Closing Thoughts
On the night of his death, the Lord instituted a ceremony that we should remember him by. For this, He chose, of all the infinite symbols available to Him, the wine and the bread. Or what is more true, he created wine to carry the symbol of His blood all the way through history to meet him and his disciples at the table. Catholic eucharist errs by immanentizing the supper, believing it to morph into the actual flesh and blood of Christ somewhere in the believer’s gastrum. Evangelicalism has erred by superimposing a synthetic substance absent of the qualities for which the symbol was created.
Grape juice was an invention born out of a period of religious and cultural tumult in reaction to sin, and to fuel the American socio-religious aspirations for itself. This obvious departure from Biblical doctrine, backfilled with poor scholarship what was lacking in exegesis. Juice became one of many revisions of scripture in the late 19th century that led to an anemic and godless social gospel of the early twentieth century, which was the seedbed of feminism, critical biblical scholarship, and a church whose effect on the world would grow increasingly effete.
I believe juice will be looked back on one day as a cultural relic – an interesting sentence in a paragraph describing a curious prop on the stage of Church history, somewhere in act II. As the saying goes, one of the differences between an Englishman and an American is that the Englishman thinks one hundred miles is a long distance, and the American thinks one hundred years is a long time. Given the history and destiny of the Church, the juice swap is a fad, having just happened a mere hundred and fifty years ago. As the roots of the exchange and intentions behind grape juice are understood, many will return to the use of wine as the superior gift.
A grape juice gospel is not the one for our world. It is an inferior symbol unable to burn and churn the engine of Christian worship for future millennia of Kingdom expansion. If we preach a gospel of victory, joy, and rest, then grape juice is a feeble mascot. It is the pauper form of the princely drink. We need something potent, not saccharine; fierce, not fake, a drink for war and feasting.
Jesus gave us wine for communion, not despite its ability to intoxicate, but precisely because of it. We are not wiser than he; we are not straighter than the moral Standard. Wine is a symbol of blessing, mirth, and unity tied to obedience, and wrath, curse, and barrenness in disobedience. There is a blessing and a danger in the fermented grape, and when we share in the Lord’s Supper, drinking his blood symbolized in wine, we remember the curse that Christ became for us and the blessing of joy we have in His life.
If the Bible commands wine, assuming the prerogative to swap out the symbol heralds a commitment to realizing a certain version of ourselves, which is a symbol in itself. The corporate decision to set aside juice and return to wine is also a decision that is symbolic of a trajectory change in the heart of Christ’s church to want to experience all He intends for us to experience and be the kind of Bride he is growing us into.
Sometimes it is hard to know what to do in life. Obedience can be tricky, and there are lots of times when we have to weigh between two bleak options and rely on the grace of a patient God. Many times we have to wrestle with God all night before he dislocates our hip and gives us an answer. So when you have something easy, a straight-from-the-mouth Jesus command that takes zero effort to comply with, as we have in sacramental wine, I vote that we do that thing.
Things Not Said
It is important to note that more was left unsaid on the sacrament of communion than was addressed. All our care was on the substance of half the meal, and even that half the submersible barely got its back wet. Giants in their thinking capacity – Augustine, Edwards, Calvin, and others – found the fathomless beauty of the sacrament shut their mouths, and its glory most aptly expressed through silent tears. My aim for these posts was limited to the historical use of wine for communion, the (relatively modern) switch to grape juice, and the role of symbolism in our lives. The territory that was left unexplored lies in the vast and beautiful mystery of the institute itself.
It is possible for this conversation over substance to take away from the deeper spirit of the meaning. Though, as I hope to have made clear, the goal of returning to wine is itself an attempt to take hold of the mystery with a more violent affection, to experience all that Christ means for us to experience, and for our obedience to be an exact reflection of his commands in worship.
Recommendation
In closing, I want to offer some thoughts to any church currently offering only grape juice for communion, as mine does.
