Well, here goes...
Argument from Fidelity
As Christians, indeed as Nicene Christians, we must be faithful to Scripture. And as it stands, Christ explicitly says "This is my body, this is my blood." There ends the matter.
Counterargument 1: Aren't you a historical Jesus student and a theistic evolutionist?
Indeed I am. But decreases my faithfulness to Holy Scripture. I reject Genesis 1-11 as literal history (though it contains a historical core), but I do not reject Genesis 1-11; indeed, the themes therein of monotheism, creation, fall, and salvation are core to the entire faith. And I reject the gospel genre as literal history as well; more like hagiography. But it is precisely because of my historical Jesus studies that I take the resurrection seriously, and one central implication of the resurrection: if Jesus is alive today, then even if he didn't say certain words in the specific time and place recorded, he still says them to us today as our present and reigning Lord.
Counterargument 2: But he also called himself a shepherd, a lamb, a vine, and a door.
It is true, that while we took at the bread and wine and say "there is Jesus," we do not look at these various other objects and there "there is Jesus."
But isn't that there the point. What door, what shephard, what vine? In these instances, Jesus says "I refer to myself as 'the door' or 'a lamb' or 'the vine.'" They are indefinite, or general. You can't point to 'the door.' You can only point to 'a door.' Yes, indeed, Christ generally embodies 'the door,' or doorness. He embodies what it means to be a door- to be a gateway, from which one can enter and exit, the judge by whom people enter the Kingdom or leave for damnation.
In the Eucharistic words of Christ, on the other hand, he uses a definitive pronoun, he says, "This is my body, this is my blood." This and is. You can't get around them; they are unique in all of Scripture.
Argument from Covenant Rituals
The designated way God's people have always commemorted his great deeds of the past and expressed their hopes for his future vindication has been through the reading of Scripture and the partaking of a covenant symbol, often a meal.
Such is the case with the Sabbath. During the Passover, the account of the escape from Egypt is read in tandum with the eating of the ritual foods and drink. They remember (Hrb = zikkaron; Grk = anemnesis) this even through these means, the reading of the word and the participation in the symbol. But remembrance, they young Jewish children are taught, is not merely a psychological or intellectual exercise. Through the covenant record of history, Sacred Scripture, and the covenant symbol, the Passover meal, the past is made a present reality. The young Jewish boy is taught not merely that at some point in Israel's ancient past God rescued his people, but that through the meal, God is rescuing the Jewish people in the present. And, through this Scripture and symbol of national vindication, they are working toward God's future vindication when Israel's spiritual exile will end and Maschiach (= Messiah) brings about national restorational.
So too is the case with the Sabbath. In the Sabbath, through the reading of the creation account and the ritual eating of bread and wine, the Jewish family does not merely remember creation in the past. Through the meal, God's act of creation becomes a present reality; through the meal the people of God ungo new creation, and wander as through the desert toward the promised land of the renewal of all creation at the end of ages.
And so too with Holy Communion. Just as the Jewish people remember (anamnesis) the exodus on Nisan 15 toward the effect of making past national vindication a present reality to work toward future culmination, and just as the Jewish people remember the completion of creation on Friday at dusk through the Scripture and meal to participate in creation in the present and work toward the renewal of all creation, we, the people of God, remember Christ's death and resurrection on the day of the resurrection, Sunday morning, through Word and Sacrament.
God's mighty deed of the past, the in-history redemption of his people through the saving work of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, becomes a present reality through the proclaimation of the Word and the celebration of the Sacrament which allows us to journey on toward the future culmination of the Kingdom of God at the end of history. This is not a psychological or intellectual exercise, not an inborn drive of sentiment, but an objective reality, a miracle, that God works each and every time we celebrate Holy Communion.
Argument from the Jerusalem Temple
In the tabernacle and the temple, God's true presence, the shekhinah glory, dwelt in fullness. It illuminated the path for the Israelites in the wilderness and provided the central link with God through the Jewish people. There was no worse day in the history of Israel than Tisha B'Av, a day in the Hebrew calender on which the Babylonians destroyed the first temple and the Romans the second.
Christians have a sense of a sacred center to our worship experience, a most intimate connection with God, as well. The Eucharist. And Scripture makes this clear.
Throughout his itinerant ministry, our Lord help a series of fellowship meals with his disciples. These meals were the origin of the practice of communion, which continued, of course, after his death in the apostolic Pentecost community. As with much of his ministry, Christ appropriated common Jewish symbols and reconstituted them in a more fitting way for the new era about to dawn. These meals stood in contrast to two such symbols.
The first was family. Although Christ and the apostles by no means rejected the family, they made clear that association with the church community was the basis of brotherhood in the new community (an association confirmed by Holy Baptism, but, that's a different story). And this community met in its fullness like nowhere else in its meals. Call it the Eucharist, call it Holy Communion, call it the Lord's Supper, call it love feast (as Jude does)- whatever the term, there were the central act of early Christian worship.
Just like the temple was to the Jews. Indeed, this is the second symbol Christ appropriated to convey the meaning of his fellowship meals. It is the counterpoint to Christ's critique of the temple that climaxed in the cleansing preceding his death. Where the twelve tribes of Israel met around the temple to worship Yahweh, the church community, led by the twelve apostles, met around the Eucharist to worship Christ. N.T. Wright says it best: "If the negative symbols embodying Jesus critique of his contemporaries come together in the Temple-action, the positive symbols of Jesus work come together in the upper room." (The Challenge of Jesus, 72).
If this argument seems shakey, don't worry, there's more. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul instructs the assembly at Corinth about the Eucharist. Because of this disregard for the sanctity of the meal, divisions among them, and their lack of repentence, some who had approached Holy Communion fell ill or died. Now what does this sound like to you? Just like the temple. In the temple, the shekhinah glory caused through who approached unworthily or improperly to fall ill and die. Now tell me, do, what in Scripture that is holy causes people to die other than the presence of the one true God? Nothing at all.
I would like to debate about whether Christ is literally present in communion or not. I personally believe that He is not. What do you believe and how do you come about believing this?
Can you blame us for being confused?
