Why is it difficult for people to understand the importance of weekly Communion?

My current congregation doesn't have weekly Communion. I wish it did, my previous Lutheran congregations celebrated the Lord's Supper every week.

While I don't think frequency should be a "hard" issue, something worth making a fuss over, I do wish we celebrated weekly. The spiritual benefits of the Lord's Supper, as well as the emotional and psychological needs met by the Lord's Supper, are such that I do believe we benefit from from frequent participation.

As someone who believes that this is the real flesh and real blood of Christ, and thus there is real and tangible grace in the Supper, the very forgiveness of my sins, and the solemn declaration of peace--Shalom--in the Supper means here is the very food and drink which grants us life. Our Lord having said, "the bread which I give for the world is My flesh" (John 6:51), this is living bread--Jesus Christ; it is living drink--Jesus Christ.

The "it wouldn't be special" argument is one I've come across for a long time, even before I was Lutheran--and it's an argument that's never really made much sense to me. For two reasons: The first is that it's the body and blood of Christ, how could it ever not be special? Jesus is always important, He is always what we need--every hour of every day. Second, imagine saying the same thing about telling your spouse that you love them, that if you say you love them, or do loving things for them too often it would "not be special anymore"--that's a ridiculous idea, right? Something doesn't become less special because it is common or often. "Sorry, but I can't tell you I love you this week, if I did it wouldn't be special" would be a red flag in a relationship. Now, I'm not saying that infrequent Communion is a red flag, but if we think of the Lord's Supper this way that would certainly be a red flag concerning our spiritual life and our thought patterns about the Lord and His Supper.

I hunger, almost daily, for the Eucharist. I long for it, I thirst for it. If I could I'd want to Commune every day--because I need Him every day. As the hymn says, "I need Thee every hour"

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

Second, imagine saying the same thing about telling your spouse that you love them, that if you say you love them, or do loving things for them too often it would "not be special anymore"--that's a ridiculous idea, right? Something doesn't become less special because it is common or often. "Sorry, but I can't tell you I love you this week, if I did it wouldn't be special" would be a red flag in a relationship.

-CryptoLutheran

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Wife: "You never tell me you love me".
Husband: "I told you that I love you on our wedding. If it changes, Ill let you know"

My personal favorite excuse for not having weekly communion: "It costs too much".

FireDragon76 said:

All I've heard traditionally are responses like "It wouldn't be special anymore" or "it is too much trouble". All answers that seem to me to be impious and regard the sacrament as more of a formality.

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You are exactly right: it is impious. The idea of communion as an obligation is implicit among the Roman church but a position de facto among Protestants. I really wish most parishioners would receive the sacrament less frequently because they don't prepare themselves or make an examination, they just go forward and do what everyone else is doing. That position does not conflict with having the sacrament offered weekly, it puts the onus on the worshipper to get ready.

As an aside: I hate the places that have some sort of continuous flow system where you get about 4 seconds before the altar until you're shuffled along to the next line.

ViaCrucis said:

As someone who believes that this is the real flesh and real blood of Christ, and thus there is real and tangible grace in the Supper, the very forgiveness of my sins, and the solemn declaration of peace--Shalom--in the Supper means here is the very food and drink which grants us life.

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When ~68% of the congregation is not reading the Bible or really praying in any substantial way outside of the church building you don't get a lot of people who believe in the real presence in any manner. I believe that it was C.S. Lewis who wrote something to the effect that it was more difficult to believe what was received at Holy Communion was real bread than the body of Christ.

PsaltiChrysostom said:

My personal favorite excuse for not having weekly communion: "It costs too much".

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I did a parish profile for an LCMS pastor once, a young pastor, who wanted to have weekly communion. He had prepped very well and researched all of the usual excuses before bringing the issue to the elder board. He waited to see which one they would come up with on the fly and it was, "It costs too much." He had asked the treasurer for a line item true account of what was being spent and was able to prove they spent all of $16 a month on communion supplies. He even went so far as to offer to buy the additional supplies with his salary. They knew he had outwitted them and they would have to negotiate in good faith. They reached the compromise that weekly communion would not be the primary service, so he scheduled it Wednesday's at Noon.

FireDragon76 said:

And often times the church council or elders don't want to have a longer service or they just don't want to go against the perceived tradition.

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That's always what it comes down to: force of habit and general apathy or even laziness. If you stay an extra 15 minutes for Holy Communion you might not get your favorite table at the diner for brunch.

In some areas, weekly communion=high church and they would never want to make that impression.

I think some Protestant denominations put too much emphasis on the word and preaching and do not want to celebrate the Sacrament as much. I wonder if its a cultural thing? The UCC doesn't believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, where as Lutherans etc do.

I do not know why.

FireDragon76 said:

I've had discussions about this with a local Congregationalist pastor. I told her I otherwise liked her church, but I would miss weekly communion, and I am in need of a new church home. She said in their tradition, monthly communion is the norm, and she's never heard of a UCC or Congregationalist church that practices weekly communion.

However, it seems strange to me that it isn't weekly, especially as they have changed so much of their other practices from the historical norms (the Revised Common Lectionary, commemoration of days such as Ash Wednesday, etc.). I have been doing research on contemporary philosophy, and I find it strange that people think sentimental hymns, preaching, and prayers are adequate expressions of Christianity, when three Gospels and Paul all have explicit narratives of the Lord's Supper, and Acts references "the breaking of bread" as something that happened often in the early Christian community. The whole point of the Incarnation is that salvation occurs within bodies, it was the heretics that denied that Jesus was a fleshly being that abstained from the sacraments in the early Church.

All I've heard traditionally are responses like "It wouldn't be special anymore" or "it is too much trouble". All answers that seem to me to be impious and regard the sacrament as more of a formality. I know even John Calvin argued for weekly communion, but the Genevan elders overruled him.

