Communion too rushed?

circuitrider said:

Can anyone with some liturgical expertise tell me why we are using loves of bread in the UMC (which really doesn't look much like the bread Jesus used) rather than wafer as is used in the Episcopal Church and elsewhere? The problem with bread is finding something that isn't crummy and doesn't then look yuck floating in the chalice.

Click to expand...

If we were trying to recreate Jesus' Last Supper then we most certainly should use unleavened bread. But, if recreating an historical event was our goal, then we should also be using wine, a common cup, having a full meal, and washing feet as well. What I think we are doing, or what I am doing at least, is trying to communicate into our culture today the grace that Jesus was revealing to his disciples and by extension to us today. For that I use bread as Jesus did. I interpret that to mean not unleavened bread specifically, but rather the common daily bread that those who are at table would recognize as bread. For some that would remain unleavened bread. But for others it would be a loaf of raised bread. For others still it might be pita bread or tortillas or even Twinkies -- depending on one's sitz im leben.

We can use the wafers if we like. There's no official UM canon law saying we can't. However, since we're almost universally stuck with using fake wine I've always thought that also using fake bread was just a bridge too far. Wafers don't look, smell, or taste like any actual bread that people eat.

Good point. I just don't like the messy bread floating in the grape juice. It takes away from the experience. I'd just as soon use real wine. But my congregation isn't really ready for that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

revanneosl said:

since we're almost universally stuck with using fake wine

Click to expand...

No - grape juice is NOT 'fake wine.' The traditional blessing at Passover says borey pri hagafen, 'Who creates the Fruit of the vine." It does not differentiate between fermented or unfermented. The same blessing would be used for fresh grapes or raisins.

From the point of view of Christians, though, who look to the New Testament and its use of the Greek oinos (wine, not unfermented juice), the use of wine for communion is the normal practice based on Scripture and tradition.

I'm not condemning people who use juice, but I think there are good reasons to use wine in preference.

revanneosl said:

We can use the wafers if we like. There's no official UM canon law saying we can't. However, since we're almost universally stuck with using fake wine I've always thought that also using fake bread was just a bridge too far. Wafers don't look, smell, or taste like any actual bread that people eat.

Click to expand...

True, but they are actually bread, whereas grape juice is not wine.

Methodists have used grape juice for many years out of concern for those who re alcoholics. While many Methodists now social drink alcohol, Methodists in the US at one time completely opposed the use of alcohol. In recent years our full communion agreement opened the door for the use of wine in communion as an option. But now grape juice is a long standing tradition and not easily changed.

Somehow the discussion has morphed from being about the use of unleavened bread to whether wine or grape juice is to be preferred.

Is there some reason not to use hosts ("wafers") in tandem with wine, non-alcoholic wine, or grape juice, in view of the concerns expressed earlier about chunks of leavened bread?

Well, the original thread was about communion being rushed. So go figure.

circuitrider said:

Well, the original thread was about communion being rushed. So go figure.

Click to expand...

Whoops, yes.

Paidiske said:

From the point of view of Christians, though, who look to the New Testament and its use of the Greek oinos (wine, not unfermented juice), the use of wine for communion is the normal practice based on Scripture and tradition.

Click to expand...

I get that; but IMO is not a correct viewpoint, since all the writers of the involved scriptures were Jewish and their words were translated (either by written word or by their own thought process) from Hebrew into Greek.

And since this IS the Wesleyan folder, the Holiness tradition needs to be looked at as well which forbade any and all use of anything alcoholic. I grew up with many who absolutely believed the Last Supper was with grape juice since drinking alcohol was a sin and our Lord never sinned ........

Of course we use broken Matzah for the bread.

DaveW-Ohev said:

I get that; but IMO is not a correct viewpoint, since all the writers of the involved scriptures were Jewish and their words were translated (either by written word or by their own thought process) from Hebrew into Greek.

And since this IS the Wesleyan folder, the Holiness tradition needs to be looked at as well which forbade any and all use of anything alcoholic. I grew up with many who absolutely believed the Last Supper was with grape juice since drinking alcohol was a sin and our Lord never sinned ........

Click to expand...

What isn't a correct viewpoint? Are you saying that oinos is a mistranslation in the New Testament Greek?

DaveW-Ohev said:

I get that; but IMO is not a correct viewpoint, since all the writers of the involved scriptures were Jewish and their words were translated (either by written word or by their own thought process) from Hebrew into Greek.

