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Mission-Shaped or Paul-Shaped? Apostolic Challenges to the Mission-Shaped Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2010

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Abstract

John M. Hull has raised a number of criticisms about the understanding of worship found in Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context. In this article, some of these criticisms are explored further. Analysis of Paul’s proposed reforms to the Lord’s Supper in Corinth show that worship must address social concerns and not focus exclusively on a God-ward aspect. Paul does this by describing the Lord’s Supper as a paradigm for behaviour and world-view using the Greek symposium tradition. Paul’s response to the Corinthian situation raises questions about the suitability of the Homogeneous Unit Principle and its role in mission, as do aspects of the controversy with Peter documented in Galatians 2. His wider exploration of the sacramental dimension of ritual meals (1 Cor. 10–11) further shows that worship cannot be divorced from ethics and behaviour if it is to be truly effective and based on Pauline principles

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2010

Introduction

The Church of England’s 2004 report Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context Footnote 2 (hereafter Mission-Shaped Church) has led to a wealth of material being produced on the shape and nature of the church. Some of these works have adopted the principles of the report and aimed to produce resources to implement its findings in other contexts: among these are the Anglican Church of Australia’s Building the Mission-Shaped Church in Australia,Footnote 3Messy Church: Fresh Ideas for Building a Christ-Centred Community Footnote 4 and Starting Mission-Shaped Churches.Footnote 5 Some have devoted their replies to particular constituencies such as children (Mission-Shaped Children: Moving towards a Child-Centred Church),Footnote 6 the elderly (A Mission-Shaped Church for Older People?),Footnote 7 or rural communities (Mission-Shaped and Rural: Growing Churches in the Countryside).Footnote 8 Other literature has engaged more with the theology of the report: Emerging and Fresh Expressions of Church,Footnote 9Evaluating Fresh Expressions: Explorations in Emerging Church: Emerging Theological and Practical Models,Footnote 10Mission-Shaped Questions: Defining Issues for Today’s Church,Footnote 11Mission-Shaped Spirituality: The Transforming Power of Mission.Footnote 12St Mark’s Review devoted an issue to responses from Australian theologians.Footnote 13 A notable voice among the theological responses is that of Professor John M. Hull who has made three contributions in the form of two articles and a book.Footnote 14 While sympathetic to the aims of the endeavour, he has major misgivings about some of the theological principles which inform the report. His short but provocative response, Mission-Shaped Church: A Theological Response takes issue with a number of the report’s key principles: the relationship between Church, Kingdom and mission, diversity, Christendom, its Deuteronomic spirituality and its understanding of inculturation. What follows is not a rebuff of any of those criticisms, but an attempt to show how Hull’s criticisms of diversity find further endorsement in the Pauline treatment of the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians and the Judaic traditions which shape Paul’s response to Corinthian practice. Biblical theology may function as a means of testing our practice (and theory) by contrasting them with the biblical witness, and what follows is offered in that spirit. However, before engaging with diversity per se, the context of worship as outlined in Mission-Shaped Church must be outlined.

Mission-Shaped Church makes the bald statement that ‘there is a church because there is mission, not vice-versa. Apart from worship, everything else is secondary to this’.Footnote 15 Hull sees in this a dangerous separation of worship and mission. His response is that worship, too, is part of mission, especially since it is the mission of God:

worship does not represent a transcendental area immune from the concrete character of incarnation. In the life of the church militant, if worship becomes an end in itself, immune from the missionary nature of the church, it becomes a fetish. Worship is instrumental to mission. Worship provides resources and motivation for mission by recalling Christians into the presence of God who sends.Footnote 16

Concerned that the report might dangerously advocate a retreat to purely religious activity, Hull brings a further criticism in his 2008 essay, ‘Mission Shaped or Kingdom Focussed’, warning that ‘if the churches withdraw into purely religious activity … and only preach Christ without lifting a finger to alleviate human suffering, our message will become mere words.’Footnote 17

More specifically, he says of the Eucharist,

Being a communion, most usually taken together, and being a sacrament of reconciliation, it has powerful elements of prophetic faith. The broken bread brings us into a single body as we eat it, meaning that in the body of Christ we become his body, the reconstructed social body.Footnote 18

Hull is advocating an understanding of worship in general, and the Eucharist in particular, in which Christians make and perform a statement about the world in which they live, and about God’s engagement with that world, not just the transcendent. It is a picture of worship which includes the ethical and the behavioural as well as the transcendent. To those who would criticize such an approach as too worldly, it can only be said that its theology is thoroughly Pauline, and has the strongest possible credentials in his discussion of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians.

