Another important consideration when trying to avoid any implication that Holy Communion somehow re-enacts Christ’s sacrifice is the way we treat the bread and wine before the consecration. Lifting them up in a gesture suggestive of offering is clearly misleading, but so is bringing them to the priest along with the congregation’s alms in triumphant procession. The elements should not be treated as something that either the congregation or the priest offers. Colin Buchanan wrote a Grove booklet on this some years ago, The End of the Offertory: an Anglican Study, in which he argued that the preparation of the elements is not part of Christ’s institution, and it does not matter when or how they are put on the table. ‘They do not need to be carried about by lay people, as there is no theological mileage in this. If the “specialised wafer” and vino sacro are being used, then it is actually misleading to pretend that they have been contributed by the congregation in the way that alms have.’ In a large part of Anglican history the elements were on the table before the service started, and the bread was uncovered, and the wine poured into the cup, without ceremony immediately before the consecration began.
Unfortunately, many congregations have been taught that a procession with alms and elements symbolises lay participation in the liturgy, or gives them their proper role in the liturgy. Buchanan has particularly strong words about this: ‘Fancy a dud procession with two, four or even six silent laymen carrying materials which do not need to be carried, and fancy it all being over in 45 seconds, and our calling that the ‘layman’s liturgy’! How could we have ever been so blind?’ It will take a great deal of patient and persistent teaching to get such a congregation to understand the need for this to change, but this is the work that faces Evangelicals in today’s Episcopal Church.
The use of special prayers or gestures relating to the elements at the preparation, such as the Roman ‘through your goodness we have this bread to offer’ etc is especially unfortunate liturgically, Buchanan argues, since they amount to a thanksgiving over the elements, which is all that the prayer of consecration actually is. The use of such prayers renders the ‘great thanksgiving’ superfluous.
Concerning re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice, Bishop Hoadley’s words are worth remembering: ‘the Lord’s Supper was not instituted as a Stage-Play, to act over our Saviour’s death (which is an unworthy thought), but as a Rite, for the remembrance of his death once past and not to be repeated’ (A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper [1735] p 55).
Still an Evangelical in the Episcopal Church 
November 29, 2011 at 7:40 am
Thanks for this, Phil. I would say that I think the argument against an initial offertory elevation of the bread and wine, along with the other gifts (generally money, though I suppose including the occasional goat or tithe of the harvest) isn’t completely persuasive so far. “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” A material representation of the offering of “our selves, our souls and bodies.” I do find more convincing, though, the suggestion that elevation and/or genuflection at the Words of Institution or at the end of the Great Prayer could be construed as implying a re-offering of the “one oblation of himself, once offered.” Shifting the devotional spotlight, as it were, from the Sacrifice of the Cross to the Sacrifice of the Mass. Continuing the natural inclination to think that it’s about us, not about him.
Bruce Robison
November 29, 2011 at 8:49 am
In case I didn’t make that clear, Buchanan doesn’t seem to be against an offering of money or even its ceremonial peformance with the words of I Chronicles 29. He argues that the offering of alms is a genuine offering, whereas bringing the elements to the table is not, and to put it in that context is to muddy the waters both concerning the elements and the alms. He argues that even when bread has been baked by a parishioner, it ought not to be thought of as an offering in the same sense that the alms are: ‘it is as God’s creation, part of his created order, that we use the elements. It is that which we are to acknowledge in the Thanksgiving. To emphasise our provision of them is to distort the simplicity of the central concept in the sacraments—that God affirms and uses his created order as a means of his grace’.
‘Simplicity’ is the key to so much evangelical thinking on liturgy: we want what we do to be crystal clear, unmistakable in meaning, even, if possible, to those present for the first time with no previous experience. We look for the liturgical equivalent of words of one syllable.
December 5, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Dr. Simon Jones, in his introduction to the 2005 edition of Dom Gregory Dix’s 1945 _Shape of the Liturgy_, quotes Michael Ramsey as critical of “the offertory procession as “shallow and romantic pelagianism’.” Dix had written an essay in Gabriel Hebert’s “The Parish Communion” saying “The Offertory is, then, the most striking expression of that common priesthood which is shared by the laity, whereas singly and collectively they offer to God a real sacrifice of ‘themselves, their souls and bodies’ to become the Body of His Son.” –Ramsey is said to have feared (partly from comments others made) that “sacrificial language and imagery associated with the offertory and the post-communion (would be) disconnected from the one sacrifice of Christ.” (p. xxi)
November 29, 2011 at 3:32 pm
I think the 1662 and 1928 BCPs specify that the elements should be on a side table until the Communion, at which point the priest is instructed to place upon the Table so much as is necessary for the celebration. I’m not sure how that compares with the 1979 rubrics, though. In my parish, the presentation of the alms is practiced but I think it falls more under the “lay participation” line of thinking.
November 30, 2011 at 8:40 am
The 1662 (the first Prayer Book to specify) does say the priest should place them on the table just before the prayer of consecration, but I couldn’t find anything saying where they should be before that. I can’t remember what the 1928 book says. The 1979 book says that the people’s offerings of bread and wine along with the alms are to be brought to the table and placed on it just before the consecration and that people are to stand while this is done, which makes it hard to be unobtrusive about it. All rubrics telling the laity what to do in the service are optional, of course, since there is no means of disciplining them when they violate them, but the use of the word ‘offerings’ for the elements as well as the alms is unfortunate from the evangelical point of view.