Click to expand...

That's a pretty big assumption. For a Hellenised Jew, they might well think in Greek first, with Hebrew being a language of ritual and religion (as for many Jews today who think in English or whatever first). I had a fascinating discussion once with a Jewish New Testament scholar about whether we thought Paul probably thought in Greek or Hebrew. Looking at language patterns and whether there seemed to be a Greek translation of Hebrew patterns of thought is fascinating, but at the end of the day it can only be speculative. What we have is a text which specifies wine.

circuitrider said:

Are you saying that oinos is a mistranslation in the New Testament Greek?

Click to expand...

Not so much of a mistranslation as perhaps a lack of the exact right word in Greek to convey the sense.

And in that day and age, grape juice (unfermented) only existed for a few weeks every year. So it maybe was not seen as much of an issue.

Paidiske said:

For a Hellenised Jew, they might well think in Greek first, with Hebrew being a language of ritual and religion (as for many Jews today who think in English or whatever first). I had a fascinating discussion once with a Jewish New Testament scholar about whether we thought Paul probably thought in Greek or Hebrew. Looking at language patterns and whether there seemed to be a Greek translation of Hebrew patterns of thought is fascinating, but at the end of the day it can only be speculative. What we have is a text which specifies wine.

Click to expand...

I do not think Saul/Paul could ever be described as "hellenized," even though he was originally from Tarsus. He says he studied under Gamaliel the great, who was the grandson of Hillel. He was the foremost Torah scholar of the day and ran the School Beit Hillel in Jerusalem. Saul would have started there at about age 9 or 10 after studying with a local rabbi from about age 5. His training in Hebrew thought and language would have been 24/7. (Torah study is absolutely allowed on the Sabbath) He also said in Acts 23.6 he identified as the "son of pharisees," so his father and other relatives/ancestors would have been thru the same rigorous training at either Beit Shammai or Beit Hillel.

I would not think his thought process was Greek in any way. Indeed, Brad Young in his book "Paul the Jewish Theologian" shows just HOW Jewish his thought process actually was.


Did he speak Greek? Of course. Being trained to take his master's place in the Sanhedrin required him to know 70 languages. So Greek and Latin would have been completely natural to him. But the years of training under the rabbis would have given him an entirely Jewish thought process.

Just noticed that not only are people all over the board on these questions, but that there is a pattern of conservativism and liberalism in the way we are expressing ourselves over our rituals just like there often is with regard to other values in the life of the Church. But social conservativism doesn't help predict who is going to be a liturgical conservative, nor does being a liberal when it comes to liturgical rubrics help predict who is going to be a social liberal. Same process but different hermeneutics being applied.

GraceSeeker said:

Just noticed that not only are people all over the board on these questions, but that there is a pattern of conservativism and liberalism in the way we are expressing ourselves over our rituals just like there often is with regard to other values in the life of the Church. But social conservativism doesn't help predict who is going to be a liturgical conservative, nor does being a liberal when it comes to liturgical rubrics help predict who is going to be a social liberal. Same process but different hermeneutics being applied.

Click to expand...

Agreed. It's a bit of a curiosity that the socially liberal, millennials, college-educated crowd, etc., prefer a liturgically conservative church, while political and social conservatives tend to delight in the oohs and aahs of the high-tech, sensationalized, contemporary mega-church experience.

Nik Onder said:

Agreed. It's a bit of a curiosity that the socially liberal, millennials, college-educated crowd, etc., prefer a liturgically conservative church, while political and social conservatives tend to delight in the oohs and aahs of the high-tech, sensationalized, contemporary mega-church experience.

Click to expand...

I believe it goes back to the historical connection between evangelicalism and revivalistic/tent revival kinds of worship styles. Conservative Evangelicals go back to those past experiences of worship as a model for worship rather than even further back to the historic practices of our churches pre-great awakening.

There were some very good things that came out of those tent meetings. But also there were excesses. At the same time often important elements of worship were abandoned for the concept of making the conversation experience and the sermon the primary elements in worship. During that period the sacraments were de-emphasized.

What we often think of as conservative Christianity in the US is really a faux conservatism because it adopts beliefs from the late 1800s and early 1900s (fundamentalism, inerrancy, rapture theology) as if they are the historic beliefs of the church when they are actually beliefs many less than 200 years old.