Category Archives: LitBits

LitBit Commentary – David Tripp on the Eucharist

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LitBit: When we take part in the Eucharist, our individuality is affirmed but also lifted into a corporate richness in which the individual is saved progressively from individualism. The model for this manifold transformation, and the power that enables and bestows it, is the life of the triune God, in whom “person” is not a closed and self-defending private world but an openness that knows no limit to giving and a shared life that reaches out in shared sacrifice. Growing into trinitarian life includes a new vision of hope for the whole human community, as well as for the church.

David Tripp, “How often should United Methodists commune?”

 

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LitBit Commentary – John Wesley on the Lord’s Supper

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LitBit: It is the duty of all Christians to receive the Lord’s Supper is often as they can … because it is a plain command of Christ, … because the benefits of doing it are so great to all to do it in obedience to him; viz., the forgiveness of our past sins, the present strengthening and refreshing of our souls.… This is the food of our souls: This gives strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection.

John Wesley, “The duty of constant communion” alt

 

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LitBit Commentary – Gordon Lathrop on the Lord’s Prayer 1

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LitBit: The ecclesiology of the Lord’s prayer is this: the assembly is the community given this prayer, taught it in baptism, repeating it at Eucharist, invited to stand articulately with humanity—indeed, with all things—where Christ is amid the loss and fear. The assembly is made up of ordinary people, people themselves in need but also people willing to stand with the need of others. The assembly is also the community which, by the power of the Spirit and the presence of the Risen One, is given now, as an earnest-gift of all that God intends for the world, the bread and forgiveness that the world needs. The assembly is the community, therefore, that confesses the enfolding presence of the triune God and is called to practice the word of forgiveness and the meal of resurrection.

Gordon Lathrop, The Pastor, p.34alt

 

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LitBit Commentary – Gordon Lathrop on the Lord’s Prayer 3

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LitBit: …in the heart of the Lord’s prayer, we ask God, with an astonishing confidence—there is that word again—to forgive us now and give us bread now. …we borrow first-century Jewish apocalyptic language, but here we find that language transformed, reversed. These things are the presence now of expected end-time gifts. Only God forgives, and that at the end. Only God will spread the great, life-giving feast for the called ones: at the end. Here, in the assembly, in celebration of the actual presence of these things, Christians turn to each other in mutual forgiveness, which corresponds to and receives God’s forgiveness now, and the community holds a meal that it believes to be already God’s meal. Christians dare to do this, of course, because of the presence of Jesus Christ in the Spirit, the source of forgiveness and the grounds of the meal.

Gordon Lathrop, The Pastor, p.32alt

 

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LitBit Commentary – Gordon Lathrop on the Lord’s Prayer 4

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LitBit: The Lord’s Prayer has been so central to Christian practice that it may be taken as a symbol to stand for all of the assembly’s liturgy. It is one of the summary gifts of Baptism, a central pillar of the catechism handed over to us as we come to join the Christian assembly or as we rehearse, lifelong, the meaning of our participation. It recurs in every Eucharist, as the table prayer of the community, as the final text of the thanksgiving at table. It is as if we come to the end of a presider’s best effort—”praying and giving thanks as well as she or he can,” as Justin would say—and we stutter out again “Lord, teach us to pray,” using that beginner’s prayer as the best conclusion we can give to our common thanksgiving at this holy meal.

Gordon Lathrop, The Pastor, p.23f

 

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LitBit Commentary – The Eucharist (UIW2) 2

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LitBits Logo - 2LitBit: The various names given to this meal by our traditions show something of its meaning: it is the Lord’s Supper, instituted by Christ on the night of his betrayal; it is the Holy Communion, a sacrament of union between Christ and believers, and of the union of the believers themselves; it is the Eucharist, from the Greek word meaning ‘thanksgiving’. Indeed, its primary note is thanksgiving – honouring God for all that God is, and giving thanks for all that God has done in the work of creation and salvation.

Uniting in Worship 2

 

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LitBit Commentary – Worship (UIW2) 2

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LitBit: In worship, we speak to God in a direct way, in praise and adoration, intercession and thanksgiving, confession and lament. It is the primary speech of the community to God, rather than speech about God, the secondary speech of reflection and discussion. It is also God’s speech to us – for example, in the word of grace at the declaration of forgiveness, in the proclamation of the Scriptures, in the blessing that rings in our ears as we leave. …the speech of worship is nonverbal as well as verbal, including such things as gesture and movement, colour and sacrament, silence and music.               Uniting in Worship 2

 

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LitBit Commentary – Worship (UIW2) 1

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LitBit: When we cross the threshold into a service of worship, we bring with us the concerns and joys of our lives. In other words, we bring the concerns and joys of the mission field in which we live. The Sunday service does not provide ‘time out’ from our daily mission; liturgy and mission are integrally related. The word ‘liturgy’ (in Greek, leitourgia) literally means ‘the work of the people’; yet it is primarily the work of God, in which God graciously enables us to participate. It is our graced response to God’s gracious acts; through it we are brought into relationship with the triune God, and we offer worship as the body of Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

Uniting in Worship 2

 

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