the sense of the Eucharist as a celebratory communal meal.
For the most part, while the basic components of the mass have remained the same, the tenor of its language has become lighter, warmer and increasingly inclusive. It has been an evolution for the better, in my view, particularly given where the Eucharist began.
This past week’s F/CC Eucharist fell on Maundy Thursday as it does each year. In the past we have done the foot washing liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer followed by the Eucharist. This year, I chose to lead a didactic liturgy which examined the four sources of the Eucharistic prayer in the Christian scriptures with a focus on context of each reference. A discussion of each source follows.
St. Paul – I Corinthians:
The first reference to the words that become the heart of the communion rite is found in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. In this letter seen by scholars as authentically the writing of St. Paul, he reports having “received” these words:
On the night when he was handed over, Jesus took bread, he broke the bread and said, “This means my body broken for you. Do this to remember me.” And he passed the bread and they ate. After the meal, he took the wine cup, and he said, “This cup means the new covenant ratified by my blood. Whenever you drink this, do it to remember me. So every time you eat and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the death of the lord until the day when he returns. So, then, my friend, when you gather to eat, wait on one another. Any of you who thinks only about his own hunger should eat at home…”
A number of aspects of this reference are instructive.
• The text occurs in a wider context of eating generally, including eating food dedicated to idols and being a gracious guest when eating in the homes of others (i.e., not dictating the menu or refusing to eat what one is served).
• There is a strong focus on eating as a communal activity, indeed, as seeing eating as a means of being community. Much of the surrounding context is devoted to discussion of what it means to be part of a single body.
• Correspondingly, there is a strong reminder that this is not about the individual. The “lord’s supper” is not about serving oneself first to the exclusion of others. Indeed, Paul goes so far as to say essentially, “If that’s all you care about, stay home.”
• Interestingly, there is a reference to the drinking of wine at such communal meals, noting the possibility that one should not get drunk while others are left out. These folks are not teetotalers and we read our modern attitudes about intoxicants into their understandings at the peril of our intellectual honesty.
• There is no mention of Passover. The sense here is that this is a common activity among the early followers of the Way of Jesus (the institutional church not yet formed) a mere two decades away from Jesus’ death. This lends some weight to the argument that the Last Supper is ultimately based upon a cheburah meal, not a Passover celebration.
• There is also no mention of sin. The communal meal is not cast in terms of sin, forgiveness or the next life. It is focused here and now.
• Finally, the bread and the wine are separated by the communal meal. The wine is essentially the coup de grace, passed around at the end of a time of eating together as a means of being intentional in the remembering of Jesus whose way is celebrated.
Paul’s letter is written about 20 years after the death of Jesus, around 50-55 CE. While Paul never knew Jesus, he is familiar with the communities seeking to follow the Way of Jesus in the wake of his execution. Hence, at some level, Paul serves as an anthropologist of sorts, reporting to us the practices of those early communities. His writing is closer in time to the Jesus whose Way these communities would have incarnated in their praxis than the Gospels which would follow. But his account would prove to be just the first word regarding this practice, not the final.
Gospel of Mark:
It’s interesting to see how the understandings and practices of the communities which Paul’s letter reflects have changed by the time they are reported in the Gospels. In the first Gospel written around 70 CE, the writer of Mark situates a Last Supper in the twin contexts of Passover and betrayal. Judas is never named here. Indeed, there is a good argument to be made for Judas as an anti-Jewish straw man constructed by gospel writers for purposes of vilification of their former coreligionists in the synagogues who are in the process of expelling them over the Jesus issue.
In Mark’s version, the bread and wine are now both offered amidst the meal. This is followed by a vow that Jesus will never touch another drop of wine until the day he can drink it in G-d’s empire (i.e., the kingdom of G-d). Then they sing a hymn and leave for the Mount of Olives.
There is no focus on a wider community in this version. Indeed, there is no real focus on the meal itself, much less the communal activity of eating together. While there is no specific mention of sin yet, the context of Jesus’ pending betrayal suggests this. In many ways, the Last Supper has become an intermission in a larger drama of Jesus’ betrayal and pending death.
