This is my sustained defense of both.
One of the great locations of diversity among Christian traditions is in the practice of open versus closed communion. In closed communion only the faithful members of the church, however that is defined, are invited to participate in the Lord's Supper. Outsiders, even if confessing Christians, are not welcome to participate. By contrast, in traditions practicing open communion anyone in attendance is welcomed to the Lord's Table.
My tradition practices a form of closed communion. Only baptized Christians are welcome at the Table. And the priest is under canonical law to ensure that the person receiving Holy Communion be living a repentant life ("If the priest knows that a person who is living a notoriously evil life intends to come to Communion, the priest shall speak to that person privately, and tell him that he may not come to the Holy Table until he has given clear proof of repentance and amendment of life").
While on nearly every Sunday in any given parish, "everyone is welcome at the Table" would be the common meme, it isn't exactly what canon law calls for.
While there's great debate as to which practice is proper -- open or closed? -- I think the best theological reasons are in favor of open communion.
Culturally and historically in many parts of the world, and in the Middle East in particular, it was and is assumed that you're to never act violently against someone with whom you've broken bread. To break bread with someone wasn't and isn't a casual affair. To break bread signals solidarity, a deep commitment that cannot be treated lightly. We might say that eating together forms a sort of covenant relationship between the two parties. To break bread bread together -- to commune -- is literally to share life with another (in Latin, cum + munio, "I live with").
In short, eating together is a form of peace-making. By contrast, refusing to eat with someone signals hostility with the possibility of future violence still a live option. Given this, in many parts of the world people are prohibited from eating with enemies. Because if you eat with them, you can't kill them.
In light of all this, there's a strong association between the Lord's Supper and peace-making. To break bread with others is a declaration of solidarity and non-violence. That the wall of hostility has been broken down in the shared meal of communion. The threat of future violence between the parties has been take away.
This, I think, is a powerful argument in favor of open communion. By welcoming everyone to the Lord's Table and breaking bread with them, there we're engaging in acts of reconciliation. What's more, if we remember the cultural backdrop about eating and non-violence we find the Lord's Supper to be the ministry of reconciliation. The Lord's Supper isn't a ritual. It's a sociological intervention. The fact that Christians by and large have missed this point is due to the fact that we've not been aware of the cultural assumption that we are to live at peace with those with whom we've broken bread.
And if that's the case, we should break bread with anyone and everyone in the world. Just like Jesus.
Secondly, Moltmann makes a strong argument for an open table in his Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit. In the book, after a theological discussion regarding the Lord's Supper, Moltmann discusses how that theology should "unpack" in the concrete practices of the Lord's Supper within the church (pp 258-260).
First, the Lord's Table must be central to the worship experience and the Lord's Supper should be practiced at every gathering: "The fellowship of the table must be central for the assembled congregation, just as much as the proclamation of the gospel ... [The congregation] will celebrate this fellowship of the table at all its assemblies".
Second, the practice will be one of open communion:
Because this fellowship comes into being on the basis of Christ's unconditional and prevenient invitation, the fellowship will be an open one. It cannot limit Christ's invitation to its own account. Everyone can participate who wants to participate in the fellowship of Christ. The communion is the answer to Christ's open invitation ...Earlier, Moltmann sets out the theological rationale for this "open invitation" (pp. 244-246):
Because of Christ's prevenient and unconditional invitation, the fellowship of the table cannot be restricted to people who are 'faithful to the church', or to the 'inner circle' of the community. For it is not the feast of the particularly righteous, or the people who think that they are particularly devout; it is the feast of the weary and heavy-laden, who have heard the call to refreshment. We must ask ourselves whether baptism and confirmation ought to go on counting as the presuppositions of 'admittance' to the Lord's supper. If we remember that Jesus' meal with tax-collectors and sinners is also present in the Lord's supper, then the open invitation to it should also be carried 'into the highways and byways'. It will then lose its 'mystery' character, but it will not become an ordinary, everyday meal for all that, because the invitation is a call to the fellowship of the crucified one and an invitation in his name to reconciliation with God ...