The Eucharist in 1 Corinthians

At first glance, Paul’s writing about the Lord’s Supper may not appear to address social issues. It is debatable whether Paul’s advice to the Corinthians addresses the issue of hunger. Two things point to this in 1 Cor. 11.23-34. First, there is the simple fact that 1 Cor.11.34 advises those who have problems about hunger to eat at home before they come:

all should partake together, with no distinctions in rank or food. The point of the Lord’s Supper is not to satisfy hunger, so it must not be treated as just another banquet (v. 34a).Footnote 19

The second, but more contentious, is that the meal proposed does not appear to be a particularly effective means of addressing hunger, for Paul’s corrections seem to indicate a token meal, comprising bread and wine. This scenario draws on a particular view of how the Eucharist developed. The Passover meal is not considered as significant as a Jewish token meal tradition which finds its expression in the Jewish romance Joseph and Aseneth.Footnote 20 J.C. O’Neill, drawing on the work of G.D. Kilpatrick, argued that a token meal tradition lies behind the meals described in Joseph and Aseneth, and the Supper Narratives of the New Testament, noting that ‘there is no early evidence of a stage in the history of the eucharist when the distinct act of worship is being disentangled from something embedded in something like a full-scale meal’.Footnote 21 Behind O’Neill’s comment lies the fact that the descriptions of the Last Supper given in the Gospels which connect it more explicitly to a full Passover meal postdate the Corinthian correspondence, and may thus import an anachronistic identification with the Passover seder into the accounts. Christoph Burchard argues that an alternative tradition such as that in Joseph and Aseneth may help:

explain why the central rite of that new religious movement, Christianity, was a solemn form of consuming artos and poterion, why gestures concerning just these two things were remembered from, or attributed to, Jesus’ last supper (such gestures are what Mark 14.22-24 par. is about, after all, not a meal), and why a narrative concerning them was formed at all.Footnote 22

It suggests a scenario rather, in which a token meal is intended, and may even originate with Jesus himself: this, certainly, is the source that Paul claims (1 Cor. 11.23).Footnote 23

Paul does not provide a quick fix to the problem of hunger. Tucked into his advice on eucharistic celebration is ethical teaching of a different order, but it is revolutionary within his context. To grasp this fully we need to consider Paul and the context of the letter, and, in particular, what social scientific criticism brings to our understanding of the dynamics of the situation. Paul is writing to the people of Corinth, a city with a strong Roman character situated in Greece.Footnote 24 The behaviours of its citizens reflect both Romanitas and Hellenism. Their social interactions are governed by principles and practices from those cultural trajectories. Paul uses these together with the prophetic traditions of Judaism which linked ritual observance to right behaviour. The prophets never wish to abolish the cult, but rather to ensure that cult practice is not divorced from ethics:

Isaiah, speaking for the Lord, did not intend to abolish them but to drive home the fact that (whatever may have been the case earlier) God was no longer pleased with offering sacrifices unless the one approaching the altar was both ritually and morally pure and upright of heart.Footnote 25

The upshot of Paul’s approach is that the practice of the Eucharist be extended into the full life of the community. Hunger may not be addressed immediately, but wider questions are. What happens in the celebration should exemplify the life of the community — and be put into practice.

Thus returning to Hull’s categories, worship becomes expressive of mission by providing a ritual expression of the values of the Kingdom.

Graeco-Roman Society: The Meal as Paradigm of Community

A considerable body of literature built up in the Hellenistic world in which meals figured prominently in philosophical writings: the symposium tradition.Footnote 26 This appears in a number of locations: Plato’s Symposium, Xenophon’s Apologia, Plutarch’s Table-Talk and Athenaeus’s Deipnosophistae are recognizable examples of the genre. In Judaic Greek literature, Philo Cont. 57-64 sets the description of the Therapeutai within this literary tradition, effectively to show their superiority to many of their Hellenistic counterparts.Footnote 27 In Old Comedy, related material is used to satirize society and democracy, even if it never provides practical advice for improving either.Footnote 28 The symposium traditions allow actions or sayings to be invested with significance through their being singled out and set within a narrative frame or dialogue.Footnote 29 Indeed, they do more than this, for they set up a scenario in which the meal parallels the beliefs or world-view of those who take part in it: it becomes a model example of the ways in which the beliefs of the school should be practised, not just their etiquette:

The verisimilitude of what is said is measured, step by step, against the real event which serves as its model and is offered within the text as a backdrop. In some cases, parallels, analogies, and cross-references underline the mimetic similarity of words and deeds, the referential value of the speeches.Footnote 30

Or, ‘[the meal] might be in many regards a microcosm of the aspirations and aims of the culture as a whole’.Footnote 31