Gospel of Matthew:
In another 10-20 years, Matthew will flesh out Mark’s Gospel with his own version of the life of Jesus using Hebrew Scripture as a pallet to paint his account. In Matthew’s Last Supper narrative there is an extended discussion of the preparation for the meal which, like Mark’s version, is set at Passover time. The betrayal narrative commands a much larger attention of the Gospel writer than the meal and precedes an extended account of sleeping disciples in Gethsemane. Judas has taken on his scapegoat name and the chief priests and scholars are now cited as co-conspirators.
Matthew places Jesus on the floor (reclining) with his unnamed disciples to eat their meal. (So much for Da Vinci’s class photo with its long table and posed participants sitting on one side facing the artist.) Here Matthew introduces a new element to the account with Jesus saying “[T]his is my blood of the covenant which has been poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” This is not a new covenant but, in typical Matthean style, a reference to the blood covenants of Hebrew scriptures. The Eucharist has also taken on the element of sin and forgiveness in Matthew’s account. And Matthew is more than happy to relate the sins of the moment – betrayal, unfaithfulness – which must be forgiven in the ensuing drama.
Gospel of Luke:
About the same time period, perhaps a bit later, the Greek writer of Luke will also endeavor to revise Mark’s story perhaps with the guidance of Matthew. Luke provides yet another look at what will become the communion rite’s language. Like the other two gospels, Luke sets the meal in the context of Passover and, like Matthew, amidst the conspiracy to betray Jesus by Judas and the chief priests. Luke, ever attentive to detail, adds the temple police to the cabal and defines the terms of the betrayal, agreeing to pay Judas in silver.
In Luke’s version, the bread and wine are consumed during the meal. He tells them that the bread they eat is “a memorial” of his life and time together with them. And the cup becomes a “new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you,” the old Hebraic Covenant now replaced by a new covenant God makes with the followers of Jesus. Luke includes no reference to sin and forgiveness and the cup is not poured out for anyone beyond the room. In many ways, Luke’s last supper is immediate and tribal – when you do this as a group, remember me - perhaps a reflection of a movement increasingly conscious of boundaries and self-definition in opposition to the religion from which they have recently departed.
The tribal focus continues after dinner when the disciples get into an argument over who is the greatest among them. Jesus shames them with a reminder that, after all, it is he who is serving them dinner. Luke’s Last Supper is cast in the context of communal bonding, communal order and concerns for communal survival (“Simon, look out: Satan is after all of you.”)
Gospel of John:
Interestingly, the writer of John, the final of the four Gospels written about the turn of the first century, evidences little awareness of the three Synoptic Gospels which preceded it. John’s account gives little detail of the final supper. Instead, it focuses on the humble servant ministry of washing feet. The Judas betrayal narrative is expanded greatly in John.
Unlike the Synoptic writers, John’s last supper is specifically not a Passover meal. Indeed, while John gives virtually no detail of the meal itself, he will spend a lot of time theologizing about the event. This is consistent with his gospel generally – very little history, lots of theology. And lots of anti-Jewish polemics. A half century removed from the practices of the early communities of the Way of Jesus that Paul reports, John reflects a movement which will ultimately become the institutional church. For John, the praxis of a communal meal has been left in the dust of a movement increasingly marked by abstract theology.
[Continued]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Changes Over Time
Over the Lenten season, the weekly meeting Francis/Clare Community (F/CC)of which I am convener has worked through the Eucharistic prayers of the various incarnations of the Book of Common Prayer beginning with its first version in 1543. One week we were led by an independent Catholic priest in our community in the Latin pre-Vatican II Tridentine mass.
The Eucharistic liturgy has changed much over the years. In the Anglican and later Episcopal traditions, it has gone from a very paternalistic format in which clergy did most of the speaking - often in condescending terms to a laity seen as children - to an increasingly participatory format. And it has embodied a gradual peeling away of layers of the medieval obsession with sinfulness and punishment while moving towards a restoration of the sense of the Eucharist as a celebratory communal meal.
For the most part, while the basic components of the mass have remained the same, the tenor of its language has become lighter, warmer and increasingly inclusive. It has been an evolution for the better, in my view, particularly given where the Eucharist began.