... [I]t is the Lord's supper, not something organized by a church or a denomination. The church owes its life to the Lord and its fellowship to his supper, not the other way around. Its invitation goes out to all whom he is sent to invite. If a church were to limit the openness of his invitation of its own accord, it would be turning the Lord's supper into the church's supper and putting its own fellowship at the centre, not fellowship with him. By using the expression 'the Lord's supper' we are therefore stressing the pre-eminence of Christ above his earthly church and are calling in question every denominationally limited 'church supper' ...Let me pause to say, this is the vision that captures me when I think of open communion. Not to say there aren't other issues on the table, but this theological impulse trumps for me.
What is true of theology applies to church discipline as well. The Lord's supper is not the place to practise church discipline; it is first of all the place where the liberating presence of the crucified Lord is celebrated. But in many churches the admission of one person to communion is practically linked with the excommunication of others, so that the Lord's supper is preceded by a 'test' of the individual's worthiness or unworthiness ... Christ's original feast of joy is then unfortunately transformed into a meal of repentance where people beat their breasts and gnash their teeth ...
Life is more than knowledge about the laws of life; and in the same way the fellowship of Christ and fellowship with one another are more than knowledge about its conditions. The Lord's supper takes place on the basis of an invitation which is as open as the outstretched arms of Christ on the cross. Because he died for the reconciliation of 'the world', the world is invited to reconciliation in the supper. It is not the openness of this invitation, it is the restrictive measures of the churches which have to be justified before the face of the crucified Jesus. But which of us can justify them in his sight? The openness of the crucified Lord's invitation to his supper and his fellowship reaches beyond the frontiers of Christianity; for it is addressed to 'all nations' and to 'tax-collectors and sinners' first of all. Consequently we understand Christ's invitation as being open, not merely to the churches but to the whole world.
Third, as the meal is shared each person will "offer another bread and wine with Christ's words of promise". This brings us into the eschatological nature of the experience.
Fourth, the Supper will be shared with the congregation facing each other, seated around a table if at all possible: "The meal's character of fellowship is brought out when the person performing the liturgy stands behind the altar, so making it a table, and celebrates facing the people. It is demonstrated even more clearly when the congregation sits around a table."
Fifth, when possible, and preferably all the time, the Lord's Supper should be a part of an agape meal where everyone eats together: The Lord's Supper should be followed "by a common meal, and the proclamation of the gospel by a common discussion of people's real needs and the specific tasks of the Christian mission".
Take This Bread by Sara Miles is another of those books that's important when it comes to making a case for an open communion Table. Miles, an unbeliever raised by atheist parents, has her conversion by participating in open communion at St. Gregory's, the church that will eventually become her home and the eventually launching pad for Miles's efforts to feed the hungry of her city. Her conversion during open communion as she was visiting St. Gregory's with almost no experience or exposure to Christianity:
We sat down and stood up, sang and sat down, waited and listened and stood up and sang, and it was all pretty peaceful and sort of interesting. "Jesus invites everyone to his table," the woman announced, and we started moving up in a stately dance to the table in the rotunda. It had some dishes on it, and a pottery goblet.Reading Miles's story I have to ask: Why are we interfering with the Spirit to work in this fashion by limiting access to the Lord's Supper?
And then we gathered around that table. And there was more singing and standing, and someone was putting a piece of fresh, crumbly bread in my hands, saying "the body of Christ," and handing me the goblet of sweet wine, saying "the blood of Christ," and something outrageous and terrifying happened. Jesus happened to me.
