nigel scotland wrote a piece the eucharist re-examined that someone forwarded on to me [update: broken link]. in it he explores the eucharist/communion in the context of fresh expressions of church. it is encouraging this piece was published in the church of england newspaper. i really welcome discussion around this whatever direction or perspective people bring and indeed whatever direction their community then takes it. it’s one area of church practice that should be celebratory and freeing but is too tightly controlled and straight jacketed and stuck. i recently read an article on the eucharist in a dictionary of liturgy and worship that pointed out that scholarship is pretty much agreed that improvisation was the norm for the first 400 years and that there is very little evidence to suggest that the words of institution were in eucahristic prayers. so driving to the heart of the tradition might uncover the possibility for a new faithful improvisational practice and a relaxing of what we consider to be sacrosanct! i hope to give more thought to this at some point but as you can probably tell from the lack of decent blog posts – never enough time! as nigel says…
A re-examination and fresh expression of our Eucharistic practice may enable these wonderful blessings to become an increasing reality in our lives.
I’ve just read this article and really don’t like it! And this quote sums up why:
‘People who drop into their local parish church the Sunday following a family bereavement or a positive experience at an Alpha course are not going to feel comfortable and at ease if they enter a cold and lofty building and then encounter clergy dressed like wizards or members of the Ku Klux Klan sitting in big seats a the front.’
My feeling with the article is that it is using FX as a tool to push a particular Eucharistic agenda and my fear with that is that FX looses all credibility in a more catholic context. FX needs to appeal to the breadth not a narrow partisan agenda. In this quote he polarises that Alpha is great and Robes are bad…isn’t that an argument that we’ve had many many times before and it many many guises. Let’s move on…
I would agree that the Eucharist needs re-examining, but this isn’t a re-examing its throwing that preverbial baby out with the bathwater.
i agree this is a slightly comical piece, a caricature, which is in some ways unfortunate. i wasn’t linking to it to say i think alpha good and robes bad by any means. i think both can be good or bad depending on context and community. (i think some people do have precisely the reaction to robes and building that he suggests though.)
the point of putting this link up was meant to be a reminder that there are some very different takes on the tradition out there.
Breaking bread is something that we try to do fairly regularly in meetings in our home – often after a shared meal. Of course we do break bread in whole church gatherings too.
I have also been to and enjoyed communion in many other settings. Once at an Orthodox church though not permitted to actually take part as not an Orthodox believer it was amazing to see.
But I feel most comfortable with breaking bread in homes and glad that is my regular experience.