This past week’s F/CC Eucharist fell on Maundy Thursday as it does each year. In the past we have done the foot washing liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer followed by the Eucharist. This year, I chose to lead a didactic liturgy which examined the four sources of the Eucharistic prayer in the Christian scriptures with a focus on context of each reference. A discussion of each source follows.
St. Paul – I Corinthians:
The first reference to the words that become the heart of the communion rite is found in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians. In this letter seen by scholars as authentically the writing of St. Paul, he reports having “received” these words:
On the night when he was handed over, Jesus took bread, he broke the bread and said, “This means my body broken for you. Do this to remember me.” And he passed the bread and they ate. After the meal, he took the wine cup, and he said, “This cup means the new covenant ratified by my blood. Whenever you drink this, do it to remember me. So every time you eat and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the death of the lord until the day when he returns. So, then, my friend, when you gather to eat, wait on one another. Any of you who thinks only about his own hunger should eat at home…”
A number of aspects of this reference are instructive.
• The text occurs in a wider context of eating generally, including eating food dedicated to idols and being a gracious guest when eating in the homes of others (i.e., not dictating the menu or refusing to eat what one is served).
• There is a strong focus on eating as a communal activity, indeed, as seeing eating as a means of being community. Much of the surrounding context is devoted to discussion of what it means to be part of a single body.
• Correspondingly, there is a strong reminder that this is not about the individual. The “lord’s supper” is not about serving oneself first to the exclusion of others. Indeed, Paul goes so far as to say essentially, “If that’s all you care about, stay home.”
• Interestingly, there is a reference to the drinking of wine at such communal meals, noting the possibility that one should not get drunk while others are left out. These folks are not teetotalers and we read our modern attitudes about intoxicants into their understandings at the peril of our intellectual honesty.
• There is no mention of Passover. The sense here is that this is a common activity among the early followers of the Way of Jesus (the institutional church not yet formed) a mere two decades away from Jesus’ death. This lends some weight to the argument that the Last Supper is ultimately based upon a cheburah meal, not a Passover celebration.
• There is also no mention of sin. The communal meal is not cast in terms of sin, forgiveness or the next life. It is focused here and now.
• Finally, the bread and the wine are separated by the communal meal. The wine is essentially the coup de grace, passed around at the end of a time of eating together as a means of being intentional in the remembering of Jesus whose way is celebrated.
Paul’s letter is written about 20 years after the death of Jesus, around 50-55 CE. While Paul never knew Jesus, he is familiar with the communities seeking to follow the Way of Jesus in the wake of his execution. Hence, at some level, Paul serves as an anthropologist of sorts, reporting to us the practices of those early communities. His writing is closer in time to the Jesus whose Way these communities would have incarnated in their praxis than the Gospels which would follow. But his account would prove to be just the first word regarding this practice, not the final.
Gospel of Mark:
It’s interesting to see how the understandings and practices of the communities which Paul’s letter reflects have changed by the time they are reported in the Gospels. In the first Gospel written around 70 CE, the writer of Mark situates a Last Supper in the twin contexts of Passover and betrayal. Judas is never named here. Indeed, there is a good argument to be made for Judas as an anti-Jewish straw man constructed by gospel writers for purposes of vilification of their former coreligionists in the synagogues who are in the process of expelling them over the Jesus issue.
In Mark’s version, the bread and wine are now both offered amidst the meal. This is followed by a vow that Jesus will never touch another drop of wine until the day he can drink it in G-d’s empire (i.e., the kingdom of G-d). Then they sing a hymn and leave for the Mount of Olives.
There is no focus on a wider community in this version. Indeed, there is no real focus on the meal itself, much less the communal activity of eating together. While there is no specific mention of sin yet, the context of Jesus’ pending betrayal suggests this. In many ways, the Last Supper has become an intermission in a larger drama of Jesus’ betrayal and pending death.