Some excerpts from the book regarding St. Gregory's theology of open communion and its connection to the practices of hospitality and justice:
[Rick and Donald, the founders of St. Gregory's] wanted to make sure every word spoken during services would communicate the essence of St. Gregory's approach to hospitality.Of course, there's always a counterargument to be made. The case for a closed communion can seem strong. In particular, there's this passage from Paul:
In fact, they had just commissioned an expensive new altar that physicalized their philosophy of open communion. It stood alone, in the center of the rotunda: Hand-built of gorgeous, polished hardwood in the style of an early Palestinian altar, it was inscribed in gilt letters with two quotations. The first, in Greek, from the Gospel of Luke, recorded an insult to Jesus: "This guy welcomes sinners and eats with them." On the other side of the altar were the words of the seventh-century mystic Isaac of Nineveh: "Did not our Lord share his table with tax collectors and harlots? So do not distinguish between worthy and unworthy. All must be equal for you to love and serve."
This is what Rick and Donald had insisted on with building worship around open communion. It wasn't just about offering bread and wine to all comers but extending the welcome through what they called "radical hospitality," making the entire liturgy transparent and accessible to strangers every step of the way. It was why Rick badgered the deacons constantly about pitching every announcement and speech to the newcomers and the strangers -- eschewing jargon and insider references. And it echoed something I'd heard from Bishop Swing when I talked with him about the food pantry.
"Whenever the church powers get around to feeding," Swing said, "it's usually conditional -- you have to be baptized, you have to belong to our club -- and it stops being Jesus's meal. Churchly legitimacy gets its hand in rather than crazy hospitality, the open extravagance of the Last Supper. And you get further and further from the power and genius of that meal."
So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves (1 Cor 11.27-29).The argument here is that communion should be closed so that people might be protected. For if we allow people to take communion in an unworthy manner they will be eating and drinking judgment upon themselves. Closed communion, then, is paternalistic in intent, protecting the spiritually immature from hurting themselves.
Two responses here -- one quick, the other deep.
The quick response is simply to note that we eat and drink judgment on ourselves. We might call this the libertarian response to the paternalistic practice of closed communion. That is, it's not the church hierarchy's job to protect people from themselves, passing judgment about who can or can't take communion. As if the clergy were morally pure enough to make such a call (those familiar with church history know this isn't exactly an argument we should be making).
Thankfully, this is not what we see in Paul's text above. We don't see the clergy inserting themselves between the people and the Lord's Table. What we see is a judgment that we bring onto ourselves. This, it seems to me, is a distinction my own tradition misses. While the Book of Common Prayer contains those "Disciplinary Rubrics" I mentioned at the outset, there's little that makes the penitential connection within the spiritual life of the communicant, and everything placed upon the shoulders of the priest.
But while that's an important point it doesn't get to the deeper issue. Yes, while it's true that the judgment we face is a judgment we bring onto ourselves, this doesn't make communion any less dangerous. And if communion is dangerous then shouldn't people be warned so that they don't unwittingly take the meal in an unworthy manner and bring judgment upon themselves?
In short, sure, communion isn't closed but shouldn't it at least have a warning label?
I think it should come with a warning label. But that raises another question: What should we be warning about?
Most advocates of closed communion suggest that the warning label should be about moral purity and piety. In this view, taking a personal moral inventory is what Paul means when he says "everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat the bread and drink the cup". That's what I was taught growing up. Before taking communion I had to sit there, inventory my sins and feel remorse.
To be clear, I do think it's important to make moral inventories of our lives, to feel remorse and to repent. I try to do this everyday. It's called examen in Ignatian spirituality.
So I don't want to suggest that examen isn't a part of Christian spiritual practice. I just don't think that examen is what Paul is taking about in 1 Corinthians 11. Communion isn't a practice of moralistic introspection, it's a communal practice of welcome and grace.
I believe this becomes clear when we step back and look at the larger context of 1 Corinthians 11 (and the overall context of the book).
