In our Post last week, we introduced a short piece from the Presbyterian Book of Order known as “The Notes of the Reformed Church.” The opening of this section reads as follows: “Where Christ is, there is the true Church. Since the earliest days of the Reformation, Reformed Christians have marked the presence of the true Church wherever the Word of God –
is truly preached and heard,
the Sacraments are rightly administered,
and ecclesiastical discipline is uprightly ministered.”
The first characteristic stresses in the importance of the Word of God being “truly preached and heard.” In many ways, one of the most important and noticeable changes in worship made by the early Reformers was to re-emphasize the importance of the Bible. In the Catholic church of the 1500’s, the central part of any service of worship would have been the mass, or what we call the Lord’s Supper. Bible reading and preaching would have been very secondary, or even completely absent. And even if the Bible were read aloud in worship, it would have been in Latin, a language understood only by a very small number of highly educated people.
So the reformers wanted to move the reading of passages of scripture and the preaching of sermons on those passages to the center of the service. The main fixture at the front of a Reformed church would now be, not the altar, henceforth to be called the Lord’s Table, but the pulpit. The Bible and the reading thereof would be, not in Latin, but in the language of the people.
While the Reformers disagreed on exactly how often the Lord’s Supper should be observed – weekly, monthly, quarterly, even just once a year – it was clear that it would not to be a part of every worship service. In contrast, almost every time a Reformed church meets for worship, there will be at least some Bible reading and preaching. Most importantly, the Reformers urged that the Lord’s Supper should never be offered without at least some reading and preaching, if only enough to explain what this sacrament is and why we keep it.
The second characteristic, however, does speak about the sacraments and specifies that they are to be “rightly administered.” In this context, the first task of the Reformers was to decide how many sacraments there would be – and which ones. The Catholic church had (and continues to have) seven – baptism, communion, confirmation, ordination, marriage, absolution, and last rites. Most parts of the Reformed church settled on just two – baptism and communion.
The phrase “rightly administered” is also interesting in its ambiguity, but for the most part, it comes down to meaning plainly or simply, without a lot of flourishes or extras. As it turns out, one of the most important qualifications for “rightly administered” is the one most often taken for granted – the sacraments are never to be celebrated alone or in private, but only in the context of the worship of the community. I cannot celebrate the Lord’s Supper alone, by myself, and neither can I baptize someone privately on a Saturday afternoon. Along this same line, I cannot perform either sacraments unless and until I have been authorized to do so by my session or other council of the church.
Failing to ensure that I am administering the sacraments rightly would bring me into jeopardy under the third Note of the Reformed Church, “ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered.” More about that final note next week!
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