Gospel of Matthew:
In another 10-20 years, Matthew will flesh out Mark’s Gospel with his own version of the life of Jesus using Hebrew Scripture as a pallet to paint his account. In Matthew’s Last Supper narrative there is an extended discussion of the preparation for the meal which, like Mark’s version, is set at Passover time. The betrayal narrative commands a much larger attention of the Gospel writer than the meal and precedes an extended account of sleeping disciples in Gethsemane. Judas has taken on his scapegoat name and the chief priests and scholars are now cited as co-conspirators.
Matthew places Jesus on the floor (reclining) with his unnamed disciples to eat their meal. (So much for Da Vinci’s class photo with its long table and posed participants sitting on one side facing the artist.) Here Matthew introduces a new element to the account with Jesus saying “[T]his is my blood of the covenant which has been poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” This is not a new covenant but, in typical Matthean style, a reference to the blood covenants of Hebrew scriptures. The Eucharist has also taken on the element of sin and forgiveness in Matthew’s account. And Matthew is more than happy to relate the sins of the moment – betrayal, unfaithfulness – which must be forgiven in the ensuing drama.
Gospel of Luke:
About the same time period, perhaps a bit later, the Greek writer of Luke will also endeavor to revise Mark’s story perhaps with the guidance of Matthew. Luke provides yet another look at what will become the communion rite’s language. Like the other two gospels, Luke sets the meal in the context of Passover and, like Matthew, amidst the conspiracy to betray Jesus by Judas and the chief priests. Luke, ever attentive to detail, adds the temple police to the cabal and defines the terms of the betrayal, agreeing to pay Judas in silver.
In Luke’s version, the bread and wine are consumed during the meal. He tells them that the bread they eat is “a memorial” of his life and time together with them. And the cup becomes a “new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you,” the old Hebraic Covenant now replaced by a new covenant God makes with the followers of Jesus. Luke includes no reference to sin and forgiveness and the cup is not poured out for anyone beyond the room. In many ways, Luke’s last supper is immediate and tribal – when you do this as a group, remember me - perhaps a reflection of a movement increasingly conscious of boundaries and self-definition in opposition to the religion from which they have recently departed.
The tribal focus continues after dinner when the disciples get into an argument over who is the greatest among them. Jesus shames them with a reminder that, after all, it is he who is serving them dinner. Luke’s Last Supper is cast in the context of communal bonding, communal order and concerns for communal survival (“Simon, look out: Satan is after all of you.”)
Gospel of John:
Interestingly, the writer of John, the final of the four Gospels written about the turn of the first century, evidences little awareness of the three Synoptic Gospels which preceded it. John’s account gives little detail of the final supper. Instead, it focuses on the humble servant ministry of washing feet. The Judas betrayal narrative is expanded greatly in John.
Unlike the Synoptic writers, John’s last supper is specifically not a Passover meal. Indeed, while John gives virtually no detail of the meal itself, he will spend a lot of time theologizing about the event. This is consistent with his gospel generally – very little history, lots of theology. And lots of anti-Jewish polemics. A half century removed from the practices of the early communities of the Way of Jesus that Paul reports, John reflects a movement which will ultimately become the institutional church. For John, the praxis of a communal meal has been left in the dust of a movement increasingly marked by abstract theology.
[Continued]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thursday, April 07, 2011
"God isn't doing well?"
A long time friend from California I’ve known since my days in seminary sent me a column from the National Review Online this morning. I don’t generally read the National Review but this column by David Prager was provocative. It was entitled “Why God Isn’t Doing Well.”
Prager offers four reasons for G-d’s apparent malaise. The first is that Western universities have become secularist seminaries. Prager argues that young, impressionable and apparently highly gullible students simply buy into the “secular and left-wing” views of their professors. The second is that Christian and Jewish clergy have abdicated their responsibilities to teach a moralistic, black and white theology to their adherents in favor of theologies of comfort. The third reason is that poorly educated and highly indoctrinated products of universities are incapable of dealing with age old problems of theodicy (i.e., coming to the same conclusions as Prager). Finally, radical Islam and the pathetically tepid response to it from Christian and Jewish traditions have somehow dealt a blow to G-d.
I’d never heard of Prager prior to this so I looked at his website. Prager was a talk show host for a couple of decades and now spins his ideology via the web. He’s an interesting example of the black and white dualism that William Perry’s study of cognitive function ranks near the beginning of cognitive development in most human beings.
