Eucharistic Discipline

The essay, Eucharist as Covenant Renewal, describes how believers make a covenant with God and each other as they celebrate the Holy Eucharist. This covenant is mediated by the Lord Jesus who meets believers as described in the essay, In Remembra/articles/3/91nce of Me. Since Jesus is concretely present, believers meet the living God, and for that reason, the Holy Eucharist is surrounded by holiness. Since the Holy Communion is holy, and since the Lord Jesus gives himself as the bread and wine, the church has always sought to honor Christ’s presence by maintaining the purity of the eucharistic feast. One aspect of maintaining this purity is Eucharistic discipline, which means that certain persons are excluded from the congregation and the celebration of the Holy Communion. Under certain conditions this is commanded by the New Testament, and further, eucharistic discipline has been a part of the practice of the church for centuries. In this essay we will discuss eucharistic discipline, but first, however, let us begin with a prayer, asking God to help us with this important matter.

Heavenly Father, thank you that your Son humbled himself to die for us upon the cross. Help us, we pray, as we come into his presence, to honor him with a pure heart and sincere soul. All this we ask in his name. Amen.

At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Anglican Church maintained those ancient traditions which had their roots in Holy Scripture. Among those traditions is the recognition that Scripture requires the church to maintain the purity of its eucharistic feasts. For that reason, the 1662 Prayer Book, the classical liturgical text of Anglicanism, requires the minister to maintain the integrity of the Eucharist. This requirement is found on the first page of the Eucharistic liturgy and is quoted in the endnote.(1) Its teaching can be summarized in the following points.

1. Persons can be refused communion for two reasons -- “malicious and open” conflict with others, as well as “grave and open sin without repentance.”
2. Once the minister becomes convinced that these serious and open conflicts and sins exist, he is to report the matter to the “Ordinary of the place,” that is, to the local bishop.
3. Then, according to orders from the bishop, he is to advise the person living in open and grave sin not to come to the Holy Communion.
4. At times, scandals can arise very quickly and, before the minister has time to consult the bishop (this admonition was written long before modern communications), the minister may refuse communion, but must inform the bishop within a week and then follow the bishop’s direction.
5. The bishop, before making any decision in such a case, shall give the person who was refused communion an opportunity to present his side of the story in person before the bishop.

As one considers this admonition, one can notice that eucharistic discipline applies only to those who commit “grave and open sins without repentance,” or those in “malicious and open” conflict with others. Every person receiving the Holy Communion is sinful. All have gone astray in various ways. Most people receiving the Holy Communion know this and regret their sins. When they confess their sins at the time of the Confession, they want to be forgiven. They hear the words of absolution with gladness. At the same time there are others who know they are sinners and find they do not want to repent. They know this is wrong and wish their hearts could be softened. They are struggling with sin. Perhaps, for example, they are not able to fully forgive someone. Still others are not aware of their sins because sin is a deep and subtle matter, and all of us have sins we can scarcely recognize. It requires the deep work of the Spirit to reveal our sin. Still others are just learning about the Christian life, or perhaps its truths have just barely penetrated their souls. They may not always agree with biblical teaching, or fully understand the power of the Eucharist, but they are not there to promote their ideas or sway others to their point of view. None of these sorts of persons should be excluded from the Holy Communion. In fact, they need the love of God given in Holy Communion in order to make their way forward toward Christ. Such persons need to be accepted, loved, and encouraged.

At the same time, however, it can sometimes happen that there are those who do not wish to repent, whose sins are “open” and “grave.” These are publicly known and serious sins which, if left unaddressed, will affect the entire congregation. These open, serious, and unrepentant sins fall into three categories, and each category entails exclusion from the Holy Communion.

First, there are those who are in “malicious and open” conflict with others and refuse to repent and be reconciled. The word “open” in this context means conflict that is publicly known, while “malicious” means a serious conflict. This serious and publicly known conflict, if not addressed, can tear apart the body of Christ. In Matthew 5:23-24, Jesus says the following, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” In other words, Jesus commands his followers to be reconciled before they come to the altar, which for Christians, is the table or altar where Holy Communion is celebrated. In Matthew 18, Jesus describes the process by which two people can be reconciled, and this was discussed in the essay, Forgiveness in Action. If the process of mutual reconciliation breaks down, the unrepentant person is not to be accepted into the community, and this, above all, excludes them from the Holy Eucharist. Here are the words of Jesus, “And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17).

