An open letter to all LCMS pastors whose congregations are still using disposable plastic communion cups.

What? You’re still using disposable shot glasses? After how many years? I understand if you haven’t been at your parish very long, you’re still getting your bearings, etc. But listen, guy, there has to be a clear notion in your head, it seems to me, that at some point very soon these abominable things have got to go.

Here’s why: you are using these little plastic cups that you’d never dream of using even if it were just for the serving of drinks at a dinner party, to be containers for the blood of Christ. That’s what we mean by “real presence,” right? Since Jesus said “is,” we believe that what is in the cup is the blood of Christ. Not a symbol, not a representation, not even a vehicle that links us somehow mysteriously with Jesus’ atoning blood. Is. It is his blood. “In, with, and under” says the same thing, really, especially under, as in, ‘under the form of’. We don’t abide by the transubstantiation sophistries of Rome, but we certainly do agree with them that this is not just plain wine anymore. It is, as Jesus said, his blood. Really and truly.

And spare me your receptionist nonsense too. By some weird calculus some rationalize that only what is actually consumed is Jesus’ blood, because that’s all he intended it to be for. But notwithstanding his intentions about it, that’s not what he actually said about what it is. He took the cup, blessed it, and said of it—the contents in the cup at the moment he said this—that it’s his blood. And you’re going to tell me that what he really meant to consecrate were only those molecules in that cup that actually ended up getting consumed? So his words don’t really apply to anything left over, or even to anything in the cup that he knew would be left over? That’s a worse kind of linguistic contortion than any Calvinist ever dreamt of. Honestly.

So you’ve been putting up with disposable, plastic shot glasses for how many years? And letting the altar guild just pitch them in the trash with remaining drops in them? Just think about it, will you? What are those remaining drops? Can you abide their willful disposal in the trash? Or down the drain? Brother, if this pricks your conscience, it should. Get busy about this already.

Why not tell your altar guild from the start that if anyone doesn’t have the time or the inclination to wash communion vessels properly that you’ll gladly do it yourself. And by the way, the altar guild should have been the very first society within the congregation you determined to spend time with. Well, better late than never, I say.

And for heaven’s sake get rid of those abominations. And next, you can start moving toward the elimination even of glass individual cups. Your goal should be to return as soon as you can to the use the chalice for the most precious substance on earth: the holy, precious blood of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for you to drink.