This literary tradition does not, however, stand in a vacuum. It is the tip of a larger social iceberg. The symposium tradition is revealed in how meals are celebrated in the different cultures of the ancient world. Dennis E. Smith considers that Paul stands within such ‘banquet ideology’:Footnote 32 this is revealed in the controversies at Antioch, Corinth and Rome. This ideology has a particular social significance:

As Paul develops his arguments, he will refer to the power of the meal to create social bonding and social boundaries. His arguments for social ethics within the community will draw on banquet traditions of social obligation towards one’s meal companions. He will respond to issues of social stratification at the table but will especially develop the theme of social equality. In his discussion of early Christian worship, he will utilize many features from the rules of banquet entertainment, suggesting that worship took place at the community table.Footnote 33

Paul’s advice on the celebration of the Lord’s Supper thus provides advice on how the Christian community ought to function, not just celebrate its rituals. We might paraphrase this as ‘you are (or should be) how you eat’. The substance of Paul’s reflections on the meal as a paradigm for behaviour focus on two areas: status and honour, and sacramentals.

Graeco-Roman Society: Status and Honour

In our post-Marxist age it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that issues of poverty and exclusion have a predominantly economic basis. While this may be increasingly the case, it is not universally or necessarily so even in the modern world, and no less a political thinker than Julius Nyerere counselled against the unthinking application of post-industrial theory to pre-industrial societies.Footnote 34 Certainly, economics played a part in the stratification of the ancient world, but this role was not unique.Footnote 35 A number of other factors made an impact on the ordering of society:

Family, ethnic background, legal standing (free, freed or slave), occupation (artisans, traders, physicians, etc.), citizenship (civic or imperial), education, skill, and especially wealth…Footnote 36

This analysis provides a reminder that local status and official position could well vary,Footnote 37 and a further rider, that local context influenced rankings, also may be added.Footnote 38

The social scientific analysis of such societies, based on modern anthropological theory and ancient rhetoricFootnote 39 suggests one in which honour and shame are key components. Scott Bartchy has identified five features which characterize such an honour-based society:

  1. 1. Honour is the pivotal social value.

  2. 2. Seeking honour for the family was the primary task of males.

  3. 3. Honour was limited in supply: to gain honour meant someone else lost it.

  4. 4. A loss of honour demanded retaliation of some form. The society was thus agonistic and competitive in nature.

  5. 5. Status and honour were revealed in the ways in which participants were treated in social settings such as meals.Footnote 40

Such stratification was indicated by a number of signs: seating, portion size, food quality and so on. Two illustrations from first-century ce writers indicate this. The first comes from a satire by Martial, in which he chides his host for the way he has been treated:

Since I am asked to dinner, no longer, as before, as a purchased guest [i.e., a client], why is not the same dinner served to me as to you? You take oysters fattened in the Lucrine lake, I suck a mussel through a hole in a shell; you get mushrooms, I take hog funguses; you tackle turbot, but I brill. Golden with fat, a turtledove gorges you with its bloated rump; there is set before me a magpie that has died in its cage. Why do I dine without you, although, Ponticus, I am dining with you? The dole has gone: let us have the benefit of that; let us eat the same fare.Footnote 41

The second, from Pliny the Younger, uses a debate about stratification at meals to show how his ability to be austere is a triumph for his Roman virtues over the profligacy of his interlocutor:

Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more of the company; while those which were placed before the rest were cheap and paltry. He had apportioned in small flagons three different sorts of wine; but you are not to suppose it was the guests that might take their choice: on the contrary, they might not choose at all. One was for himself and me; the next for his friends of a lower order; and the third for his own freed-men and mine. One who sat next to me took notice of this, and asked me if I approved of it. ‘Not at all,’ I told him. ‘Pray, then,’ said he, ‘what is your method on such occasions?’ ‘Mine,’ I returned, ‘is to give all my company the same fare; for when I make an invitation, it is to sup, not to be censored. Every man whom I have placed on an equality with myself by admitting him to my table, I treat as an equal in all particulars.’ ‘Even freed-men?’ he asked. ‘Even them,’ I said; ‘for on these occasions I regard them not as freed-men, but boon-companions.’ ‘This must put you to great expense,’ says he. I assured him not at all; and on his asking how that could be, I said ‘Why you must know my freed-men don’t drink the same wine I do, but I drink what they do.’Footnote 42

What is happening at Corinth appears rooted in such conventions. Note that here I assume that Paul is dealing with a real rather than a fictional practice. The Corinthian congregation, to borrow a phrase from the late Douglas Adams, seems to have had ‘problems beyond the dreams of analysts’:Footnote 43 it is hard to imagine the apostle inventing fictional scenarios to resolve. Paul’s rhetorical flourish to introduce his reflections (1 Cor. 11.18) does not detract from the reality of the problem.Footnote 44 Reports from CorinthFootnote 45 have revealed that participants at the meal are either distinguished by when they eat or what they eat:

