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The cup for the laity

The cup for the laity

Last updated on: May 23, 2017 at 10:04 am by Gene Veith

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The cup for the laity 2017-05-23T10:04:25-04:00 Gene Veith

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The communion practice of the Roman Catholic Church, up until Vatican II, was for the priests to drink the wine. Laypeople were only given the bread.

Brian Stiller, writing on the Christianity Today site, reflects on Luther and the Reformation as he sits in the City Church of Wittenberg.

He sees a detail in Lucas Cranach’s altarpiece–one that I hadn’t noticed before– that gives him a flash of insight into the Reformation.

Now Luther would not be happy with all of what the author says about Holy Communion, since Stiller believes that the Lord’s Supper consists of symbols rather than the true Body and Blood of Christ. Stiller even extrapolates his conclusions into meals in general.

But he does pick up the detail that Luther is sitting around the Table at the Last Supper with Christ and His disciples. And Luther gives the cup to a servant–a layman, not an apostle. Stiller explains why this is so significant and why offering the cup to laypeople–imaged here on the altar–is so expressive of the Gospel as proclaimed in the Reformation.

UPDATE, FURTHER THOUGHTS: We shouldn’t take this privilege for granted. John Hus was burned at the stake largely because he insisted on giving laypeople the Blood of Christ. For us laypeople to receive the Cup means that we are all priests (the doctrine of vocation) and that there is no spiritual superiority of one caste or another in Christ’s Kingdom. And that He poured out His blood for all.

From Brian C. Stiller, Is the Common Cup Still Relevant Today? | The Exchange | A Blog by Ed Stetzer, Christianity Today:

It was here in Wittenberg that Luther set loose the Reformation. The city is well preserved, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall, for Wittenberg was in the former East Germany under control of the Soviets. The Town Church continues as a preaching post.

I sat toward the back of the quiet church, soaking in its history and imagining the power of Luther’s message to a people wanting a life of faith.

Then, I noticed over the altar a series of paintings. We had learned that Lucas Cranach, a contemporary of Luther, had done hundreds of paintings of that era. Because most people could not read, paintings and sermons became important means by which they could see, hear, and believe.

One couldn’t miss the large central painting, looking like The Last Supper: Jesus with John leaning against him. But I noticed 14, not 13 as would have been with Jesus and the 12. So like other paintings but not quite, with enough difference to tell me Cranach had something else to say.

Luther was clearly in the painting, but turning away from the table, holding a chalice out to a servant standing to his side. And what is this? I wondered. I walked to the front of the church and looked more closely at what Cranach may have been saying. One can’t tell if Luther is giving or receiving the chalice from the servant, and so one can surmise either scenario.

Of course, it was the common cup. The Roman formula is for the faithful to receive the bread and for the priest to drink the wine. But here the wine, the symbol Jesus gave us to remember His death, is not reserved for a few, but is common. It is grace offered to all who by faith receive.

There are many places, artifacts, and symbols pointing out the moment, and binding for us today the power of that moment: the church door of the posted 95 Theses, the preaching church of Luther, his pulpit, the old Bibles of that day, his statue in the square, and the many period paintings.

But the chalice in the hands of a servant brought together for me in one picture, linking the historical moment of Luther and the deeply spiritual truth which gave power and life to the Reformation.

When Jesus lifted the chalice in the Upper Room in Jerusalem and said, “This is the new covenant given in my blood,” it was both symbol and reality merged by faith. The Reformation provided a rediscovery of that gospel. By faith, we drink and remember; by faith, we take hold of his grace, without which we are lost.

[Keep reading. . .]

Painting: From the altarpiece at the City Church of Wittenberg by Lucas Cranach. Public Domain.

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