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Why not establish a tradition at home base and literally "do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”

Yes my church believes this as well - but I have broken bread with friends for years and see this as a normal part of Christian Family life.

FireDragon76 said:

I don't share that attitude- I believe ministers must be called both by God and by the congregation, for the sacrament to be licit.

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Mmmm... back in the day I often shared communion as part of an inner city ministry I co-led. This work had the recognition of the church.

FireDragon76 said:

I've had discussions about this with a local Congregationalist pastor. I told her I otherwise liked her church, but I would miss weekly communion, and I am in need of a new church home. She said in their tradition, monthly communion is the norm, and she's never heard of a UCC or Congregationalist church that practices weekly communion.

However, it seems strange to me that it isn't weekly, especially as they have changed so much of their other practices from the historical norms (the Revised Common Lectionary, commemoration of days such as Ash Wednesday, etc.). I have been doing research on contemporary philosophy, and I find it strange that people think sentimental hymns, preaching, and prayers are adequate expressions of Christianity, when three Gospels and Paul all have explicit narratives of the Lord's Supper, and Acts references "the breaking of bread" as something that happened often in the early Christian community. The whole point of the Incarnation is that salvation occurs within bodies, it was the heretics that denied that Jesus was a fleshly being that abstained from the sacraments in the early Church.

All I've heard traditionally are responses like "It wouldn't be special anymore" or "it is too much trouble". All answers that seem to me to be impious and regard the sacrament as more of a formality. I know even John Calvin argued for weekly communion, but the Genevan elders overruled him.

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There is nothing in the Bible that says how often we should take communion. My wife and I take communion together from time to time. The church we attend has communion monthly. Some have communion once a year at Easter.

Shane R said:

You are exactly right: it is impious. The idea of communion as an obligation is implicit among the Roman church but a position de facto among Protestants.

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The Catholic Church recognizes that there needs to be periodic renewal of a commitment to the Eucharist. There will be a National Eucharistic Conference in my city of Indianapolis in July, 2024. Hopefully people will leave with a dedication to restoring a firm belief in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the need to attach ourselves to the vine of Christ.

tz620q said:

The Catholic Church recognizes that there needs to be periodic renewal of a commitment to the Eucharist. There will be a National Eucharistic Conference in my city of Indianapolis in July, 2024. Hopefully people will leave with a dedication to restoring a firm belief in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the need to attach ourselves to the vine of Christ.

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I don't live many hours from Indy myself. I saw the tickets and programming for the event. Many people are complaining about the expense. And it seems to have been programmed by charismatics.

Shane R said:

I don't live many hours from Indy myself. I saw the tickets and programming for the event. Many people are complaining about the expense. And it seems to have been programmed by charismatics.

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Yes, I had an opportunity to buy tickets early at a reduced rate; but held off. I wanted to get a firmer schedule of the events before spending that much.

A certain understanding of history might be helpful here. In England the state church was, and still is, the Anglican Church. For centuries all other churches were persecuted in one form or another, ranging from Catholics to Puritans. One of the forms of persecution was a prohibition against performing any sacraments. This was particularly aimed at Catholics. Many Protestants, such as the Society of Friends (Quakers) determined that salvation is not predicated upon receiving sacraments and developed a theology in which the spiritual aspects of the sacraments replaced the physical aspects. Thus, being baptized by the Holy Spirit is essential to the new birth, but water baptism is merely an outward sign of an inward reality. Likewise, one can deeply commune with Jesus Christ quite apart from sipping wine and munching on bread. To this day, Quakers do not have physical emblems such as water baptism or bread and wine in communion. In Scotland the Presbyterians developed a tradition of having communion once a year, if that often.

It was not until the nineteenth century that Parliament began easing restrictions against Dissenters of all kinds. At that point many decided to use bread and wine for communion, but not at every service and certainly not weekly. By the twentieth century most developed a monthly schedule for it. Then someone in the World Council of Churches in the 1960's decided to instigate "Worldwide Communion Sunday". Ironically, it unites the vast majority of Christians on the same Sunday in early autumn. Unintentionally, Catholics and Orthodox become part of this network because they have communion at least weekly. Most other Protestant denominations have communion on the first Sunday of the month, so they also become unwitting participants.

FireDragon76 said:

Some Puritans were actually in the Church of England. Their descendants are called "Evangelical Anglicans".

Quakers were a development from the Spiritualist movement, which was an outgrowth of religious controversies in England in the mid 17th century. Not directly from Puritanism. A closer analogy is today's "Religious Nones", skeptical people burned out on religious debates, so they concluded that the Church must be purely spiritual (no visible Church). Quakers emerged from that movement. Baruch Spinoza actually had alot of contact with Dutch Spiritualists and Quakers, in fact he translated a Quaker catechism into Hebrew.

Alec Ryrie, an English Church historian of the medieval and Reformation period, has a whole Youtube series on how the West became skeptics, and one of the videos is about radical Puritanism, part of which covers the Spiritualists.

Traditionally, Quakers don't even believe the Bible is an infallible authority, since people disagreed so much, and so passionately, about its proper interpretation, and George Fox found the advice of the many religious authorities of his day confusing. Quakers believe a person's testimony demonstrates the truth of their religion, not having the correct interpretation of the Bible. As a result, they have no creeds in their religion, and in some cases nothing visibly recognizable as distinctively Christian.

Actually, freedom to practice religion was mostly granted by the mid-to-late 17th century, except for Catholics.

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Thank you for the additional information and clarification. For the sake of brevity I had omitted this. Without this knowledge, the heavy persecution of some Dissenters, especially Quakers, in the Massachusetts Colony is frequently understood as an irrational persecution of innocent people.