Empty Altar Table

Very recently a group of Lutheran pastors in the area were invited to take a tour of Holy Rosary Cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo. The ecumenical officer of the diocese, Father Jim Peiffer, was our gracious host. I won’t go into all the details of this magnificent building, but I do want to share a moment that moved me at the end of our time there.

We concluded with a short devotional service that mirrored the service pastors take part in as they begin in a new congregation. We began at the baptismal font, moved to the pulpit and finally to the altar. As we gathered around the altar table, a friend of mine read the Words of Institution as recorded by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. It is the first time I have ever heard those words read behind an empty table, a table without the Sacrament, an altar without Holy Communion. Father Jim shared his lament that for a number of reasons we were not able to yet share this table fellowship, the deepest fellowship Christians know.

I was moved deeply too. For I too long for the day when all Christians—not just “some” or “most”—but all Christians gather together and the share the realized, concrete fellowship that our Lord Jesus intended (see John 17 and Acts 2:42).

In 1961, the World Council of Churches issued a statement on Christian unity. My favorite paragraph is this one:

We believe that the unity which is both God’s will and his gift to his Church is being made visible as all in each place who are baptized into Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord and Saviour are brought by the Holy Spirit into one fully committed fellowship, holding the one apostolic faith preaching the one Gospel, breaking the one bread, joining in common prayer, and having a corporate life reaching out in witness and service to all and who at the same time are united with the whole Christian fellowship in all places and all ages in such wise that ministry and members are accepted by all, and that all can act and speak together as occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls his people. It is for such unity that we believe we must pray and work.

This October we celebrate with our Lutheran and Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. This document was signed by members of Lutheran Churches around the world and the Roman Catholic Church on Reformation Day, 1999. It essentially proclaimed that on this central issue (justification), we are putting down our swords and no longer fighting.

I suppose for me the sound of a sword being dropped makes the sight of an empty altar table a bit less harsh. But I long for the day when the sound of that sword dropping is matched by the sound of wine being poured and bread being broken and all of Jesus’ faithful followers gathering at his Holy Communion feast.

Please join me in working for and praying for the unity of Christ’s whole Church.