November 29, 2011 at 10:27 pm
I’m still trying to get a handle on how Anglican evangelicals seriously consider the sacraments (they seem to get pretty twisted about it is my quick read). But then I consider how some Anglican evangelicals that I know will let nearly anything musical slide by (and by this I mean text…. not even getting into the artistic side of things), and then wonder, just what could happen if theological evangelicals would meet up with musical Anglo-Catholics, who agonize over the text (and musical standard) of every single note that is presented on a Sunday morning. (or afternoon Evensong, if the Evangelicals would would loose a Bible-talk service for the office). Do you think we could meet, and in the process be strengthened?
December 5, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Interesting observation! Evangelicals very particular about the words, good organists particular about the music. I like the idea of “being strengthened (in the process of meeting). –The Pgh Symphony’s production of the _Messiah_ (what I read about it) made me get back to sources and I’d had some incorrect ideas. I thought Handel had assembled the texts which so eloquently tell the Christ story as I believe it. But it was a scholar named Charles Jennens, according to a couple of articles I read, who wanted to confront the deistic tendencies of the day (1740s) with a powerful exposition of the belief that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, was divine, was foretold in the OT,etc. and he chose Handel to write the music to show all that. (Not such a good motivation: Jennens was influenced by a man named Kidder, I think, who also wanted to confront the Jewish belief that Jesus was just a teacher, not the Messiah, and was somewhat anti-semitic. I’d like to forget that. OR–just say that his anti-semitism doesn’t show in the oratorio as I’ve always heard it.)
November 30, 2011 at 10:11 am
Hopefully you’re seeing some serious consideration of one sacrament here, and I don’t think we’re twisted yet.
I know Evangelicals who ‘agonise’ over the texts of the hymns they sing, even to the extent of writing to the publisher for permission to change a word or two (always refused). But perhaps the revival of evangelical interest in more classical hymnody provides an opportunity for something.
But the real differences between the two understandings of the faith might mean it would never be much more than conversation. ‘Come risen Lord and deign to be our guest’ sounds almost blasphemous to me, and unless I completely misunderstand Anglo-Catholicism, I can’t imagine one singing this post’s official hymn, Rock of Ages (‘nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling’).without having to do some explaining.
November 30, 2011 at 1:59 pm
My general perception is that the problems with “hymn texts” arise not really out of the soil of traditional evangelicalism but more from the hybridization with the charismatic/renewal movement. Evangelical hymns always seem to me more straightforward, often deeply stirring (as per Rock of Ages, above, which we sang at my Grandfather’s funeral through tears) and, somehow, at the same time at least some of the time unhelpfully didactic. While my basic theological perspectives are Reformed, my “sensibility” tends toward the more introverted and aesthetic. I appreciate Caravaggio’s use of shadow and arguments that run along oblique angles and operate inferentially. Metaphor and lyric symbolism. To preach the whole gospel to the whole world we need to pay attention to all typological forumulations of the Meyers-Briggs spectrum. Thus my two favorite Christmas hymns are Adorato te, though it expresses a problematic view of the sacrament, and In the Bleak Midwinter, though Miss Rosetti clearly fumbled the Judean weather report. Art speaks to the heart, after all . . . .
Bruce Robison
November 30, 2011 at 3:11 pm
Thus the appeal of the Anglo-Catholic view of how to “do” the sacraments; it engages people in artistic and multisensory ways. A minimalist evangelical approach often seems to dishonor the chance for us to encounter Christ at the table. I think a good approach is to appropriate practices but ascribe different meaning for their incorporation.
November 30, 2011 at 7:16 pm
By the way, the other Christmas hymn I had echoing in my mind in the post above was Divinum Mysterium, _Of the Father’s Love Begotten_, not _Adoro Devote_, Humbly I Adore Thee. What happens when you click the *post” button without a proof-read . . . .
BMR
December 2, 2011 at 12:07 pm
I don’t even self-describe as an Evangelical but it does bother me when the Eucharistic prayer is cluttered with genuflections, elevations, and Sanctus bells. I prefer following the Prayer Book rubrics, maybe a signing of the elements but that’s about it. I’m a “by the book” type of fellow anyway.
December 3, 2011 at 10:47 pm
I very quick survey of favourite evangelical (perhaps more to the point “revival”) hymns quickly points to texts that address the individual to God, and deal little with the corporate. The words “I” and “me” are frequently used, and that is my big problem with such hymns:
why bother even singing them in public?
December 5, 2011 at 1:14 pm
I hope the differences wouldn’t polarize. No question but that a Christian life centered on “how I feel” can curve in on itself in materialistic and narcissistic ways. Comfortably at home in the ethical universe defined by the three key words, “I, Me, Mine.” The pietistic traditions sometimes trend in that direction, and you can often, sadly, see it in places where the charismatic/renewal themes have run strong. Worship that focuses on evoking emotional/physical response. If you live forever in the refrain of “I come to the garden,” that’s a way of being lost in the woods. Classic Evangelicalism is of course directed to conversion and personal commitment, but it has at the same time a compelling outward energy. At the same time a Christian life in which the relationship with God is entirely “impersonal,” corporate and objectified, becomes it seems to me archival, detached. Especially a danger in our society, with our huge focus on entertainment and consumerism. This can lead us, as somebody said on this blog recently, to an emphasis not “the beauty of holiness” but “the holiness of beauty.” Faith itself becomes something for the trained professionals, as it were. Something we observe as an object, under glass, from a distance. If there is a polarity here, I’d say that either end alone is hazardous to the health of the Body, but that when the two can inform each other there can be good development.
Bruce Robison
September 29, 2012 at 10:52 am
[…] this service’: we’ve noted the problem with this word before (here and here and here), but the usage in this case seems slightly different. The question raised here is not so […]