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The Incarnation, Eucharist, and Community

Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : February 11, 2008

eucharist.jpgThe discovery among evangelicals that our spirituality ought to be shaped by the Incarnation has caused many to re-examine the role of sacraments within the community of faith.

Some suggest that if we are to be truly incarnational we need to embrace sacramentalism; if our view of the sacraments is too weak, then we run the risk of a disembodied spirituality. This is a valid concern, for to be incarnational implies an embodied spirituality, rather than just being word-centered (in my mind, many many evangelical churches make Scripture reading the only real sacrament…a non participatory sacrament that can lend itself to a sort of gnosticism). But if we want to be incarnational, must we be sacramental?

The central sacrament for most Christians is the Eucharist (or Lord’s Supper). High church traditions believe that the Eucharist is the center of community. In other words, you cannot have church without the Eucharist. In a way, I agree. But I flip things the other-way-around.

The Eucharist is profoundly pneumatological. When we share in the meal together, we are experiencing Christ’s presence by his Spirit–not because he is physically present in the bread and wine, but because he is physically present in us. When we eat the meal, he is eating the meal with us, as he did with his followers…only now we, his followers, are his Body. This understanding is very fleshy, sacramental, and missional. I believe that relationships are sacramental. And when we are gathered in community, we experience the tangible presence of God.

The Eucharist expresses Christ’s presence because it is constituted by our gathering. In other words, the presence of Christ in the gathering gives substance to the act of Eucharist, rather than the act of Eucharist giving the presence of Christ to the community.

And as we, the community of Christ, worship him, we share in his divinity and his humanity. So in a very real sense, the Church IS an extension of Christ’s physicality, as we make up a new humanity that is being conformed to Christ. We are the embodiment of Christ in the world. Not just metaphorically.

What is the point of all of this theologizing? If all of the rituals and practices of the church are holy because they are done by holy people (we who are the saints of God), then any assembly of Christ-followers is a church. Sure, there are certainly things that we should do when we are together–but those things don’t make us church. They are the outflowing of us already being the church.

Editor’s Note: This is an adaptation of an article that was originally published on the Next Wave in 2005. I’m reposting it now because of some of the questions raised by a recent post on New Monasticism.

Mark Van Steenwyk is the editor of JesusManifesto.com. He is a Mennonite pastor (Missio Dei in Minneapolis), writer, speaker, and grassroots educator. He lives in South Minneapolis with his wife (Amy), son (Jonas) and some of their friends.


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    To me it is a fundamental question what we mean by "the meal". To me, the practice Jesus instituted was a full meal. What would you view be on this topic? What do you refer to using the word "eucharist"?
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    I think any time we break bread together as Christians--any meal--it is "eucharist." I'm using the word simply to refer to the practice of keeping the Lord's Supper. Sometimes, however, we do the wine and bread thing to re-enact the specific practice shown in Scriptures, and as a way to honor those people in our community that like to have bread and wine as a part of communion.
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    Ok. I am not sure I follow. I would understand "the Lord´s supper" as a full fellowship meal with the church with the specific intention to honor Jesus. So for me, every meal is not the Lord´s supper, but neither is the thing most churches do when they use only a little piece of bread and some wine, without a fellowship meal.
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    I agree. I was being too vague about "any meal" being "eucharist." I do not believe, for example, that when I go to McDonalds with my friend Josh I am partaking of the Lord's Supper. At a minimum the focus of our meal must be the memory of Christ and the recognition of his continued presence by the Spirit.
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    I think you're justified in this, particularly given Jesus' words in Matthew 18:20 "Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them." After all I've said in the "Fringe Christianity" discussion, I have to say the way some sacramentally-oriented people treat eucharist is almost as if it were some kind of totem or magical charm - we have this, so we have Jesus. Instead I find it more helpful to talk about eucharist as the ritual of embodiment by which we re-member Christ and his death among us and consciously identify with him to re-affirm our in-him-ness.

    It's awfully easy to overbalance one side of the equation the other way as well. If the people present are the church and the eucharist flows out of that, then it is entirely possible to get to the point where the importance of ritual and sacrament is left out. I think the overemphasis on the word in many Protestant churches points in that direction, as does the tendency to say things like "you don't have to be baptized - as long as you believe, you're saved". A better route, I think, is to look at how these practices are constitutive and indicative of who we are as the people of God, and also how they are formative. Just as the state has its rituals (registration and voting, tax time, national holidays) to form people into citizens, if we are to be formed into God's people we have to understand that our regular practices will confirm (or, God forbid, deny) our status as carriers of Christ (maybe the virus metaphor works here - in the sacraments we are "infected" with Christ to protect us against the "antibodies" of the world).

    So I would say the relationship between the church and sacraments is synergistic - we practice them because we are God's people, and in practicing them we are shaped into being God's people.
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    I really like the synergistic model. That's very helpful Jason. This whole conversation is really helpful, especially for those of us in more "traditional" church settings. Perhaps the common expressions of Eucharist, Baptism, etc... could be a nice place to settle into some of these discussions with others different than us (meaning, less sacramental, less missional, less communal, etc...). Despite its infrequency, for example, baptism is still pretty revered in the local church. A thorough discussion of that more well-known (but perhaps less understood) topic could lend itself to furthering a discussion on what it means to be the Church, to be missional, and so forth.

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