Sunday, July 24, 2011


Is Communion more like Prayer or like Baptism?

I've been going back and forth the past year over whether unbaptized ppl should be offered communion. For a loooooong period of Christian history this would've been a no-brainer: "no"!
Communion seems to be, in scripture, something for disciples, and disciples seem to be people who've been impressed enough by Jesus to obey him and become baptized as their entrance ceremony/sacrament into the family of believers. So to knowingly offer communion to unbaptized people seems to be a belittling of baptism - like celebrating an anniversary for a couple who refuses to be legally married.

I've grown up in more casual evangelical churches where sacraments have been observed very loosely, usually with their symbolic nature strongly emphasized. I got the idea that they were basically Jesus-instituted (and therefore important) flannelgraph presentations to illustrate a point, nothing more. Because of this, communion was no more restricted than prayer. You wouldn't deny prayer to anyone, why deny communion?

But it seems to me that Scripture and the early Christians understood communion to have a different significance than as a mere memorial (not that it's not a memorial)- as a participation in the body and blood of the Lord between baptized believers. As the question raised in my mind while reading the bible, I did some research and found that many Scripturally faithful denominations don't offer communion to the unbaptised.

This particular rubber meets the road for me regarding my kids. I've been allowing them to participate in communion without restraint, just trying to explain the meaning to them as we go along, but I've become increasingly doubtful that I'm being faithful to Scripture in doing so. My oldest, Josiah, and probably Jaelle too, are old enough to understand the gospel message and the meaning of baptism; but have told me they do not want to be baptized at this point. So, I have stopped having them participate in communion and explained why, telling them that once they decide to become disciples of Jesus and seal that commitment with baptism, then it will make sense for them to share communion as a memorial of and participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus which they will then have been baptized into.

If any of you have two cents to throw in, please do, especially if your cents make sense of Scripture.

2 comments:

KaiCeder said...

It's interesting that you write this today. I was listening to a message today that talked about this a bit - albeit on a rabbit trail of thought - and so before I read this I followed the rabbit trail a bit further than the pastor intended and started wondering some of the same things that you write about here.

I think you make a very good reasoned arguement. Though I say that realizing an inch or so to the right or left of where you've landed would then tend to be legalism - in either direction.

My sister and her husband are Missouri Synod Lutherans and I was visiting their church one Sunday years ago. Twenty one years ago actually. Anyway, I went to take communion and my sister SLAPPED MY HAND! Apparently it was "closed communion" and because I was no longer Lutheran - didn't matter than I was baptized by their requirements, as a baby - because I had claimed to now be "born again" and was attending a Baptist church then, I was not welcome to communion. This, I think, illustrates my point about legalism.

P.S. I love these type of topics because I like to know why I do what I do and I'm not afraid of asking the questions. So bring on some more!

Uriel said...

Thanks Tammy, that's a surprising bit of serendipity. I think you're right about the precarious nature of the thing too, having looked into it some people get way too up in arms about niggling differences in communion/baptism.