Who Communes the Celebrant?
Bishop Vsevolod Lytkin of the Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church, St. Andrew’s, Novosibirsk
There was a recent dust-up online (imagine that!) involving the question of who should commune the pastor during the Sunday Divine Service.
One of the participants in the discussion, a young pastor, recently made a change to his congregation’s practice whereby he would leave the chancel and kneel with his wife and children at the rail to be communed by a lay elder.
Obviously, Scripture doesn’t lay out the rubrics of the distribution. That said, we do have a traditional and ancient practice that reflects both our biblical desire for an orderly distribution as well as a properly focused reverence on Christ that reflects the vocation of both clergy and laity.
The Lutheran Service Book (LSB) Altar Book rubrics (p. 168) give clear direction to the celebrant:
The Pastor and those who assist him receive the body and blood of Christ first, the presiding minister communing himself and his assistants. Then they distribute the body and blood to those who come to receive.
These instructions reflect our Lutheran Confessions, namely Augustana 24:37-40:
And it appears from the ancient Canons that some one celebrated the Mass from whom all the other presbyters and deacons received the body of the Lord; for thus the words of the Nicene Canon say: “Let the deacons, according to their order, receive the Holy Communion after the presbyters, from the bishop or from a presbyter”…. Forasmuch as the Mass with us has the example of the Church, taken from Scripture and the Fathers, we are confident that it cannot be disapproved, especially since public ceremonies, for the most part like those hitherto in use, are retained.”
As the Rev. Larry Peters wrote in his excellent piece on “The Pastor’s Self-Communion”,
Luther is quite clear. Luther’s rubric from the Formula Missae, 1523. He writes, “Then, while the Agnus Dei is sung, let him [the pastor] communicate, first himself and then the people.” (AE 53.29) Luther’s Deutche Messe, 1526, makes no change in this order at all.”
And so, there is a continuum of practice from the ancient church, through the Reformation, to the present liturgical rubrics of the LCMS.
I gave a few thoughts on this issue:
Our received tradition - where the celebrant communes himself, then his assistants, and then they in turn together commune the laity - is not only our Lutheran received tradition from the BOC, the BOC itself is citing the earlier tradition from the Nicene Canons.
Even if we don’t know why things were done this way, it’s impossible to read the Augsburg Confession and conclude that Lutheranism is just doing whatever gives us a Chris Matthews leg tingle.
We change liturgical practice very conservatively, and only for solid theological and pastoral reasons - and we avoid Lone Rangerism. The approach of Lutheranism (the Conservative Reformation, thank you Dr. Krauth!) is that of Chesterton’s Fence. If we don’t know why it was put up, we don’t just mindlessly tear it down. That is why “we do not abolish the Mass, but religiously keep and defend it” (Ap 24:1). And yes, that is descriptive - it describes Lutheran practice. Abolition of the Mass describes a practice at odds with our confession, something that our confessions deny and repudiate (and so do we by our subscriptions and vows!).
This is crystal clear if you take up the Augsburg Confession and read it through in one reading. The premise of the confession is “We are not heretics. We are Catholic Christians, and here’s why.” The document points to both our doctrine and our practice, and overwhelmingly points to our continuity throughout the history of the Church Catholic. This is especially apparent in Article 24 (which makes a lot of our guys uncomfortable, to the point of finding clever ways to tear it out - it is no longer ‘binding’ or it is ‘descriptive’ or some such). There are indeed confessional and liturgical progressives who view the BOC as a ‘living document.’
Liturgically and theologically, according to scripture, the pastor is the steward of the mysteries. He is the one who vocationally gives the gifts and feeds the lambs. The shepherd feeds the sheep. He doesn’t make the sheep feed him. The pastor is the father, not the child. We Americans are essentially Quakers - we hate hierarchy and we do whatever we can to pretend that God did not create hierarchical order in both kingdoms.
The celebrant receives first, and then gives what he has first received. This has been the universal Christian practice since the 4th century, and most likely, much longer than that.
Who communed the First Celebrant of the first Divine Service? Did Jesus have one of the disciples commune Him? The celebrant speaks for Christ. When he says “This is My body,” it is not the celebrant’s body. He stands in for Jesus by His authority. Though we are unworthy, we pastors speak for Christ by virtue of our office as called and ordained servants of the Word.
We are not just one more member of the congregation. We need to be comfortable in our office. It is fitting to be personally humble, but we should never humble the Office itself.
The fact that our Lutheran fathers received this tradition and did not abolish it speaks volumes. It is nothing more than arrogant hubris to break from that tradition. Of course, we think that because we all have iPhones that we are smarter than our fathers. We think that a 26 year old kid who just graduated seminary is in a position to repudiate the wisdom of nearly two millennia of pastors serving at the holy altar.
But I fully recognize that we are the Burger King synod where we can all “hold the pickle, hold the lettuce.” We have everything on Sunday morning in our synod from Article 24 Mass to rock and roll and dancing girls.
Fortunately, we can find out ahead of time whether a particular congregation has abolished the Mass or not. Discovering what quirks and goofiness a particular congregation or pastor engages in is a little more difficult, and can often only be discovered by attending and walking out if necessary.
As a pastor, if I’m traveling with my family, and there isn’t an acceptable parish nearby, I can commune my family myself. I feel bad for lay people who are stuck without that option.