Jesus and the Eucharist 2

Brant Pitre has written a very informative and accessible book on the Jewish roots of the Eucharist and this is the second post in a series engaging Brant’s thought-provoking volume.

In the first chapter, “The Mystery of the Last Supper”, Brant discusses his primary goal to situate Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist in its historical setting in order to show that, in spite of its seeming incongruity with Jesus’ own Jewish tradition, his teaching on eating his flesh and drinking his blood (John 6) (Brant takes this passage eucharistically – more on that in ch. 4) was meant literally. Of his purpose he writes:

My goal is to explain how a first-century Jew like Jesus, Paul, or any other of the apostles, could go from believing that drinking any blood—much less human blood—was an abomination before God, to believing that drinking the blood of Jesus was actually necessary for Christians” (18).

Brant wants to take his reader on a journey back to the first-century world of Jesus and the first Jewish believers in Jesus to help us “see things” as they saw them. Brant believes when we use an informed imagination “we will discover that there is much more in common between ancient Judaism and early Christianity”. In the end, Brant will attempt to show that a Catholic view of the Eucharist (Transubstantiation) is consistent with Jesus’ teaching in their first-century Jewish setting.

There are two points of reflection that I wish to make. First, I am not Catholic. I have never believed in Transubstantiation and still don’t. My own view of the Eucharist is probably somewhere between Zwingli and Calvin. Nevertheless there is a great deal to be gained from reading Brant’s engagement with ancient Judaism and the Gospels both on the question of the Eucharist, but also a proper approach to reading the canonical Jesus in his context. Brant has given me a newfound appreciation for the Catholic doctrine. Reading his book I’ve come to see a biblical foundation for the view and while I am not convinced—this is a whole other issue related to conversion for to be convinced would mean a need to convert to Catholicism—on exegetical grounds, I now better understand and respect the view.

Second, in light of my previous post about Love Wins and the question Rob Bell raised about Jesus’ purpose and the meaning of the Jesus story, I think Brant’s discussion of Jesus humanity is instructive. He states,

For anyone interested in exploring the humanity of Jesus—especially the original meaning of his words and actions—a focus on his Jewish identity is absolutely necessary. Jesus was a historical figure, living in a particular time and place. Therefore, any attempt to understand his words and deeds must reckon with the fact that Jesus lived in an ancient Jewish context . . . this means that virtually all of his teachings were directed to a Jewish audience in a Jewish setting (12).

If this is the case, then it seems overly reductionistic to narrow the meaning of Jesus’ story to “love of God for every single one of us”. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so” is no doubt true, but a childish (I don’t mean this negatively) abbreviation of the Gospel. Jesus did not present his mission or his message in these terms. Brant points to Jesus’ announcement of his mission and message in Luke 4 to show just how Jewish Jesus’ framework was. Here in his hometown as Jesus began to reveal his identity as Messiah he appealed to the Jewish Scriptures, Isaiah 61:1-4 particularly) and announced that the “anointed one” is here. “Jesus proclaimed to his fellow Jews that their long-held hope for the coming of the Messiah had been fulfilled—in him” (12-13).

Horton on Reformed View of the Eucharist

I've enjoyed reading Michael Horton's People and Place and particularly interesting was the chapter on Eurcharist (amazing still to see a conservative Reformed theologian even call it "Eucharist"). Horton wants to avoid the errors of transforming the sign into the signified (Rome) or completely separating the sign from the signified (Zwingli). Horton, pretty much piggy backing Calvin the whole way, asserts that the spiritual presence of Christ is not spatial nor imaginary, but relational and eschatological. The earthly sign has a heavenly reality and the supper if a fissure in the present age that has been opened up by the Spirit for our semirealized participation in the consummation. Horton detects in Calvin's eucharistic theology something of Patristic writings of the East whereby the Spirit communicates the energies of Christ's life-giving flesh in the sacrament. Horton qualifies that by saying that the East's category of energies is better translated into the covenantal idiom of the worksings of God, specifically, the redemptive speech-act of Father in the Son by the Spirit. While the person of Christ cannot be communicated through the sacament, the workings of Christ can be. Horton states: "It is through the working of God through Word and sacrament, received in faith, that the Spirit clothes us with Christ inwardly in this age and outwardly adorns us with righteousness, beauty, glory, and immortality in the age to come. Once more we recognize the point ... the emphasis on the sacraments as mediating God's presence-in-action rather than naked manifestation." Finally, Horton quotes B.A. Berrish about how Calvin's eucharistic theology has been received in the Reformed churches:

'Calvin's eucharistic piety has repeatedly been lost, or at least curtailed, in the churches that officially claim him as their Reformer but in fact have moved closer in their sacramental theology to the Zwinglian view, which Calvin rejected as "profane." it has even become commonplace to make a sharp distinction between "evangelical" and "sacramental" piety. The distinction, as such, could hardly find support in Calvin, for whom the Supper attested a communion with Christ's body and blood that is given precisely by the gospel.'

It's the best non-NT book I've read for a while!

Separation of the Agape and the Eucharist

Darrell Pursiful has a follow-up post to why the eucharist was separated from the agape meal. Great stuff, do read it!

How did we get from Agape to Eucharist?

Darrell Pursiful has an interesting blog post on The Earliest Liturgy: Development and relates to the subject of how eucharistic meals got separated from an agape meal in the early church. I am intrigued as to when, where, and why it happened and whether the separation was a good thing in terms of theology and community.