Lord’s Supper: Open or Closed
I was recently chatting with another brother in the ministry. He is an older gentleman and serving his second parish. He told me something that was bothersome: he doesn’t think that he will be able to remain in The LCMS. Upon hearing this, I asked him why. He proceeded to tell me that he has some personal issues he’s been struggling with. The doctrine of The LCMS is not the issue. It’s the practice; namely, the practice of the Lord’s Supper.
With regards to the Lord’s Supper, we practice close(d) communion. That means that if you are not a member of a congregation of The LCMS or another Lutheran church body that we are in altar/pulpit fellowship with, then we do not permit you to come to the Lord’s Table. Why do we take such a stance like this? “The Lutheran church believes, teaches and confesses that the Lord’s Supper is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, given to us Christians to eat and to drink. We hold that the bread and the wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ and that these are given and received into the mouths of all who commune.”1 This is the official policy and doctrine of The LCMS. We look at what Holy Scripture says with regards to the Lord’s Supper. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:26-29, “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Therefore,whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
Unfortunately, not every LCMS congregation abides by that. That is where this pastor’s troubles lie: doctrine and practice do not match. As far as he sees it, no one is doing anything about the issue of open communion. Open communion is the practice of allowing members of another church-body (or sometimes even faith) to commune. In short, it’s a “Y’all come” mentality, regardless of a person’s beliefs.
Including his current circuit, he has served in three different circuits (1 as a vicar, 2 as a pastor). Unfortunately, this is the “best” circuit he has served in. In this circuit, open communion is rampant. He has even had discussions with his district president with regards to open communion. Unfortunately, those discussions did not go well. Serving in the Wyoming District, open communion is not an issue. I do not have to worry about the kind of church a member of mine will visit while on vacation in Wyoming. However, that cannot be said for all of the districts, including the district in which this fellow brother serves.
Last time I checked, the congregations of The LCMS all had to abide by the synodical constitution. That also meant abiding by our policy of the Lord’s Supper. I must have missed the memo that said pastors and/or congregations were free to choose which parts of our doctrine they wanted to follow and those parts they want to throw out.
Keep On Preaching Christ
But someone might say, Are we to proclaim nothing but that Christ died for us? Isn’t it enough to preach about this one time only? I have heard it so often and know it so well. Answer: The Jews were required to hold the deliverance from Egypt in remembrance not only once, but always, year after year. But should we Christians trouble ourselves continually to repeat the remembrance of the deliverance Christ wrought for us from sin, death, devil, and hell? Are you among those who say, I have heard it all before; why must I hear it again? If so, your heart has become dull, satiated, and shameless, and this food does not taste good to you. This is the same thing that happened to the Jews in the wilderness when they grew tired of eating manna. But if you are a Christian, you will never grow weary, but will long to hear this message often and to speak about it forever.
Martin Luther, Sermon for Maundy Thursday, April 2, 1534. From Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 5, page 463.
Why pastors have it easy
To be technical, I work 2 hours a week because we have 2 services. 🙂
Words of Walther
“Repentance is not a narrow gate through which a person has to squeeze. Repentance is something that God Himself must give to a person. Any kind of repentance that we produce ourselves is false and God is disgusted by it.”
Quoted from Law and Gospel, p. 413-414
Communion together
Being at the pastor’s conference this week, I was able to do something as a family that normally I don’t get to do, unless I’m on vacation: we all got to commune as a family.
On any given Sunday, I’m either the liturgist (the one who leads the Divine Service) or officiant (the one who presides over the Lord’s Supper). I rarely get the opportunity to commune with my family unless it’s vacation time. To be able to commune as a family is nice, even if it meant dealing with a crabby 2 year old who only had an hour nap and was 45 minutes past bed time. I did notice one thing though: for a 2 year old, Wesley has the desire to commune as well. He desperately wanted the host that was placed in my hand. When the chalice came by, he grabbed for the chalice and then grabbed the arm of the elder who had the individual cups. It’s good to see that Wesley desires Christ’s body and blood. Now if everyone else had that same desire, we’d be in pretty good shape!