Much depends on how we take the word prolambanei. Does it mean ‘go before’ or ‘anticipate’ in which case the wealthy were eating before others, or does it simply mean ‘take’, that is, ‘eat’? Lexical evidence favours the former, but even so the point may not be that some poor people are arriving late, but that while all are already present the wealthy are being served first and are receiving the better portions, and then the poor in the atrium get what is left over.Footnote 46

Either way, their practice is making distinctions, and this is challenged by Paul.

Paul’s Response: Status and Honour

Viewed against this background, Paul’s advice on how the Lord’s Supper should be celebrated becomes one in which the standard conventions of stratification are shattered. All the guests, whatever their background, are to eat the same food at the same time, irrespective of the issue of physical hunger (1 Cor. 11.34). Put simply, it shows that all are equal in the sight of God. It is a ritual embodiment of the principles we are more familiar with from Gal. 3.26-29.

It is even possible, but this is more contentious, that, should wheat bread rather than barley bread (as may be implied by the use of artos, as opposed to maza, ‘barley bread’ [Hippocrates, VM 120]) be consumed, it could imply that all hold a high status in the sight of God. For both wheat breadFootnote 47 and wineFootnote 48 were arguably considered high-status foods. This is a very different outcome from meals stratified by ranking and food types such as Pliny described.

The position taken by Paul has severe implications for a principle adopted in the Mission-Shaped Church, and identified as the ‘Homogeneous Unit Principle’ (HUP) in which:

‘People like to become Christian without crossing racial/linguistic/class/cultural barriers.’ In other words, they prefer to remain who they are culturally while changing to be Christian. Culturally they remain the same and tend to gather with others from the same culture who share their faith.Footnote 49

This principle has its origins in the writings of Donald McGavran, whose 1955 The Bridges of God Footnote 50 articulates a theory that the best foundation for mission is ‘people movements’, and that people will respond more readily to mission when there is no demand that they be moved out of their society. His later works develop the theme.Footnote 51 It is worth noting how McGavran describes the principle in his early work, defining a ‘true people’ viewing themselves as a ‘separate race’.Footnote 52 Their self-perception of themselves as distinct, or ‘race prejudice’, is, in his view, something which should be built upon, contrary to popular contemporary views:

Because of the intense battle against race prejudice, the concept of separate races of men is discredited in many circles. …But to ignore the significance of race hinders Christianization…it makes an enemy of race consciousness, instead of an ally. It does no good to say that tribal peoples ought not to have race prejudice. They do have it and are proud of it. It can be understood and should be made an aid to Christianization.Footnote 53

While its advocates view HUP as essentially a pragmatic category, some theologians have raised concerns about its theoretical bias. David Bosch noted two concerns: the first, the possibility that the Church growth movement might share the presuppositions of the German missiologist Keysser that ‘Der Stamm is zugleich die Christengemeinde’ (‘the tribe is at the same time the Christian Church’), the other, that their preferred interpretation of ethnê (Mt. 28.19) in an ethnological and sociological sense is unsupported by ‘a single NT scholar of any repute’.Footnote 54 Bosch’s sensitivity to the language of race may be over-played, but is generous compared to Barth’s brutal summary of this exegesis: ‘It is worthless!’Footnote 55

Others take a more positive line: Richard Pierard argues that Keysser’s pattern was ‘to preserve the Volksstructur, while replacing the aboriginal religion — which served as the social glue — with Christianity’,Footnote 56 that while the debate about ‘race’ was coloured by the ideological controversies of the 1930s and 1940s,Footnote 57 and that these corporate approaches, sometimes referred to as indigenization,Footnote 58 have remained valid.Footnote 59 That said, indigenization and the HUP are not co-terminus categories. Even if, as the Dutch scholar Johannes Hoejendijk, reflecting on Barth’s and Brunner’s examination of such methods, concluded, ‘the approach is treated as one of the possibilities [of mission] there is nothing sinful in talking about Volkskirche’,Footnote 60 there is surely a huge question begged here. It is this: how may ‘race prejudice’ be accepted within a missionary programme without some degree of clarification? For McGavran seems to suggest that either for utilitarian ends, or to some unspecified degree, race prejudice is acceptable. And, as people living after the Holocaust and other genocides in the late twentieth century, never mind the smaller, less spectacular, but no less alienating treatment of minorities within many cultures, we must not be so naïve. We might circumvent the problem by renaming it as, say, pride in one’s identity, but still the question remains: at what point does ‘race prejudice’ become unacceptable?