The second form of sin what requires exclusion from the Holy Communion is serious, public, and unrepentant immorality by a member of the church. Public immorality is immorality that is known by the other church members. Such a sin is an example of a “grave and open sin without repentance.” If this is not addressed, the church can be seriously and even permanently damaged. It is best for the minister to quietly go to the guilty party and address the situation. If the person is unrepentant, if no resolution is possible, that person must be excluded from the Holy Communion. An example of this can be found in 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul commands the Corinthians to expel from their midst a person who was in a sexual relationship with his father’s wife. According to the passage, Paul imposed this discipline for two reasons. First, by expelling the man from the community and thereby surrendering him to Satan, there was the hope that he would be so afflicted that he would repent that “his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord” (5:1). This is always the goal of eucharistic exclusion -- the hope that the excluded person will come to their senses, repent, receive forgiveness, and be restored to the life of the congregation. Secondly, Paul says,

Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (5:6-8).

Here Paul references the feast of the Passover and unleavened bread, Exodus 12. According to the new covenant, as we have seen in the essay, Passover and the Holy Eucharist, this refers to the Eucharistic festival in which believers celebrate the saving truth that “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” If the old leaven, the flagrant sinner, is allowed to continue in sin and participate in the eucharistic feast, his evil leaven will infect the entire body of Christ since all become one in the common loaf (First Corinthians 10:17). When the Eucharist is profaned in this manner, it inflicts deep spiritual wounds on the congregation. Among other things, those who seek to live holy lives will be discouraged and wonder why the leadership allows such things. Therefore, for the sake of the body of Christ and for the sake of those who persist in evil, those who are engaged in public, serious sins are to be excluded from the fellowship and the eucharistic feast.

Finally, Scripture considers false teaching to be worthy of exclusion from the fellowship and from Holy Eucharist. False teaching is especially dangerous since it leads people away from Christ, substituting another gospel for the liberating gospel of Truth. It is for this reason that Paul, in Galatians 1:8-9, will use the strongest possible language to condemn false teaching,

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Among other things, to be accursed means to be banished from the community. Similar ideas in regard to false teaching can be found in Second John,

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (2 John 9-11).

Building upon the biblical foundation, the universal church practiced eucharistic discipline for centuries, and in the process, developed systems of eucharistic discipline. Those who committed especially notorious sins were excluded both from the Eucharist and the fellowship. A lesser penalty was to be excluded from the Holy Communion for a period of penance and repentance. This penitential system was abandoned at the time of the Reformation, but the essential idea, that Eucharist must be kept pure for the health and integrity of the body of Christ and the holiness of God cannot be abandoned.

The church was especially vigilant in regard to false teaching since false doctrine, above all, can permanently destroy a right relationship with God. Only those who believed right doctrine were welcomed at the holy table. False teachers were excluded. Here is a quotation from Werner Elert’s book, Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries.

This involves an understanding of the church according to which orthodox doctrine is an essential criterion of the church. Heretical doctrine is apostasy and the worst of all sins. … . The early church was never in doubt that unity in doctrine is a prerequisite of altar fellowship. No one who taught false doctrine might receive Holy Communion in an orthodox congregation.(2)

As an example of heretical doctrine is the Arian controversy. Arius taught that the spiritual being that became incarnate in Jesus Christ was not God, but was a creature, a being less than God. The church in council, in the year 325, denied this false doctrine and proclaimed that Jesus Christ was of the same substance as the Father. This was proclaimed in a creed which ended with these words, excluding from the fellowship all those who followed the teaching of Arius.

And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion - all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.

Traditionally, the fundamental doctrines of the faith were summarized in the Creeds. New converts were taught the faith, and to that end, summaries of fundamental Christian beliefs were developed. These were the forerunners of the creeds. New converts were taught the creeds and exorcised for a period of time prior to baptism, and then, on Easter Eve, were baptized. In time, The Apostles’ Creed became the creed to be used at baptism with candidates affirming their faith in the affirmations of that creed. J.N.D. Kelly describes the baptismal use of the creeds with these words, “Whatever other uses they may have been put to in the course of history, the true and original use of creeds, their primary raison d'être, was to serve as solemn affirmations of faith in the context of baptismal initiation."(3) For this reason, Anglican Prayer books have always required those being baptized to affirm, or reaffirm, a commitment to the truths of the Apostles’ Creed.