Here’s my response to my friend who sent me the website:
Very interesting column. Thanks for sending it. Couple of comments.
First, I find it ironic that while the writer bewails uncritical, ideological thinking, he engages in it himself in this column. And in looking at his website, this is apparently in keeping with his usual practice. Jung was prone to observe that we often see our own shadow in others since we can regularly confront it in ourselves. It’s a phenomenon called projection.
Second, I find it a bit puzzling that this fellow presumes to speak both for G-d as well as for other human beings regarding their understandings of G-d. This is fundamentally presumptuous if not blasphemous. While Dennis Prager is perfectly capable for speaking for his own understandings, he is not in a position to speak for anyone else. Intellectual honesty demands that he preface his remarks with something along the lines of “As I understand it,…” or “I believe….” He doesn’t do that here. And as a result, his remarks cannot be taken terribly seriously since he is presuming to speak for others perfectly capable of speaking for their own understandings and of which Prager has only limited insight at best.
Third, Dennis makes a common mistake here. He confuses a given construction of G-d for that which it would describe. The mantra of many conservative religionists – “One Way!” – is honest only up to a point. The conclusion of that assertion required to make it honest is the word “Mine.”
It’s quite possible that many who believe in G-d will not hold Dennis Prager’s understanding of what that means. Indeed, when I ask my students to give me the one word with which they associate the word G-d, I usually get a board full of descriptors, rarely any of them the same. We all use the same word but have different meanings of what it signifies. When we insist that our own understanding of G-d is the only possible understanding, we run the risk of engaging in idolatry. And while Dennis may presume to speak for the Christian and Jewish traditions if not for G-d , he ultimately can only speak for Dennis’ understanding. That others don’t share that understanding does not mean that “God isn’t doing well,” it simply means that Dennis’ understandings are not necessarily shared by others. Of course, with spokespersons like Dennis Prager, it might not be surprising that G-d wouldn't be doing so well.
Fourth, I would agree with him that most of our students do not arrive in college capable of critical reasoning and many leave in a similar fashion. In the consumerization of American higher education complete with the demand for “accountability” which results in empirical data which supposedly “proves” students are learning, the heavy reliance on multiple choice testing which can provide such empirical data gravitates against any understandings of context, nuance, subtext, application or synthesis. In short, lower level reasoning skills (Perry) are demanded while higher level reasoning skills are not tested (Bloom). The result is a Pavlovian process in which students can regurgitate data upon command but have little idea of what it means.
Ironically, such low level reasoning skills lend themselves well to simply buying into black and white, moralistic visions of religion such as those Prager advocates here. But the goal of higher education is to help students learn to engage in more complex reasoning and critical and creative thinking. While accountability advocates want measurable data to prove to themselves that students are learning stuff, the reality is that it is the ability to think critically and creatively that is going to serve the worker in a global economy with its rapid and unpredictable changes.
Of course, when brittle, black and white constructions of religion are examined in the harsh light of critical thinking, their brittleness often proves too fragile to sustain such examination. It’s easy for those whose constructions of G-d have been thoughtfully examined and found wanting to blame instructors for having brainwashed their young students and led them astray. At a very basic level, such an assessment avoids the more obvious possibility – that their perspective has been fairly and soundly considered but ultimately has not been found compelling.
His remaining points on a theology of comfort, theodicy and Islamaphobia deserve much more serious consideration than he provides them here. Mr. Prager may be a lot of things but he’s clearly not much of a theologian.
Again, I appreciate your making me aware of this column and this writer.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A long time friend from California I’ve known since my days in seminary sent me a column from the National Review Online this morning. I don’t generally read the National Review but this column by David Prager was provocative. It was entitled “Why God Isn’t Doing Well.”