There are further more concrete problems. As used in Mission-Shaped Church, this principle contradicts what Paul does in bringing people from diverse social groups together in Corinth. This seems so straightforward that really no further exposition is needed. If Paul had advocated ‘race prejudice’, he would simply have advised the Corinthians, ‘Look, just eat with whom you like in honour of the Lord.’ If such an approach is right, Paul’s whole attitude seems completely wrong-headed: why bother to get different types of people to come together, especially in a society in which status was affected by so many different factors? As we shall see, this is not the final word.

The second point, and here I depart from what might strictly be called biblical theology into missiology, is that the HUP is based on a category mistake, and cannot be applied universally. We may illustrate this by considering Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Advocates of the HUP claim that such principles informed the strategy which ensured that it was easier for non-Jews to be admitted:

To paraphrase McGavran in the context of Paul’s ministry, first century pagan Greeks found it less difficult to become Christians when they were not forced to cross formidable cultural barriers such as circumcision, dietary regulations, and a Mosaic law code alien to their experience. So Paul insisted that the church should place no barriers between potential converts and the salvation of Christ except those God had already placed there — confession, repentance, faith and baptism.Footnote 61

While initially attractive this is not an analysis which holds up under scrutiny. The HUP essentially says that there are cultural categories (exemplified by circumcision, dietary requirements and the like) and theological categories (such as confession, repentance, faith and baptism): whatever is deemed cultural may be rejected. Yet these two categories are not distinct. What are described as ‘cultural barriers’ have a patently theological content.Footnote 62 Following Bruce Chilton’s arguments about food purity in Mk 7.14-15 where he describes Jesus making ‘an assertion concerning defilement, not a general denial of defilement’,Footnote 63 I would suggest that within emerging Christianity the supposedly ‘cultural’ elements are not purely cultural, but also have theological significance. This does not have to be fulfilled through the following of one set of practices: alternatives are possible. So, elements within emerging Christianity view it as permissible to achieve these ends without following the existing pathways. This is a phenomenon which is visible at a number of points within Second Temple Judaism. In the development of synagogues, it can be seen when a worshipper fulfils the requirements for attendance at a Temple festival by hearing the appropriate texts read in the synagogue.Footnote 64 In the Qumran/Essene nexus, the sectarians, after walking away from what they considered a debased and sacrilegious Temple priesthood, evolved a community way of life in which their community was identified as the Temple in which sanctity, purity and covenant responsibility were more important than a particular building.Footnote 65 This process, identified by Cheryl Newsom as ‘re-accentuation’ sees traditional theological language reappropriated and invested with a fresh significance:

Ordinary words, words traditionally important for self-representation, such as ‘righteousness’ or ‘spirit’, may be given a slightly different nuance by being associated with a different range of terms or employed in unusual constructions…

and in the new utterance that is created out of those traditional elements, it is possible to create the sense that one is only now understanding the true meaning of words that had long been familiar and important.Footnote 66

In this understanding, the HUP advocates’ distinction of culture and theology no longer seems appropriate or relevant. It also has the merit of explaining why non-Jewish converts might have found their theological needs answered by early Christian preaching and teaching, for there were commonalities with their religious traditions. The observer here seems to be setting up an artificial distinction between the two: a bifurcation of theology and culture.

There is an additional issue of the historical accuracy of the HUP, for the congregations at Galatia and Antioch were evidently, like many other of the NT communities, heterogeneous.Footnote 67 The Galatian correspondence reveals difficulties in using the HUP within such groups. Gal. 3.28, for example, does not lend itself to the establishment of ethnic churches, despite HUP advocates interpreting it thus on the grounds that the differences cited are essentially irrelevant:Footnote 68

it is evident that due to Galatians 3:28 along with Colossians 3:11 and Ephesians 2:11-22 that HU churches, in particular ethnic churches that remain deliberately separate in multi-ethnic regions are not God’s primary intent and that the use of this concept in ‘growth strategies and evangelistic plans’ should be re-evaluated.Footnote 69

