Homeschooling Should Not Lead to Home Communing

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The editors are glad to offer to our readers this guest post by the Rev. Brian L. Kachelmeier, Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, Los Alamos, NM.

At one time, we were using social media to distance ourselves from each other in the home. Now, we are using the internet to connect with other homes during social distancing. We are stuck at home. We are told to stay away from the public gathering of the church. Nevertheless, we are connecting to online church services. Whether we are gathered at the table in our houses or at the altar of the church, we are joined in the mystical communion. At the altar or away from the altar, we are taught to pray and say, “This the day that Yahweh has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24). In these strange times, we have been given the opportunity to be creative and innovative in the proclamation of the Word of the Lord at our homes; however, we are not authorized to be imaginative and adventurous in the administration of the Lord’s Supper in our homes.

We are no longer in an ideal situation for receiving the Sacrament of the Altar. With new orders to stay-at-home handed down by the state, the people of God have found themselves in a strange “Lenten Exile” from the liturgical life around the Lord’s Table. Even though earthly governments are preventing the public gathering of the Church around the altar, the church continues to exist. The gates of hell shall not prevail; the Word of Lord endures forever. In every age, the Gospel has been proclaimed through speaking, preaching, and writing. Of course, the Gospel proclamation can and should be done on the internet making the most of visual and vocal means that have been made available to us. Of course, the Gospel proclamation can and should be done in the home.

However, let us be careful that the imagination of our hearts does not lead us into a new idolatry. Even though schools are being closed and homeschooling has become a reality for all students, the suspending of the Divine Service cannot result in home communing. The one thing that we cannot do in these awkward days is to become adventurous in the administration of the Lord’s Supper. We must not cause more chaos and dive into disorder regarding the receiving of Holy Communion. We must not encourage or engage in family communion services. We live in strange times. Let us be careful lest we start strange practices that are foreign to the church catholic. It is not wise to practice theological distancing from our rich heritage of Lutheran theologians.

In 1523, Martin Luther wrote a letter to the Hussites who had found themselves in an awkward situation. They were deceiving the pope with a false loyalty in order to obtain ordained pastors to provide the Lord’s Supper. Luther advised them to abstain from this deception and even the reception of the Eucharist. Luther writes,

…I would confidently advise that you have no ministers at all. For it would be safer and more wholesome for the father of the household to read the gospel and, since the universal custom and use allows it to the laity, to baptize those who are born in his home, and so to govern himself and his according to the doctrine of Christ, even if throughout life they did not dare or could not receive the Eucharist. For the Eucharist is not so necessary that salvation depends on it. The gospel and baptism are sufficient, since faith alone justifies and love alone lives rightly. Surely if in this way two, three, or ten homes, or a whole city, or several cities agreed thus among themselves to live in faith and love by the use of the gospel in the home, and even if no ordained man, shorn or anointed, ever came to them or in any other way was placed over them as minister to administer the Eucharist and other sacraments, Christ without a doubt would be in their midst and would own them as his church…(1)

Although the head of the household is responsible for the Biblical education of his home, he is not placed in the public office for the administrating of the public sacrament of Holy Communion. The sacrament of Baptism and the perpetual use of the Gospel in speaking and writing is sufficient for salvation. Furthermore, Luther compares the strange times of the Reformation to the days of the Babylonian Exile. Luther writes,

…The father in the home, on the other hand, can provide his own with the necessities through the Word and in pious humility do without the nonessentials as long as he is in captivity. In this regard we follow the custom and law of the Jewish captives who were not able to be in Jerusalem or to make offering there. Upheld in their faith alone by the Word of God they passed their lives among enemies while yearning for Jerusalem. So in this ease the head of the household suffering under the tyranny of the pope would act most appropriately and safely if while longing for the Eucharist, which he neither would dare nor could receive, in the meantime zealously and faithfully propagated faith in his home through the Word of God until God on high in his mercy either brought the captivity to an end or sent a true minister of the Word… (2)

Although our days are drastically different, we do have ordained pastors, but the state is telling us to stay away from each other. Nevertheless, the advice of Luther regarding the administration of the Eucharist can still be heeded during any emergency or exceptional circumstance. A 30-day stay-at-home order, or a six-month ban is nothing compared to 70 years in Babylon. When the Temple was destroyed, the people of God were not able to gather at the altar in Jerusalem. They were in exile. Yet, the Word of the Lord endures forever.

