World Communion Sunday viii

October, 1943

Van Schouwen's church--and mine--practiced "close" communion, which is to say that the table is there in front of the church, but when the bread and wine are spread only those whose hearts are free of guile, whose determination is to live for the Lord, only the righteous can partake of body and blood, "close" communion. It's a tough rule, and in the church where I worship it's long been abandoned. I'm sure in 1943, however, having the table "open" to anyone, without professions of faith, would have been--how should I say it?--"frowned upon," if not rejected out of  hand. That's the hesitancy that's between the lines in this short addition. 

October 2, 1943

Sunday will be International Communion Sunday. Thus far, I have not served communion in the Army. In view of the fact that some of those faithfully  attending my chapel services had desired a communion service, especially now when they are leaving for overseas service, I decided to have a communion service this Sunday. The situation is exceptional and therefore I felt that an exception should be made to the rigid rules of my church. 

Once upon a time, I was appointed, denominationally, to serve on a committee whose mission it was to say something, denominationally, about children at the Lord's Supper. Seems to me it may have been the very first synodical committee to meet with that topic as the sole agenda. 

I'll never forget what a learned pastor warned in our first meeting--we'd better be sure of whatever it was we forwarded to the denominational synod because there were few things really "sacred" in the Christian Reformed Church, few things we honored the way Catholics, for instance, honored the mass, building huge cathedrals around it. The only "sacred" thing in the CRC, he said, was communion, and if we weren't careful we'd ignite an uprising: people don't like their sacred things toyed with.

He was right. It took at least a couple of decades before "children at the Lord's table" was okayed, and I'm sure our congregation isn't the only one who allows or practices allowing everyone to partake, but many will not or cannot. 

When I remember who potent the idea of the Lord's Supper once was--people would and did express their anger, their frustration, their distance from the Lord by not partaking--and they'd even let others know--when I remember that, then contrast it with three-year-olds sipping the grape juice, it's amazing how a fellowship can undergo such an incredibly drastic change and still survive. When it comes to communion, one of just two sacraments in the life of the CRC, there's been a sea change.

I say all of that because it's hard not to remember what once was when we read the diary entry for World Communion Sunday. What Chaplain Van is giving up here is not wrestled from him lightly, I'm sure. That he'd even characterize the practice so central to worship as "rigid" is quite astonishing. Chaplain Van, one  notices early on, is not one to bend the rules. When it happens--as it has with Sunday observance--we see a man whose faith was a fortress, lower the walls, at least a bit:  The situation is exceptional and therefore I felt that an exception should be made to the rigid rules of my church. 

Honestly, I would have expected more of this in his memoir, more rule-bending, more reshaping of his profession of faith. But what did I know of this man, really, a man we sometimes mockingly called "Mr. Magoo."