Further, the argument with Peter (Gal. 2.11-14) is a further example of Paul’s disapproval of ‘race prejudice’ which he would obliterate from the new Christian community: it would set up distinctions which Paul is determined to break down. If anything this passage suggests that acknowledgement of ‘race prejudice’ is a retrograde step — reversing a practice of eating together (Gal. 2.11-13).Footnote 70 F.F. Bruce, following T.W. Manson, suggests that such practices may have become known further afield and become an obstacle to evangelization.Footnote 71 If this is so, Paul’s refusal to accede to the demands of the visitors from Judaea is, in fact, the antithesis of the HUP: unity within the congregation is not to be compromised for the sake of evangelization. Far from tolerating a principle of homogeneity for the sake of the wider mission, Paul appears opposed to it, judging it ouk orthopodousin (Gal. 2.14), a ‘crooked, wavering, and more or less insincere course’.Footnote 72 The apostle’s verdict should at least prompt modern congregations to consider whether the HUP is really appropriate to their circumstances. Those who persevere with the HUP must address Robert Gration’s reminder that what really matters is how individual churches ‘function both in their internal organic relationships and in their external relationships with other parts of the Body. It is here that the unity of the Body will be exhibited or denied’.Footnote 73 They also will need to address the issues of conversion raised by Bruce Fong which imply that there must be some change from the social identity which was held prior to conversion because this in itself is a proclamation of transformation in Christ:

Once conversion takes place, then an individual because of sanctification, is called upon to demonstrate a life of change more significantly than the HUP theory allows. The concept of mixing different people together in an intimate spiritual fellowship is made possible by the wonder of sanctification and the local church is an arena to display it to a watchful world.Footnote 74

Graeco-Roman Society: Sacramentalia

It has already been suggested that there were affinities between the different religious traditions of the ancient Mediterranean. Both Graeco-Roman and Judaic religious traditions included a sacramental dimension. I purposefully call these sacramentalia, following Christoph Burchard’s lead,Footnote 75 rather than sacraments, to stress that these are not identical with the later doctrinal understandings of sacraments. G.D. Kilpatrick stresses this point:

We are used to the definition of the Eucharist as consisting of an outward and visible sign and an inward and spiritual grace, as the description of a sacrament. As we saw in the first lecture, this notion is as old as Augustine but no older. The Bible does not know it.Footnote 76

It is worth, then, clarifying what is meant by sacramentalia. In Judaic thinking sacramentalia are essentially ordinary items, such as food, drink and ointment, used for a ‘heavenly’ purpose, given a fresh power by the use of benedictions and blessings which are effective when administered by one gifted by God.Footnote 77

Graeco-Roman religions also knew of sacraments: rites which were spiritually effective when carried out in a correct way.Footnote 78 Thomas Söding offers the following definition:

Actions and objects, originally belonging to the realm of the profane, that refer, in the context of hierophany, a self-manifestation of the divine (like symbols) to the realm of transcendent holiness and, more importantly, that convey at the same time, and effectively, the power of the transcendent, thus regenerating human (and cosmic) life.Footnote 79

However, there appears to be a difference between the two which can be expressed as follows. Again it is difficult because later sacramental theology has complicated the terms used. In medieval and post-medieval sacramental theology the phrase ex opere operato has come to mean that the rite is effective irrespective of the moral or spiritual condition of the one performing the rite. In the ancient world it had a related meaning, but with a different emphasis. The same phrase meant that the correct performance of the ritual guaranteed effectiveness, and that morality really was an irrelevance to this process:

Both of the Christian sacraments, in their earliest phase were considered to be primarily dono data, namely blessings conveyed to those who by nature were unfit to participate in the new order inaugurated by the person and work of Jesus Christ. Pagan sacraments, on the contrary, conveyed their benefits ex opere operato, by ‘the liberating or creating of an immortal element in the individual with a view to the hereafter, but with no effective change of the moral self for the purposes of living’.Footnote 80

Such a view is based on an understanding of Graeco-Roman mysteries and religious practice which places little emphasis on the ethical behaviour of participants in the rites. A text which illustrates this is found in Diogenes Laertius, where the Cynic philosopher Diogenes makes the following criticism of the mysteries:

When the Athenians entreated him to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, and said that in the shades below the initiated had the best seats; ‘It will,’ he replied, ‘be an absurd thing if Aegesilaus and Epaminondas are to live in the mud, and some miserable wretches, who have been initiated, are to be in the islands of the blest.’Footnote 81

However, we must be cautious not to oversimplify. The Graeco-Roman mysteries are not reducible to a standard pattern: a cult like that of Dionysus, for example, changed considerably over time,Footnote 82 and it is also highly contentious to make one cult paradigmatic for all.Footnote 83 Further, some of the descriptions of the cults by ancient writers as licentious and uncontrolled may say more about ‘novelistic stereotypes and upper-class pretensions than the reality’,Footnote 84 and some did have moral prerequisites for admission, which dealt with sexual morality and obedience to the deity.Footnote 85 Thaddeus Zielinski noted that within some traditions those who participated and behaved badly might incur ‘spiritual destruction’.Footnote 86 Christopher Fraser notes that the Andanian Mysteries appear to have an ethical component,Footnote 87 but the behaviour outlined in the descriptions of the mysteries is sketchy: those which appear in detail refer principally to behaviour concerned with the celebrations of the rituals.Footnote 88 In short, we may conclude that Graeco-Roman mysteries ascribed varying significance to ethics in relation to the efficacy of their rituals.

