“How do you fence the Table?” my friend asked me.
We were talking about the church service I host for homeless folks every Saturday night. For those of you not familiar with the terminology, he was asking how I regulate who is allowed to partake in the communion service.
I had a simple answer: “I don’t.”
I’m very much in the minority here. Across the history of the Church, the vast majority of churches have felt that since the Lord’s Table is a sacred thing, the church leadership should carefully regulate who is allowed to participate, and under what terms. I used to think the same way, but I noticed a few things that changed my perspective.
First, the Bible never tasks church leadership with fencing the table. It never tasks anybody with fencing the Table. The one place it talks about examining someone with reference to coming to the Table, it says “let a man so examine himself.” If I were going to fence the Table, I would need authority to do so–after all, it’s not my table, it’s the Lord’s Table. He has not delegated that authority to me as a church leader; therefore I may not do it.
Second, I noticed that the historical pattern is out of step with Jesus’ own way of being in the world. We fence the Table lest someone profane the body and blood of the Lord by partaking unworthily. Jesus gave Himself recklessly to a world that constantly received Him in an unworthy manner, and in the end gave His very body and blood to His enemies. Is it blasphemous? Of course! But it’s not my blasphemy; Jesus did it Himself. If I’m following Him, then why would I be paranoid about some pagan getting away with a wafer?
Third, I noticed that we haven’t empowered people to examine themselves well. We’ve taken self-examination to mean that you need to descend into morbid introspection and confess all your sins before you partake, lest God strike you down. That’s just not what the passage is talking about: you will ransack that whole chapter in vain looking for a mention of confessing your sins before the Table.
Rather, the passage talks about correctly discerning the Lord’s Body, and that’s what we need to present so people can self-examine and decide whether to partake. We need to say what Scripture says about the Table: “This is the body of Christ,” “This is the blood of Christ.” We need to say what Scripture says about the Body that celebrates at the Table: “You are the Body of Christ.” And we need to let people decide on that basis whether this is something they want to be part of. If they do, then we should do what Jesus did, and give them His body and blood.
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