Introduction

What is Liturgy? What does it mean? Liturgy comes from the Greek word meaning public service. The first great service Christians offer is the worship of God. So ‘liturgy’ comes to mean the public worship of the church. Christian liturgy has two main elements: Word and Table

This page looks at the Liturgy of the Table.

The Liturgy of the Word (see separate page) can stand alone. The Liturgy of the Table does not; it is always preceded by the Liturgy of the Word. What we do at the Table is both a response to the Word and proclamation of it (As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes – 1 Cor 11.26).

Eucharist

There are various titles given to the Liturgy of the Table.

The Lord’s Supper calls to mind the Maundy Thursday supper that Jesus ate with his    disciples. We are rooted in a history that begins with Jesus and his close friends.

Holy Communion reminds us that what we do is a shared participation in the holy and      that we do it in communion with the saints of every time and place. What we do now is      done together. And Jesus is here with us now.

Mass comes from the last words of the service which in Latin were Ite, missa est  – “Go,       it (the church) is sent”. This reminds us that the Liturgy of the Table is a call to share in        God’s mission to the world – and God’s mission (sending) is Jesus Christ. We go into the         future in the Lord’s name.

Eucharist comes from the Greek word meaning ‘to give thanks’. Jesus gave thanks, and           so do we.

We might say that Lord’s Supper tends to have a backward glance; Holy Communion describes the present activity; Mass looks to the future. Eucharist may be described as embracing all three.

Bread and Wine

Bread and wine are staple food and festive drink. They remind us that the Liturgy of the Table calls us to pilgrimage and to celebration. A common loaf and a common cup remind us of the communion of holy things among God’s holy people. However, what we share in is more than just bread and wine. They are signposts and indicators of the Lord who nourishes us with his body and blood. In Jn 6.35-51, we have an extended meditation on the bread that is body and the wine that is blood without which we do not have eternal life. Read this passage from the Fourth Gospel carefully before you disagree!

Remembrance

Remembrance is not just a backward glance. It is also a recall to our common life together and our mission to the world to re-member (put together again) broken people, a broken Church and a broken world.

Once again we see the past, present and future meeting in this Liturgy of the Table.

The Central Place of Eucharistic Fellowship

Because of its central importance, the Liturgy of the Table was celebrated every Lord’s Day by the earliest Christians. Acts 2 42 describes how they devoted themselves to ‘. . . the fellowship . . .’ The Greek word koinonia is not to be reduced to a cosy time together. It means ‘communion’, ‘a communion offering’, ‘a shared way of life’ and even ‘solidarity’. And all this derives from our koinonia with and in Jesus.

Further Thinking

How does understanding the Liturgy of the Table as thanksgiving, remembrance and mission, change what we do on Sunday?

Why do we not celebrate the Liturgy of the Table every week?
If your answer was “because it empty it of meaning”, why do we observe the Liturgy of the Word every week?
Can we empty what God has filled?

How communitarian is communion for us? Is it a private and inwardly devotional act, or is it a call to the whole congregation to be the people of God together? Can it be one without the other?

Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, Reading. RG1 3BE   Tel: 0118 957 2197