In actual practice, purity of doctrine is not always recognized by or affirmed by members of the church. People forget what they may have learned, or they may blend Christian truth with other ideas, or they may be poorly taught. As in the case of immorality and unresolved serious conflict, the danger of false belief becomes pernicious when it is publicly proclaimed. Then it is imperative that the leadership address the false teaching at once. Normally, however, it is best to create an atmosphere of love, and not one of doctrinal surveillance, allowing church members to grow in their knowledge of God. Having said this, however, it is important that all persons given a teaching role in the church be tested as to their understanding of the Truth. This is critical.

According to the admonition taken from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the minister shall consult with the bishop and abide by his decision in regard to barring someone from Holy Communion. The origin of this custom is the fact that, in the early church, the apostles exercised spiritual authority. It was Paul who commanded the Corinthians to excommunicate the man living with his father’s wife. Or, in Second John, it is the elder, most likely the apostle John, who commands the lady and her children not to accept the doctrine that Jesus Christ did not come in the flesh (verse 7). These are the false teachers the elder commanded his readers to avoid in verse 10. With the death of the apostles, government in the church became associated with the office of the bishop. Anglicans do not believe that church government is exactly specified in Scripture. Nevertheless, it is vital that any minister who exercises eucharistic discipline do so in conjunction with spiritual authority. For Anglicans, that authority is the bishop. It is also wise for Anglican priests to work in conjunction with a church council whose members have been chosen for their spiritual maturity and the respect they hold in the congregation. Other church bodies are governed by a council of elders together with their chief pastor. However the authority is structured, it is wise for the pastor to seek the authorization of legitimate authority, including council members respected by the congregation. Decisions to exclude from communion are very serious, and if not done wisely, in ways that show deliberation and consultation, can easily divide and even destroy the body of Christ. For this reason, the pastoral counsel given to ministers in regard to eucharistic discipline by the 1662 Prayer Book requires consultation and due deliberation.

Finally, Eucharistic disciple requires discernment, wisdom, and pastoral discretion, and there are two ways to go astray. One is to never exercise discipline. This is fatal as it allows false teaching, open immoral behavior, and public conflicts to destroy the church. The other path is to foster an atmosphere of surveillance in which church members fear reprisals if they reveal their weaknesses and failings. This creates a climate of fear, excessive religiosity, and pretensions of holiness which, and in the end, destroy love and spiritual growth. Only if church members know they are accepted and loved in spite of their weaknesses, and given time and a place to grow spiritually, yet challenged to repent by rigorous and tender-hearted public preaching and pastoral care, will conditions emerge that allow growth in Christ in an atmosphere of increasing love. Jesus associated with sinners and outcasts, and his pastors must do the same, allowing sinners to know that they are loved and thereby empowered to grow in the grace of God. What a blessing when this occurs, and it can occur, because the Lord Jesus loves his pastors and leaders. He pours out his grace upon them and all members of the congregation, and by his amazing grace fills his beloved people with all the love in the world. And when his people partake of his crucified body and blood, they find a love that never ends, a love that conquers all things, endures all things, hopes all things, and believes all things. This love is celebrated week by week in the Holy Communion, and for that reason, the eucharistic feast is to be guarded, honored, and loved.

Let us end with a prayer.

Heavenly Father, pour out upon us your grace that we might lead lives of repentance and courage, thereby honoring the great mystery of love that you have poured out upon us in the Holy Communion. And we also ask that, by your grace, our leadership may be filled with wisdom, tenderness, and steadfast purpose, that they may guard this holy mystery for the sake of your glory and honor and for the health under their authority. Amen.

Endnotes

1. This quotation on eucharistic discipline is taken from the 1662 Prayer Book.

If a Minister be persuaded that any person who presents himself to be a partaker of the holy Communion ought not to be admitted thereunto by reason of malicious and open contention with his neighbours, or other grave and open sin without repentance, he shall give an account of the same to the Ordinary of the place, and therein obey his order and direction, but so as not to refuse the Sacrament to any person until in accordance with such order and direction he shall have called him and advertised him that in any wise he presume not to come to the Lord's Table; Provided that in case of grave and immediate scandal to the Congregation the Minister shall not admit such person, but shall give an account of the same to the Ordinary within seven days after at the latest and therein obey the order and direction given to him by the Ordinary; Provided also that before issuing his order and direction in relation to any such person the Ordinary shall afford him an opportunity for interview.

2. Werner Elert, Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries, (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1966), pp. 108-09.
3. Kelly, J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, third edition (New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1972), p. 31.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.