Fall Pastor’s Conference
Tomorrow I’m off to Casper for our fall pastor’s conference. The theme of the conference is Johann Sebastian Bach: 21st Century Theologian, Kantor, and Churchman. The presenters will be Dr. J. Gordon Christensen of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he serves as Director of Music and Organist and Dr. Steven Hoffman, who serves as Kantor at King of Glory Lutheran Church in Cheyenne, Wyoming and St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church and Campus Center in Laramie, Wyoming. I’ll be gone Monday through Wednesday. See you on the flip side!
Issues with Windows Live Writer
For some reason, Windows Live Writer seems to be crashing everytime I try to type text, insert a picture or pretty much anything other than do the post title. I’ve posted info about the problem on their official support board, but have had no replies to it. It’s been read 20-some times, but no one has solved my problem.
I hate using the WordPress dashboard, so I’ve found another desktop publishing program: Zoundry Raven. We’ll see how this works out. At least this doesn’t crash when I type or post.
Delta Airlines = FAIL
The title should say it all, but for those who want to know more, I’ll elaborate.
To start the day off, we arrived at Indianapolis International Airport and proceeded to get tickets and check our bags. Both mine and Gwen’s suitcases were 50+. We started taking stuff out of them to get them under the magic number of 50. Fortunately, my in-laws are coming to Nebraska to watch Wesley while Gwen and I attend DOXOLOGY, so they were able to take some of the extra stuff with them to bring out in a couple of weeks.
Once we get on board the Delta Airlines plane, that’s when the fun starts. First, we were sitting in 34A and 34C, with 34B and an aisle between us. Switching seats with 34B was no problem. They start moving us back out and we stop after say 100 feet or so. It seems there was a mechanical problem so they stopped. They did over-the-phone troubleshooting and everything the pilot did, it didn’t work. They shut down the power to the plane and did a restart and nothing was resolved. A call in to maintenance was next. Fortunately, they were available right away and came out to service the plane. Everything was green lights. The next step was to power up the plane and see if they got a green light. The plane was powered up and we have a green light! This is super! We can finally get on our way! The problem: we spent an hour sitting there waiting for the plane to be repaired. That meant that our connecting flight in Rapid City was not going to happen.
When we finally arrived in Minneapolis, we went straight to the gate desk and asked for our new tickets (Delta in Indianapolis already rebooked everyone with connecting flights since we were so delayed). The agent printed Gwen’s and then printed mine, followed by a confused look on his face. Gwen was able to score the 11:15 flight. I, on the other hand, was able to procure the 5:15 flight. He told us to go to our gate and speak with the gate agent to get on stand-by. He printed me a stand-by ticket, but we still had to check in with the gate agent. Unfortunately, the flight was over-booked and over-weight. They were looking for volunteers for a later flight. Gwen spoke with the gate agent and I was stand-by #3, but because of the status of the flight, it was doubtful that I could get on. There was a flight that we could both fly together – 9:00 TONIGHT! That meant spending 8 hours in the airport with a two-year old! That was not an option!
We tried to get me on, but to no avail. There was a family of 4 who were waiting to board the plane (they had seats). The mother (who is a Starbucks barista in Gillette; remind me to say “thank you” to her next time I’m there) asked the gate agent if there was any way that I could get on to fly with Gwen. The gate agent explained what was necessary, including people giving up their seats. Unfortunately, the family of four would not be able to fly together; they would have to fly on two different flights. I could see that the husband did not like that option one bit. I went over to her and thanked her for trying to do this for me.
Currently, I’m sitting at TGI Fridays finishing lunch waiting for the 2:15 flight as stand-by passenger #3. Good news: stand-by passengers #1 and #2 didn’t show up at the 11:15 flight, so there could be a good chance of me making it on the 2:15 flight.
Well, off I go. Hopefully this will get posted before I leave Minneapolis.
LCMS Convention hymn of thought
Here is my hymn of the day.
Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word (LSB #655)
Lord, keep us steadfast in Your Word;
Curb those who by deceit or sword
Would wrest the kingdom from Your Son
And bring to naught all He has done.
Lord Jesus Christ, Your pow’r make known,
For You are Lord of lords alone;
Defend Your holy Church that we
May sing Your praise eternally.
O Comforter of priceless worth,
Send peace and unity on earth;
Support us in our final strife
And lead us out of death to life.