Prager offers four reasons for G-d’s apparent malaise. The first is that Western universities have become secularist seminaries. Prager argues that young, impressionable and apparently highly gullible students simply buy into the “secular and left-wing” views of their professors. The second is that Christian and Jewish clergy have abdicated their responsibilities to teach a moralistic, black and white theology to their adherents in favor of theologies of comfort. The third reason is that poorly educated and highly indoctrinated products of universities are incapable of dealing with age old problems of theodicy (i.e., coming to the same conclusions as Prager). Finally, radical Islam and the pathetically tepid response to it from Christian and Jewish traditions have somehow dealt a blow to G-d.
I’d never heard of Prager prior to this so I looked at his website. Prager was a talk show host for a couple of decades and now spins his ideology via the web. He’s an interesting example of the black and white dualism that William Perry’s study of cognitive function ranks near the beginning of cognitive development in most human beings.
Here’s my response to my friend who sent me the website:
Very interesting column. Thanks for sending it. Couple of comments.
First, I find it ironic that while the writer bewails uncritical, ideological thinking, he engages in it himself in this column. And in looking at his website, this is apparently in keeping with his usual practice. Jung was prone to observe that we often see our own shadow in others since we can regularly confront it in ourselves. It’s a phenomenon called projection.
Second, I find it a bit puzzling that this fellow presumes to speak both for G-d as well as for other human beings regarding their understandings of G-d. This is fundamentally presumptuous if not blasphemous. While Dennis Prager is perfectly capable for speaking for his own understandings, he is not in a position to speak for anyone else. Intellectual honesty demands that he preface his remarks with something along the lines of “As I understand it,…” or “I believe….” He doesn’t do that here. And as a result, his remarks cannot be taken terribly seriously since he is presuming to speak for others perfectly capable of speaking for their own understandings and of which Prager has only limited insight at best.
Third, Dennis makes a common mistake here. He confuses a given construction of G-d for that which it would describe. The mantra of many conservative religionists – “One Way!” – is honest only up to a point. The conclusion of that assertion required to make it honest is the word “Mine.”
It’s quite possible that many who believe in G-d will not hold Dennis Prager’s understanding of what that means. Indeed, when I ask my students to give me the one word with which they associate the word G-d, I usually get a board full of descriptors, rarely any of them the same. We all use the same word but have different meanings of what it signifies. When we insist that our own understanding of G-d is the only possible understanding, we run the risk of engaging in idolatry. And while Dennis may presume to speak for the Christian and Jewish traditions if not for G-d , he ultimately can only speak for Dennis’ understanding. That others don’t share that understanding does not mean that “God isn’t doing well,” it simply means that Dennis’ understandings are not necessarily shared by others. Of course, with spokespersons like Dennis Prager, it might not be surprising that G-d wouldn't be doing so well.
Fourth, I would agree with him that most of our students do not arrive in college capable of critical reasoning and many leave in a similar fashion. In the consumerization of American higher education complete with the demand for “accountability” which results in empirical data which supposedly “proves” students are learning, the heavy reliance on multiple choice testing which can provide such empirical data gravitates against any understandings of context, nuance, subtext, application or synthesis. In short, lower level reasoning skills (Perry) are demanded while higher level reasoning skills are not tested (Bloom). The result is a Pavlovian process in which students can regurgitate data upon command but have little idea of what it means.
Ironically, such low level reasoning skills lend themselves well to simply buying into black and white, moralistic visions of religion such as those Prager advocates here. But the goal of higher education is to help students learn to engage in more complex reasoning and critical and creative thinking. While accountability advocates want measurable data to prove to themselves that students are learning stuff, the reality is that it is the ability to think critically and creatively that is going to serve the worker in a global economy with its rapid and unpredictable changes.
Of course, when brittle, black and white constructions of religion are examined in the harsh light of critical thinking, their brittleness often proves too fragile to sustain such examination. It’s easy for those whose constructions of G-d have been thoughtfully examined and found wanting to blame instructors for having brainwashed their young students and led them astray. At a very basic level, such an assessment avoids the more obvious possibility – that their perspective has been fairly and soundly considered but ultimately has not been found compelling.
His remaining points on a theology of comfort, theodicy and Islamaphobia deserve much more serious consideration than he provides them here. Mr. Prager may be a lot of things but he’s clearly not much of a theologian.
Again, I appreciate your making me aware of this column and this writer.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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