So let's look at the context of Chapter 11. Why is Paul giving instructions about the Lord's Supper? A few verses before the passage above Paul tells us:
In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter! (1 Cor 11.17-22, emphasis added).Paul's concerns here are all communal, how the body is welcoming (or, rather, not welcoming) and honoring each other. When they "come together as a church" there are "divisions". Because of these divisions the celebration of communion is not the Lord's Supper. That's key. What makes something "the Lord's Supper" is a lack of division.
Okay, then what sort of division are we talking about? Doctrinal or theological divisions? Personal moral lapses during the workweek? Nope. Paul is speaking about divisions of honor and shame. We read words like "despise the church" and "humiliating those who have nothing".
Ponder that. Paul says that the meal the Corinthians were eating was not the Lord's Supper because they were, in the way they practiced the meal, humiliating, despising, and shaming the poorer members of the church. This is the context we need to have in mind when we go on to read Paul's exhortations a few verses later about "discerning the body" before taking the Lord's Supper. The body here is the communal body of Christ gathered around the Table.
This communal reading of body is supported by noting that immediately after his remarks about the Lord's Supper in Chapter 11 Paul moves into his famous body-metaphor in Chapter 12: "the body is not made up of one part but of many". And even that discussion is about honor and shame. Many have tended think Chapter 12 is about the diversity of spiritual gifts in the body. But that's not Paul's main concern. His point isn't that we all have different gifts. We certainly do, but the problem is in how we honor and shame various gifts. Note the honor and shame focus in Paul's culminating assessment in Chapter 12:
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it (1 Cor 12.21-26, emphasis added).I think the key to understanding Paul's comments about "discerning the body" in regards to the Lord's Supper is found right here. Note how Paul has circled back to the concern he floated in Chapter 11, the concern over "division". This suggests to me that Paul's is still here thinking about the Lord's Supper deep now into Chapter 12. As more evidence of this note the parallel between Chapter 12's concern over honor and shame with what Paul started with in Chapter 11: "You despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing".
The weaker, less presentable parts of the body -- the poor in the church at Corinth -- were to be given special treatment and care. These "shameful parts" of the body were to be given greater honor "so that there should be no division in body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other."
Again, note how the divisions in the body are about shaming and honoring.
This, then, is at the root of Paul's claim that the Corinthians were eating and drinking judgment upon themselves. The Corinthians were taking the Lord's Supper in a way that was shaming other members of the body. The meal, meant to be a sign of a body where "each part has equal concern for each other", had become the exact opposite, a location of humiliation, shame, and exclusion. Thus the meal itself, in all it was supposed to represent, stood in judgment of the Corinthians. In eating a meal of inclusion while engaging in acts of exclusion the Corinthians had judged themselves. Their own actions had condemned them.
And with that in mind, let's go back to the issue of open versus closed communion.
Is communion dangerous? Should people be warned about their participation?
Yes and yes. But those answers, in light of what we've just discussed, don't mitigate against the practice of open communion. In fact, I'd argue that open communion is better positioned here relative to closed communion given the particular warnings we need. What's more, I'd argue that the fact that communion requires a warning presupposes its openness. Why warn if communion is closed and safe?
So, yes, open communion is dangerous. People do need to be warned, as Paul warned the Corinthians, that if you take this meal of inclusion while shaming, humiliating and excluding others then you've brought judgment upon yourself. You're being a hypocrite as your ritual actions in the Supper are not being supported by your lifestyle. In taking the Lord's Supper you're professing that you have "equal concern" for others, that you give "greater honor" to the least of these. Thus you bring judgment upon yourself when you shame and humiliate others, when you fail to discern and care for the many parts of body of Christ. Especially the most shameful parts.
So, yeah, people do need to be warned about that. People need to be told what the meal symbolizes and the expectations it places upon us. If you shame and humiliate "the least of these" you shouldn't eat the bread and drink the cup.
And if you do eat the meal while shaming and humiliating others, the welcome of Jesus -- symbolized in the meal -- will stand in judgment against you.
All of this, does, though, bring up the issue of excommunication -- or communion discipline -- and that deserves a post all its own.