Every Sunday Communion

For the past sixteen months now I have served Zion Lutheran Church as their Interim Pastor. During that time the congregation affirmed their commitment to the historic Lutheran liturgy. As part of that commitment, the elders and I led the Sunday Bible class in a detailed study of the liturgy and its various parts. Out of that study came a resolution by the Board of Elders to restore the historic practice of offering the Lord's Supper at every Divine Service on Sundays and Feast Days. This is also in accord with a 1995 resolution adopted by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. 

 THE 1995 CONVENTION OF THE LCMS PASSED THE FOLLOWING RESOLUTION:

To Encourage Every Sunday Communion RESOLUTION 2-08AOverture 2-51 (CW, pp.149-150) 

Whereas, the opportunity to receive the Lord’s Supper each Lord’s Day was a reality cherished by Luther and set forth clearly with high esteem by our Lutheran Confessions (Article XXIV of the Augsburg Confession and of the Apology); and 

Whereas, our synod’s 1983 CTCR document on the Lord’s Supper (p.28) and our Synod’s 1986 [1991] translation of Luther’s Catechism both remind us that the Scriptures place the Lord’s Supper at the center of worship (Acts 2:42; 20:7; 1 Cor. 11:20,23), and not as an appendage or an occasional extra; therefore be it 

RESOLVED, That The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in convention encourage its pastors and congregations to study the scriptural, confessional, and historical witness to every Sunday communion with a view toward recovering the opportunity for receiving the Lord’s Supper each Lord’s Day. Action: Adopted.

 For a detailed discussion of the blessings of weekly communion I encourage you to read an article by Pastor James Woelmer, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church, Plano, Texas (http://bit.ly/14LvXTJ). In the article Pastor Woelmer summarizes the history of this practice from the days of the early church through the Reformation and to the present day in LCMS congregations. He makes several important points in his discussion.

• When Christianity became Rome's official religion in the fourth century there is no record of a Sunday morning non-communion order of worship. 
• The practice of laity receiving the sacrament degenerated during the Middle Ages to as little as once a year after the thirteenth century. Instead the Mass (Divine Service) was seen as a sacrifice offered by the priests, often in private without participation by laity. 
• Luther emphasized that all masses without communicants should be completely abolished. 
• One or two masses, he taught, should be celebrated on Sundays or on the days of the saints. 
• And during the week mass should be celebrated on whatever day there is a need for it, that is, if there are some communicants present who ask for and desire it. 
• As a result of the pietistic movement among Lutherans the focus turned inward as people asked if they were truly converted. As a result the objective, external gifts of God delivered in the Supper were less important. 
• Further, the growing emphasis upon Rationalism in the eighteenth century led to a deterioration of the Sacrament. 
• In the twentieth century most Lutheran congregations offered Communion four to six times a year and by the end of that century most LCMS congregations offered the Supper two weeks of the month. 

In a survey conducted by Rev. Kenneth Wieting of all LCMS pastors in 1995 four concerns were anticipated by pastors seeking to recover weekly communion. 

1. The Sacrament will be too common. 
2. The Sacrament will take too much time. 
3. There is a lack of understanding of the scriptural and historical witness to this practice. 
4. Occasional Communion is considered the Lutheran tradition. 

In conclusion Pastor Woelmer emphasizes that the Lord's Supper is the climax of the sermon. The two go hand in hand and complement one another. During the Divine Service there is one meal with two servings: the Word and our Lord's body and blood.

Cautionary Words to Contemporary Worship Advocates

This past Sunday I was on vacation from my duties as Intentional Interim Pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Tomball, TX. So I visited another "liturgical" church that I served as pastor some years back, before my retirement from full-time ministry. It has long been the custom of that congregation to print out the entire Divine Service for participants. One thing that struck me as I returned to that worship service and that practice. The Divine Service printed and handed out did not have the Biblical references noted for the various responses as does the Lutheran Service Book (LSB). Let me give you an example from Divine Service - Setting Three

The rubric (red lettered instructions) at the beginning reads: The sign of the cross + may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism. 

Then follows the words by the Pastor: In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The Congregation responds: Amen.

In the LSB, off to the side side in small italics are two Biblical references: Matthew 28:19b [18:20]. 

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, - Mat 28:19 ESV

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. - Mat 18:20 ESV 

The Biblical references are a reminder of two very important things for worshippers:

1. We who gather to worship are here because our God has called us out of the darkness of this world, gathered us to Himself and cleansed us with the blood of Jesus when we were baptized in the NAME shared by the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That sacred, ancient name was so revered by our ancient brothers and sisters of the tribes of Israel that they dared never to speak it aloud lest they break the commandment to keep it holy. We trans-literate it into our English language with four consonants: YHWH. Our translations of the O.T. follow the Hebrew practice and whenever the NAME appears in the Hebrew we have a translation of the Hebrew adonai. We translate adonai with the capitalized word LORD to remind ourselves that the Hebrew text in that place contains the sacred NAME.
2. So we are taught from the very beginning of the Divine Service that we approach the most holy God who has called, gathered and enlightened us by His grace. He cleansed us. He took us with Himself in His Baptism into death on the cross and then out of death into life eternal. This was all His doing. And yet we have sinned against Him. We have disobeyed His commands. We do not deserve to come into His presence. We have mocked His most holy grace. We are here in His presence. He is among us, but are we forgiven? We need assurance. We desperately need to know that we are welcome in His presence. 

This is why the Pastor, speaking in the NAME of the Triune God encourages us to come, using the very words of God as recorded in sacred Scripture: 

Beloved in the Lord! Let us draw near with a true heart and confess our sins unto God our Father, beseeching Him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to grant us forgiveness. 

The Biblical reference: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. - Heb 10:22 ESV

Two more responses follow between the pastor and the congregation from Pss. 124 and 32. Then the congregants humbly confess their sins, acknowledging that they deserve punishment, both temporal and eternal, and begging for mercy for the sake of Christ's holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death.

AND THEN ! speaking as Christ's called representative, the pastor announces God's grace and forgives those gathered in the NAME of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then—and only then—are the gathered believers emboldened to enter the Presence of God to be taught, admonished, encouraged and fed with His holy Word and the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.

The entire Divine Service—also known by its Latin name: the Mass— is thus built around the teaching and guidance of God's Word. Literally millions of believers have gathered together in this manner for two millennia—and still do, around the world. And before the coming of the Christ—Messiah—this worship has its roots in the gatherings of Israel and their temple.

Certainly within that framework there is room for a wide variety of musical styles and the artistic expressions of many sorts and kinds. But let those who would cast away the framework for what they call "contemporary" worship be very careful to consider the theology (the teaching about God) that they espouse, for the entire Divine Service is, by its very nature and construction, theology.