Among the theological questions before the 217th General Assembly will be those in the draft Pastoral letter and list of five sacramental practices recommended by the Sacraments Study Group for a two-year period of discernment in congregations.
This group was convened by the General Assembly Office of Theology and Worship to address several referrals from previous assemblies having to do with the formula of invitation to the Lord’s Supper. Most of these overtures suggested ways of altering the language used in the invitation so that explicit mention of baptism as a requirement for admission to the table would be removed. Apparently, in many congregations, such references to the requirement of prior baptism were seen as barriers to outreach and the welcoming of newcomers to the church.
Three years of study and careful committee deliberation went into the creation of the report and its supplemental theological reflections. The group returns to the 217th Assembly with a clear consensus that, at least for now, it would be unwise to move too quickly in the direction of uncoupling baptism and the Lord’s Supper, as these earlier overtures seemed to want to do. The pattern of accepting people into membership in the Body of Christ through baptism and then nurturing their faith at the table of the Lord in the Eucharist is so much the ecumenical norm in the church that we would be locating ourselves recklessly outside the boundaries of recognized Christian practices were we to do this. Moreover, the group argues that the very motives that prompted the original overtures–a concern for evangelism, welcoming newcomers, inclusiveness, sensitivity to people’s feeling of belonging or not belonging to the congregation–are better served by “a season of renewed sacramental practice.”
The sacraments, according to the group’s rationale, are not just “smells and bells.” They are God-given means of grace that can “strengthen the church’s ministries of evangelism and hospitality … bring into clear focus the gospel’s call to ministries of compassion and justice … [and] enable us to live together with our differences and enjoy the unity that is Christ’s gift to his church.”
The five practices that the committee recommends are concrete. First, set the baptismal font in full view of the congregation. Second, open the font and fill it with water on every Lord’s Day. Third, set the cup and plate on the Lord’s Table on every Lord’s Day. Fourth, lead appropriate portions of weekly worship from the baptismal font and from the table. And fifth, increase the number of Sundays on which the Lord’s Supper is celebrated.
For each of the practices, the study suggests how it could be creatively enacted. For example, on the second recommendation they suggest that water should be present in the font all the time, and that pouring of water in the font could be part of worship on a regular basis, with the caveat that “it is important to help the one pouring understand the baptismal meanings evoked in this grace-filled act.”
There is much in this report and its recommendations that should fill the heart of a true Calvinist with joy: especially the forthright claim it makes, first, that God has provided regular and ordinary means of grace in Word and sacraments, which are available at all times to God’s people if they will avail themselves of them; and second, that these means of grace are powerful. John Calvin thought there should never be a service of the Word without the Lord’s Supper, and the reason for that was simple: the two confirm each other and God gave us both because we need both for the life of Christ to be formed in us. Communities formed by Word and sacraments are not communities that stay static or remain unchanged; that is impossible.
The Sacraments Study Group is also right, in my opinion, to urge the Assembly to be cautious of separating the requirement of prior baptism from participation in the Lord’s Supper. It is not only for ecumenical relations that we should be cautious on that, but also for what we are doing in our sacraments. If Baptism is the sign of adoption into the family of God and incorporation into the Body of Christ, it does certainly seem to be necessary as a prior event in order for one to be fed as a child in God’s family or strengthened in union with others in the Body. The meaning of sacraments themselves seems to fall apart if we fail to observe such matters. But in the theological reflection papers, the group rightly shows flexibility on this point for the sake of hospitality and evangelism. We never want to turn someone away who would come to be fed at the Lord’s Table. We should simply look for our opportunities to incorporate newcomers into the regular sacramental life of the church, including baptism if that has not yet occurred for some reason.
My concern about the report and its recommendations is that it does not go deeply enough into some of the matters that cause us to have a diminished and impoverished sacramental life in so many of our congregations.
First, it’s surprising that a study group devoted to sacraments didn’t write a bit about what is a sacrament. The “theological” reflections jump straight from Old Testament and New Testament exegesis to historical theology and then a short section on theology and sacraments that tries to relate sacramental theology to other systematic rubrics like Trinity, Incarnation, Creation, Covenant, and Eschatology. There is not a tight, substantive discussion of what sacraments are, how they work, what they do for us in general–a theory of sacraments, as you have in Calvin’s Institutes IV.14. That’s too bad because we live in a world that is out of touch with the whole concept of “means” of grace. For many churchgoers, there seems to be little difference between the Lord’s Supper and the coffee hour, except that one occasionally takes place in the context of worship.
Second, I applaud the effort to strengthen consciousness of the importance of baptism, but I’m a little skeptical about recommendation two. What is water poured in the font without a baptism? According to my understanding of Reformed sacramental theology, it is just water. Liturgical actions with this water would have no sacramental meaning or significance. This seems to be straining after a practice that would go together better with a different general theory of sacraments than we have in the Reformed tradition–specifically with the Roman Catholic view. According to their understanding, it is a natural thing to keep consecrated baptismal water in a font at the back of the church, and it is a wonderful pious practice of our Catholic brothers and sisters to dip their fingers in this water and mark their foreheads with the sign of the cross on entering any Catholic church, hence remembering their baptism. But for us Reformed Christians, the presence of Christ is in the action of the sacrament. Consecrated water does not have any special properties about it, nor does water that is not being used in the context of a sacrament have anything sacramental about it.
The clue, I think, is in one of the theological reflection papers where the committee talked about Calvin’s practice of infant baptism in Geneva. They state: “For Calvin, there is a unity of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Catechesis, the church’s teaching of baptized children, leads directly from baptism to communion. This can be seen as a journey to the Lord’s Table from the actual waters of baptism or from the baptismal vows professed at confirmation; either way, the relationship of the two sacraments is affirmed.”
I think it would be a much more powerful and profound tool of transformation in our churches if we would take seriously once again the charge of the church to form children in the faith. In the Reformed tradition, the entire congregation participates in every infant Baptism, and it pledges itself to nurture the baptized children in the faith. And this holds true for the later rite of Confirmation as well. Baptism involves dying and rising, putting off the old ways of sin and putting on the new righteousness of faith.
Confirmation for us is not a sacrament, but is a rite that completes infant baptism, and it is something that should be going on at all times in the church. And the preparation for confirmation starts at the baptismal font and goes through every level of the church’s educational programs and its worship life. In this sense, baptism is woven into our life as a constant obligation that we dare not lose sight of if we hope that our children will come to know and love the Lord.
Dawn DeVries is the John Newton Thomas Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va. Her latest book is Jesus Christ in the Preaching of Calvin and Schleiermacher.
