WORD AND SACRAMENT

1. WORD AND SACRAMENT CALVIN AND BARTH “THE HOLY BANQUET”

2. CHRISTIANITY AS SACRAMENTAL • A SACRAMENT MAKES THE WORD CONCRETE John 1:14 • CREATION & REDEMPTION • INCARNATION, CROSS AND RESURRECTION • THE “BODY OF CHRIST” • THE BODY: HUMAN SEXUALITY • SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/ JUSTICE

3. THE EUCHARISTA SOURCE OF CONFLICT • ZWINGLI • LUTHER • BUCER • CALVIN • TRENT

4. CALVIN AND THE ANABAPTISTS • The debate about baptism • The covenant of grace • The response of faith & discipleship • Discipline and the third use of the law

5. ZWINGLI • The Eucharist was a replica of the Supper shared by the disciples with their Lord on the night before he was crucified. He was present, not in the way he had been then, but through his Spirit, and became known yet again through the “breaking of the bread.”

6. THE HOLY BANQUET • BUCER’S INFLUENCE ON CALVIN • CALVIN’S GENEVAN LITURGY • ALWAYS WORD AND SACRAMENT • CALVIN’S EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGY

7. CALVIN “We loudly proclaim the communion of flesh and blood, which is exhibited to believers in the Supper; and we distinctly show that that flesh is truly meat, and that blood truly drink – that the soul not contented with an imaginary conception enjoys them in very truth. That presence of Christ, by which we are ingrafted in him, we by no means exclude from the Supper, nor shroud in darkness, though we hold that there must be no local limitation, that the glorious body of Christ must not be degraded to earthly elements; that there must be no fiction of transubstantiating the bread into Christ, and afterward worshipping it as Christ. “

8. THE REAL PRESENCE • The critical issue for all, whether Catholic, Lutheran, Zwinglian or Calvinist, was how we understand the presence of Christ in the Eucharist specifically in relation to the consecrated bread and wine. • Calvin believed that Zwingli had rightly objected to the idea that the Mass was a means of salvation and the danger of superstition. Zwingli was correct in gong back to the New Testament and early church practice in reforming the Eucharist as a real meal or what he called a “holy banquet.” • “The trouble was, in Calvin’s eyes, that Zwingli reduced the sacraments to acts by which we attest our faith, whereas they are first and foremost acts of God to strengthen our faith.” The Eucharist, along with Baptism, is a sacrament, and as such a means of grace not just a confession of faith. • In eating the bread and drinking the wine we receive the “body and blood of Christ” which was offered once-for-all on the cross. For Zwingli this was unacceptable, largely because for him the bodily presence could never be confused with the spiritual presence of Christ. • The Spirit and faith

9. A MYSTERY • Thus we draw life from his flesh and blood, so that they are not undeservedly called our “food.” How it happens, I confess, is far above the measure of my intelligence. Hence I adore the mystery rather than labour to understand it. John Calvin In a letter to the reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli, * August 1555,

10. REACTIONS TO CALVIN Many later Calvinists thought Calvin’s language was far too close to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass and preferred Zwingli’s position. But neither the Lutherans nor the Catholics felt that Calvin’s position was adequate. At stake was the objectivity of Christ’s presence in the bread and wine. For Calvin this came about not through priestly action, but solely through the Word of promise and the action of the Spirit awakening faith in the believer to whom the bread and wine thereby became the body and blood of Christ.

11. GRACE and GRATITUDE • Eucharist as means of grace • The response of gratitude/responsibility The living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2) • Christian/congregational formation • In the image of the incarnate, crucified and risen Christ (Bonhoeffer)

12. CHRISTIAN LITURGY • A common life of prayer, scripture reading and teaching, breaking bread together. (cf. Acts 2:42; Romans 12:1-2) • Remembering , celebrating, anticipating • A prelude to and preparation for mission

13. The structure of the liturgy • THE SYNAGOGUE AND THE UPPER ROOM • THE LITURGY OF THE WORD • THE LITURGY OF THE SUPPER • MISSION

14. CALVIN’S GENEVAN LITURGY • The basic structure and some elements of the Mass were retained in simplified form, • The congregation was not made up of observers watching the Mass but a community actively engaged in the service through appropriate responses and psalm singing. • The preaching of the Word was sacramental, that is, a means of grace • The celebration of the Lord’s Supper was equally important because it had been instituted by Jesus himself.

15. Calvin writes:“the Communion of the Holy Supper of Jesus Christ” should, “as a rule” be held “every Sunday”. He continues: “it was not instituted by Jesus for making a commemoration two or three times a year, but for a frequent exercise of our faith and charity, of which the congregation of Christians should make use as often as they be assembled…” Articles Concerning the Organization of the Church and of Worship at Geneva (1537)

16. BARTH ON THE EUCHARIST • Reformed churches no “longer even realise that a service without sacraments is one which is outwardly incomplete. As a rule we hold such outwardly incomplete services as if it were perfectly natural to do so.” • “Why do the numerous movements and attempts to bring the liturgy of the Reformed church up to date … prove without exception so unfruitful? Is it not just because they do not fix their attention on this fundamental defect, the incompleteness of our usual service, i.e. the lack of sacraments?”

17. A EUCHARISTIC COMMUNITY • It is a fact that in remarkable and instructive tension with the spiritual and even otherworldly character of Calvin’s Christianity his community in its original conception is so expressly a eucharistic community. Karl Barth

18. LITURGICAL RENEWAL • The renewal of Reformed worship will not come about by an uncritical borrowing of liturgical elements from other traditions. • The Reformed tradition has a liturgical integrity that is worth affirming both for our own sake and for the sake of enriching the ecumenical church as a whole. • The liturgy it is primarily God who acts in Word and Sacrament, and we who respond in faith, thanksgiving and mission. • But there is no reason we should not learn from other liturgical traditions and practices within the framework of what we regard as important.

19. CONTEXTUAL LITURGY • The Reformed tradition has always recognised the importance of the historical context within which the church exists. • There is a particular need for the churches of the Reformed tradition within the South African contextto recognise that the renewal of liturgical life cannot be considered apart from our multi-cultural diversity • An opportunity for liturgical renewal, and a challenge to recognise that such renewal is not unrelated to the struggles for justice and reconciliation in the world.

20. LITURGY & AESTHETICS • The awakening of an aesthetic sensibility within the church which is able to appreciate form texture and colour, to appreciate beauty with all our, senses • “The artistic impoverishment and aesthetic starkness of Reformed liturgy is a natural consequence” of the separation of the Word from the Sacrament. • “By contrast,” where proclamation is not allowed to overwhelm the liturgy, where the dimension of worship is given its rightful place, there the richness of life will put in its appearance. There colour and gesture and movement and peace and sound will enter in as vehicles of praise and gratitude.Wolterstorff