First, the use of pre-packaged communion cups ought to be abandoned; for no holiday meal do we phone it in like we do when we use these little gremlins for our holy meal. Administrators and pastors who want their congregations to take seriously the center of worship must recognize the stark contrast between the real and meaningful symbol of bread and wine with the highly preserved, convenience-based, and frumpy posture of these communi-capsules. They are false and unwholesome and ought to be disinvited to the Supper.
In my church, where grape juice and unleavened wafers are used, we also offer a gluten-free alternative for those with Celiac disease or a misplaced belief that the thumbnail-sized gluten-free wafer is somehow a healthier option. (I’m not being sardonic or intending to diminish concerns of the dietarily cautious. There is a point, however, where it would do us good to lay aside fastidious food commitments that have no measurable deleterious effect in the quantities for the sake of a symbolically meaningful experience in the Supper. The irony in putting up such a stink about wine over juice, and then glissading over the gluten-free substitution for wheat bread is not lost, believe me.) Given that a choice is available in the bread, it makes sense to also offer wine as well as an “alcohol-free”, grape juice alternative. Unless there is an a priori commitment that wine is inherently sinful, there is no reason to withhold this option from congregants who believe wine is Christ’s intention, especially where the gluten-free precedent exists.
Offering two platters, one with cups of wine, and the other with juice, will not only provide options but also be an initial measure of where the congregation “is at” in regards to the conversation and track how minds are changing over time. Sermons can kick-start the mind, but it is also the people talking amongst themselves, sharing thoughts and beliefs, that further hammer and hone convictions. It is my belief that the use of juice will atrophy given the superiority of wine.
Though this likely goes without saying, wisdom demands that pastors lead their congregation in the history and heart of any change in something as sacred as the sacraments. Several weeks of sermons delineating the history of the wine/juice swap would be necessary, as well as a deeper dive into the reason for Christ’s choice of wine, something resembling the case laid out above.
We ought to spend time studying the Word to understand what it says. Then, once the work of exegesis and hermeneutics is done and convictions are settled, we ought to take it as a matter of righteous living that if we go against these convictions then, for us, it would be sin (Romans 14:23). Jesus is honored when we strive to understand how to obey him the best we are able. For a non-denominational congregation, such as my church, where no specific catechism is provided for the body, pastors need to provide a robust explanation of the scriptural options and encourage the body to pray and water their beliefs into meaningful convictions and away from mere status quo thinking.
It may or may not be a sin to drink juice at the Lord’s Supper. That is not the case I am making – sacramental wine is a “get to” not a “got to”. But it certainly is true that, if it is a sin, there are bigger sins that may result from an iron-fisted approach to instituting wine in a church body that holds to the grape juice tradition.
Say a pastor just discovered the moralistic, holier-than-Jesus motivations of the great grape juice swap, and after learning it, he is incensed, appalled, incredulous, and spittle begins to collect on his mustache. In a fantastic example of what not to do, the next Sunday, he stands in the pulpit, unleashes his discovery on the body, and swears that forthwith only wine will be served to remember the Lord. Then he takes a slug off the uncorked bottle of pinot he has hidden in the lectern and passes it around the congregation.
Invariably, this zeal would cause divisions and factions, which is a bigger sin than not using the symbol Jesus told us to use. Paul, in his teaching on the Lord’s Supper, emphasizes five times the “coming together” of the body to remember the Lord in the sacraments. At least with the juice, people are of the same mind, remembering with solemn gladness the Lord who died. Throwing an unpinned grenade of a pastor’s conviction he grew five minutes ago, causes people to scatter.
And so, if one had a strong conviction about the use of wine, and if that person is in a position of authority in a church, then he ought not to let his excitement detonate division. Instead, slow and steady teaching and massaging of conviction, as well as providing the opportunity for change, is the path forward.
As a bonus feature, it is worth considering going full homestead and making communion bread in-house. Generally, we are an importing people. There is a difference in appreciation and enjoyment when bread is made by and with the people in your body as opposed to pulling it out of a box. Personalizing oneself with the ingredients of the supper is meaningful, sweet, and delicious. Too, the sensual experience will be augmented by the smell of bread that perhaps may waft through the halls. Olfactory senses bear the strongest emotional memories.
Thought Butter 