Paul’s Response: Sacramentalia

Paul brings a strong ethical dimension to his understanding of the Lord’s Supper by placing it after the material of 1 Cor. 10.1-13. Here Paul uses the people of Israel in the wilderness as an example, or rather a warning.Footnote 89 Given the chance to enter into the Promised Land, they forfeit the opportunity and perish in the wilderness because their behaviour, which characterizes their response to God, is inadequate, and manifested in disobedience. They are held up as a warning to the Corinthians not to be complacent. It appears that Paul is saying something like this: ‘do not rely on rites and rituals to get your reward, what you do is also important’. That will later be manifested in the way in which the Lord’s Supper is to be celebrated. It may be celebrated wrongly,Footnote 90 so that those who take part do so ‘unworthily’ (1 Cor. 11.27), become ‘fit to be punished’Footnote 91 and even guilty of the death of the Lord.Footnote 92 1 Cor. 11.23-34 marks an attempt to ensure that the celebrations of the Lord’s Supper are characterized by suitable behaviour, and this appears to be an argument for a change to current practice.

The section which follows the warning-cum-example (1 Cor. 10.1-13) makes a demand for exclusivity and obedience to the will of God, demanding that the Corinthians separate themselves from other cups offered to demons or other deities (1 Cor. 10.14-22). The sense of communion which follows is one which is often given a diminished significance in contemporary use, in which koinonia is reduced to ‘fellowship or ‘sharing’. Yet something much more intense is meant:

Our translations ‘participation’ or even ‘fellowship’ are thus much too weak, because the concept is intended to describe the experience of forcible seizure, of the overwhelming power of superior forces….

Because his gift cannot be separated from himself, this gift does not merely convey impersonal death-or-life-giving powers. Because, on the contrary, it brings with it the Giver himself, indifference towards it is impossible. His presence can never leave us unchanged. We do not, by our own lack of reverence, render his gift ineffective nor turn the presence of Christ into absence. We cannot paralyse God’s eschatological action: salvation despised becomes judgment.Footnote 93

John Fotopolous links this to the example of the people of Israel:

Paul is opposed to idol-food consumption in temple contexts because of the religious koinonia with pagan gods that constitutes idolatry and stands in opposition to the exclusive religious koinonia with Jesus in the Lord’s Supper.Footnote 94

This is part of a wider debate about religious ideology — and that includes the sacramental dimension of Graeco-Roman cults.Footnote 95 In place of the ex opere operato machinery of Graeco-Roman practice, Paul seems to place a dono data system in which the sacraments are only effective when those who take part in worship also manifest signs of behaviour which resonate with the will of the deity.

That said, a note of caution must be introduced. It has been common for New Testament scholars to propose a controversy which identifies sacramentalism as ‘external, crude and magical’.Footnote 96 Interestingly, Hull’s critique of worship does exactly this in the modern context when he suggests the Mission-Shaped Church’s concept of worship may turn it into a ‘fetish’.Footnote 97 The ancient debate must be described differently. Magic and worship were distinct, but so distinguished by factors which drew the line between illicit and licit religion (respectively, religio and superstitio) at a point different from our modern reckoning.Footnote 98 An ex opere operato mechanism was not a distinguishing characteristic. Fotopoulos argues that at no point does the Corinthian material directly give evidence that a magical, apotropaic understanding of sacraments was held: he would rather see idolatry than sacramentalism as the root of their problem.Footnote 99 While he seems here to rule out sacramentalism in favour of idolatry, it still remains possible that such a dimension remains.

First, a sacramental dimension to such religious practices found in the temples at Corinth was part of Graeco-Roman theology and worship, and Fotopoulos notes as much, criticizing Wendell Willis for his dismissive approach to sacramentalism.Footnote 100 Thus, even if there is no direct evidence in the Corinthian correspondence, it may reasonably be assumed that sacramentalism was part of the world-view which shaped the meal practice in Corinthian temples. After all, the word koinonia arguably appears to be part of the terminology of the Graeco-Roman mysteries and has a sacramental feel to it. Here, Paul uses that term and gives it a sacramental significance at variance with the dominant understandings in the mystery traditions: not so much giving deification to the believers as strengthening them in fellowship, and introducing them to a right relationship with God.Footnote 101 David Aune’s wider conclusions are apposite: debates among or within Christian groups were not about accepting or rejecting sacramentalism, but what constituted ‘appropriate sacramental piety’.Footnote 102

