Too precious. . .

A very long time ago I received a call to a parish and was there meeting with the church council and elders and vacancy pastor.  In the conversation I noted that the parish offered the Sacrament but once monthly.  I asked about that practice (now well into the days of much more frequent communion).  The vacancy pastor and a couple of the elders were quick to jump on that and insist that if you had the Sacrament more frequently -- God forbid weekly -- it would become common and ordinary.  To reserve it is to keep it special.  It was clear after this visit and many such conversations that not only was this parish not ready to honor a new pastor (their old one lived across the church yard after serving there more than 25 years) but they were not ready for this pastor.

Of course, now more than 30 years later you would be hard pressed to find a Lutheran parish in the US which only offered the Sacrament of the Altar monthly.  I am not sure, however, that the old idea of rare meaning special has entirely disappeared.  My suspicion is that it does survive here and there.  That said, the first question you might ask is if the Lord ever intended the Lord's Supper to be special in that way.  I think not.  This was not a new Passover that He instituted but something He marked with the word often and endowed with the promise of His anamnesis and the forgiveness of sins.  Unlike Passover which came but once a year, Jesus expected the New Testament of His body and blood to be, well, ordinary -- at least ordinary in the sense of usual!  Yet it is our great tendency to take what God gives to us to be ordinary and regular and make it special by our disuse of His gift and grace.  Of course, Satan is right there cheering on the whole idea that we value God's gift so highly we never use it.  Whether out of fear of misusing His gift or dishonoring it for making it normal in our life together, by making it so special that it is odd or rare or unusual, we distance ourselves from the gift our Lord meant for us to know intimately and frequently.

The Jews did not speak out loud the name of God because it was too special and so substituted Adonai (Lord) whenever they encountered that name in Scripture.  Perhaps it was originally out of deep piety and respect but eventually God's name became alien and strange to His own people.  Constantine is said to have postponed his own baptism to nearer his death -- a common practice of his day.  Perhaps originally it was out of a deep piety that Christians were not baptized until shortly before their death so that they would not despoil the grace of God with the stain of sin but eventually baptism became merely an entrance rite into God's family and no longer a possession and reality daily recalled and appreciated.  Eventually baptism was a private rite for family and not celebrated within the life of all the faithful -- further cementing how its special character was strange to our daily lives.

By the time of the Reformation communion was exceptional and not regular -- a few times a year or at least at Easter.  So when Luther said four times or else he was not setting a high bar but challenging the people to keep regular what Christ said should be frequent -- lest the Sacrament become so strange and abnormal in our life together that we did not desire it much at all.  It became about as much trouble as dusting off Grandma's china and setting the table with it once or twice a year and then relegating it to be appreciated by the glass of the cabinet.

So it is that while Lutherans will still admit that private confession is a thing, it is not normal or ordinary or routine.  It has become special, too.  So special, in fact, that nearly 99% of our people neither desire it nor have ever experienced it.  We keep it in theory but not in fact or reality.  How sad it is that the very grace which Jesus deemed important enough to be the first word to His disciples after His resurrection has become the alien and strange practice of the very few!  Yes, of course, we have a general confession and absolution but this is what ought to be abnormal and the private confession ought to be the real normal in our lives together.  There is something remarkably different between admitting you are a general sinner or a sinner in general than naming the sins that haunt your conscience and trouble your heart.  Some of those reading seem to protest too much here.  Well, let me make it plain.  Either private confession is ordinary and normal and routine or it is like Grandma's china that we never use but insist we love and cherish above all other dishes.  Hogwash.  You cannot appreciate the Sacraments of Christ in theory but refuse to practice them and claim to honor them or the Lord who gave them.  

After my mother died I walked around the house to look at her stuff.  Her wedding china was in the china closet.  It had been purchased at some cost so many years ago.  It would not fetch much on eBay and not simply because people are not into china anymore.  No, the reason is that the gold on the rim has worn off in many places and the dishes have been well used.  My mother bequeathed to us not a treasure to be sold but a treasure of memories of meals eaten and fellowship cherished over that china.  I rather think that the Lord intended the same when He gave us His Word, the water of our baptism, the voice of absolution, and the Eucharistic bread and wine of His flesh and blood.