The Discipline of the Church

There was a good deal of interesting discussion in response to a previous post about Discipline and the Lord's Supper. There, I suggested that I didn't think refusing communion to people was a particularly helpful method of discipline. In the light of the discussion, further things need to be said.

1. Church discipline is important. The church is a holy community, and a little bit of yeast leavens the whole batch. Christ, our paschal lamb, has already been sacrificed, and so our life now, which Paul portrays as "celebrating the feast," needs to be lived in sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 5:6-8). As a result, it is crucial that the church be able to judge its members (1 Cor. 5:12).

2. But this rings immediate alarm bells. What about Matthew 7:1-5? First and foremost, the church is a community where judgement is supended, where sins are forgiven, where people are bourne with! How can you say we must judge? This is a crucial corrective. There is to be no arrogant judging of the kind that neglects planks in eyes. The church must be humble; it must be a place of grace, forgiveness, and patient welcome.

3. Yet this doesn't mean no judgement. Jesus himself concludes this section with "then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbours eye." The difference is the tone and the aim. Right judgement and rebuke within the church, showing my sister her fault, aims at restoration; wrong judgement aims at triumphalism and pride. Our aim must be to "regain" our brother (Matt. 18:15).

4. This kind of judgement is the judgement done "in a spirit of gentleness" (Gal. 6:1). This kind of correction is not arrogant, but humble, aware of the possibility of our own failure (Gal. 6:1-5), and seeking only the good of the other. In this kind of restoring work I aim to "bear others burdens," while respecting the fact that "each must carry his own load," and so look first to my own faults.

5. Yet, this attempt to restore may fail. In order for the church's purity and character to be preserved, there must come a time when a line has to be drawn (Matt. 18:17; 1 Cor. 5:1-5, 13). Crucially, this line is drawn not by any one individual, but by the whole community. How is it to be drawn? In the New Testament context it seems to have had to do with association (1 Cor. 5:11; 2 Jn 7-11). The danger is not simply immorality, but hypocrisy: bearing the name of a brother or sister whilst living immorally is so serious that Paul will say "Do not even eat with such a one."

6. Once this line is crossed, it seems right to me that the excluded person should be denied the Lord's Supper. But in the Corinthian context it also seems that the community's judgement would by this point have been so clear that this would not even be a possibility.

7. This creates all sorts of difficulties in pastoral practice. I know from my little experience in pastoral ministry that things are never clear, always complicated, and frequently hard. Yet I also believe firmly that if the church is to be faithful, it needs to take this word seriously: its holiness matters. Hopefully, its spirit of gentleness and love will be so compelling that the line only needs to be mentioned, rarely drawn.

Discipline and the Lord's Supper - Some thoughts

As mentioned previously, I found recent discussion about exclusion from the Lord's Supper as a means of discipline very interesting. Recently, my church heard a series of sermons on the Sacraments (available here) which provoked a lot of thought.

My biggest surprise was in reading again what Paul says of communion in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11. In particular, Paul's words at the end of chapter 11:

"Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world."

Several things are interesting here.

1. This is a warning to Christians. This is a warning about the way Christians should share the Lord's Supper together. If there is a message for unbelievers here, it is by implication only.
2. Unworthy eating and drinking leads to judgement; but this judgement is not the judgement of condemnation. Rather it is discipline, sometimes in the form of sickness or physical death, "so that we may not be condemned!"
3. Unworthy eating and drinking is about sharing communion "without discerning the body," which the context helps us see has to do with care for fellow brothers and sisters (see vv.17-22). It does not mean "taking communion while there is sin in your life."
   

It seems to me that (a) there is no clear message here about whether or not unbelievers should receive communion; and (b) there is no clear word here about when or if someone should be denied communion because of sin in their life. To be sure, there is a link between sin and "discerning the body": failing to discern the body is a particular sin. Yet we cannot view "unworthy eating" as eating when there is sin in your life. This is not what Paul is talking about, and if we're honest, who could then eat in a worthy manner?

What about 1 Corinthians 10? Do we get anywhere there?

The key point in this passage (esp. vv.14-22) is that sharing in the Lord's Supper is something. It is not that the bread or wine is anything in itself (see v.19), but drinking the cup and partaking of the table is a sharing in the body and blood of Christ. The act is something, something that means it cannot go along with partaking of the table of demons. "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons... Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?"

There is a clear assumption here and in chapter 11 that it is Christians who share in the Lord's Supper. However, it seems to me that the question of whether unbelievers might share communion is simply not addressed. To be sure, there will be consequences if they are simultaneously partaking of the table of the Lord and the table of demons, or if they are not discerning the body. Yet for the unbeliever, who comes in ignorance, can we really assume these consequences will be negative?

Likewise it appears to me that the question of sin and discipline and exclusion from communion is more complicated than we might have thought. There seems to be no indication whatsoever that there should be any judgement done other than self judgement (11:31). Have we made a mistake in linking sharing in communion too closely with church membership, so that to "expel the immoral brother" (5:13), we have to exclude them from the Lord's Supper and so, perhaps, deny its basic character as a meal of grace?