Second, discussions about what is appropriate need to span Judaic and Graeco-Roman theology. We have already noted differences in the way Graeco-Roman mystery cults engaged with ethics, ritual and behaviour. Judaic theory and practice adds a further perspective which arises from its combination of prophetic and cultic elements. Writings like Joseph and Aseneth locate proper sacramental behaviour firmly within a setting of idolatry and true faith. Two quotations from Christoph Burchard’s writing illustrate this. The first is the contrast made between the eating patterns found in Paul and Joseph and Aseneth with those offered, in their terms, to demons:

Moreover, since for Paul the Lord’s Supper holds the place which the blessed bread, cup, and ointment hold in JosAs as opposed to food and drink from the idol’s table, he is able to express the contrast between the two by means of an antithetic parallelism.Footnote 103

The second reinforces Paul’s Judaic style of thinking:

Therefore, contrary to what some think, Paul does not seem to operate with a prima facie resemblance of the Supper and certain pagan ceremonies. He is at pains to get a measure of it established, building on a traditional Jewish opposition between Jewish food and food from the idols’ table.Footnote 104

All this points to sacramental thought as symptomatic of, not distinct from, idolatry: these are not exclusive theological categories. Ultimately, the key point, however nuanced, remains the same: participation in the meals demands certain behaviours. Paul implies that these are changes which the Corinthians need to make irrespective of whether scholars find their source in sacramentalism, idolatry, or some combination of the two. True worship demands modifications of behaviour as part of faithfulness to God: it has an ethical dimension. Even if it appears that there were divisions within the mystery traditions regarding the role of behaviour and its effects, Paul’s Judaic sensibilitiesFootnote 105 indicate a bias towards those traditions which would include a much greater emphasis on morality: he significantly ‘ups the ante’ on behaviour by implying in 1 Corinthians 10 that it is not just behaviour during ritual which is of importance.

Conclusions

Paul’s advice to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10–11 raises major questions about the relationship between worship and mission posited by the Mission-Shaped Church. Paul’s use of symposium traditions sets the scene, suggesting that the way in which worship and the ritual meal are celebrated should proclaim the values of the ‘school’, of the new social entity centred on Christ. This world-view demands engagement with social issues which centre on status and honour. Paul argues that the Corinthians should celebrate in such a way that their ritual meal expresses an equal status through the consumption of the same food (bread and wine) at the same time. Further, he uses Judaic understandings of sacramentals to insist that right worship does not function effectively in an ethical vacuum: true worship is accompanied by changes of behaviour in which the believers live out the obedience to God which is expressed in their rituals.

Such a scenario raises major scriptural concerns with the Mission-Shaped Church’s proposals about worship divorced from mission, and its advocacy of the HUP, a principle which appears more reminiscent of what Paul is arguing against than what he proposes.

While these conclusions have been reached through, primarily, a consideration of the social-scientific setting of the Corinthian material, it has to be said that the demand that worship be integrated with ethics is by no means claimed as a new insight. As one example of this, consider Bishop Frank Weston’s challenge to Anglo-Catholics of the 1920s:

when you come out from before your tabernacles, you must walk with Christ, mystically present in you, through the streets of this country, and find the same Christ in the people of your cities and villages. You cannot claim to worship Christ in the tabernacle if you do not pity Jesus in the slum…It is folly, it is madness, to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the sacrament and on the throne of glory when you are sweating Him in the bodies and souls of his children…You have your Mass, you have your altars, you have begun to have your tabernacles. Now go out into the highways and hedges, and look for Jesus in the ragged and the naked, in the oppressed and the sweated, in those who have lost hope and in those who are struggling to make good. Look for Jesus in them; and when you find Him, gird yourselves with His towel of fellowship, and wash His feet in the person of His brethren.Footnote 106

That simple quote, arguably more neglected than upheld, is well worth remembering as Fresh Expressions, and appropriate forms of worship, are explored. For, if its meaning is taken to heart, the dichotomy between the vertical and horizontal relationship which Hull so trenchantly criticizesFootnote 107 will have been overcome. Indeed, it must be overcome, for a cross with only one arm is not a cross, and the central act of worship, in which Paul extols us to proclaim the Lord’s death (1 Cor. 11.26) must surely be a ritual expression of the Cross of Christ as both event and exemplar, shaping the behaviour of his followers.

Footnotes

1.

Fergus J. King is Rector of the Parish of the Good Shepherd, Kotara South in the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle and Conjoint Lecturer in theology and religious studies at the University of Newcastle, specializing in New Testament and missiology.

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