In 1536, Luther wrote specifically on the topic “Concerning House Communion.” In a letter addressed to Wofgang Brauer, Luther states,

…Kindly tell your dear sir and friend that he is not in duty bound to go ahead in this matter and give Holy Communion to himself and his household. Nor is this necessary since he is neither called nor commanded to do this. And if the tyrannical ministers will not administer it to him and his family, thought they should do it, yet he can be saved by his faith through the Word. It would also give great offence to administer the Sacrament here and there in the homes, and in the end no good would come of it, for there will be factions and sects, as now the people are strange and the devil is raging… …But if a father wishes to teach the Word of God to his family, that is right and should be done, for it is God’s command that we should teach and bring up our children and household; that is commanded to everyone. But the Sacrament [of the Altar] is a public confession and should be administered by public ministers…(3)

Again, note that Luther is clear here. There is no such thing as home communing. Holy Communion is a public sacrament to be administer by a man in the public office of preaching. In the household, the Word of the Lord is to be used for home schooling.

In C. F. W. Walther’s Pastoral Theology, he addresses the issue of a layman administering the Lord’s Supper by looking to the theologians of the church rather than setting up innovative ideas. He states,

The great majority of our theologians, Luther in the forefront, believe that the holy Supper should never be administered privately by one who is not in the public preaching office, by a layman. That is partly because no such necessity can occur with the holy Supper, as with Baptism and Absolution, that would justify a departure from God’s ordinance (1 Cor. 4:1; Rom. 10:15, Heb. 5:4); partly because the holy Supper “is a public confession and so should have a public minister”; partly because schisms can easily be brought about by such private Communion.” (4)

Walther goes on to quote Johann Gerhard, “…[W]e by no means approve of disorder in the church and ascribe to no one the power to administer the holy Supper except to him who has been legitimately called, not even in an emergency, since Baptism and the holy Supper are in a different relationship.” (5) Even if these strange times could be deemed an emergency or exceptional circumstances, we must not fail to remain diligent. We must not theologically distance ourselves from our dogmaticians.

In unison with the wisdom of Walther, we hear from Adolf Hoenecke who is the dogmatician of the Wisconsin Synod on par with Francis Pieper. In Hoenecke’s Evangelical Lutheran Dogmatics Volume IV he states in his sixth point about the Lord Supper as follows, “The administration (administration) of the Lord’s Supper is the responsibility of none but the ordained servants of the church.” Hoenecke goes on to say,

…According to the Scripture, in the regular course of events, the regularly called servants of the church are the administrators of the mysteries of God, and only in real emergency cases may lay people also administer them. According to Scripture, there is no such emergency case in regard to the Lord’s Supper as there is in regard to Baptism. Our dogmaticians, therefore, have decided that if a sick person desires the Lord’s Supper and a pastor cannot be reached, we should convince him that the spiritual partaking is enough for him and that more anxiety than comfort must come from partaking the Lord’s Supper that departs from the order of God…(6)

Based on our Lutheran theologians, since the time of the Augsburg Confession, we believe, teach, and confess that the Lord’s Supper should not be administered by a man who does not hold the office. Although a house father should lead his house in homeschooling, he should not steer his family into home communing. While we wait and innovative new ways to for the proclamation of the Word of the Lord from our homes; let us not fall into the temptation of becoming impatient and take the bait of having communion services in our homes.

Editors Note - A grammatical error was corrected after original publication in the 4th last paragraph.

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(1) LW40:9-10.

(2) LW 40:10.

(3) As quoted by C. F. W. Walther in Church and Ministry, CPH, 1987, p. 173 from Luther’s letter written to Wolfgang Brauer, 1536, St. Louis edition, 10:2225

(4) C. F. W. Walther, Walther’s Pastorale that is American Lutheran Pastoral Theology, trans. John M. Drickamer (New Haven, Missouri: Lutheran News, Inc., 1995), 134.

(5) Walther, Pastoral Theology, 135.

(6) ADOLF HOENECKE, Evangelical Lutheran Dogmatics Volume IV, trans. Joel Fredrich, Paul Prange, and Bill Tackmier (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Northwestern Publishing House, 1999), 140-141.