Sacramental Order

By Larry Beane

I recently drove a festive couple of Uber passengers who were trying to remember the mnemonic for Beverage Order: Was it "beer before liquor" or "liquor before beer"?  There are different opinions on this matter, but there is indeed an old adage concerning this order that has apparently been debunked as a myth.

Unless I'm quite mistaken, it's a universal practice in the Christian Church across denominational lines that Holy Baptism precedes the Holy Eucharist, that disciples are made by the former rather than by the latter, and that only the disciples are to participate in the Lord's Supper.  

Of course, admittance to the table is a thorny and contentious issue in our Synod, which has historically - with some limited pastoral exceptions - endorsed Eucharistic fellowship only with members of LCMS congregations and of those church bodies in altar and pulpit fellowship with the LCMS.  This practice is sometimes called "closed" or "close" or "close(d)" communion - although I find these distinctions hard to understand.  Actual admission practice varies widely, as any visitor to other LCMS parishes will conclude just by looking at various communion statements.

In the above Facebook post, a non-baptized visitor has taken part in the Eucharist on Good Friday at an LCMS congregation.  He is now ready to take the "next" step by being "signed up" for the next "baptism."

Of course, keeping track of communicant visitors from other LCMS congregations is difficult at times (and this is exacerbated during festival services), and certainly any pastor who has served for any amount of time in the parish has, no doubt, accidentally and inadvertently communed people whom he mistook for someone else, or mistakenly believed should have been communed.  The best construction is that this is the case here.

However, this post does raise an interesting question: are we bound by the traditional Sacramental Order: "Baptism before Supper is proper, Supper before Baptism is schism"?  Or is this just a New Wives' Tale that Snopes and Mythbusters will denounce as Fake Sacramentology?  Is there good reason to retain the traditional Sacramental Order?  What would the ramifications be of communing people prior to Holy Baptism?

By the way, the old saying goes:

Liquor before beer, you're in the clear.

Beer before liquor, never been sicker.

To my knowledge, Gottesdienst has never taken an official position on Beverage Order, nor have the Scriptures, the Confessions, the COP, the CTCR, nor the CCM... though it is quite possible, if not probable, that the issue has been taken up in conventions.

St. Michael's Liturgical Conference

Materials from the 2014 St. Michael's Liturgical Conference at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Detroit are being posted at Zion's website.  A number of our Gottesdienst editors were involved in the conference in a variety of ways: Fr. Mark Braden hosted and presided, Fr. David Petersen preached for the St. Michaelmas, Fr. Burnell Eckardt presented a sectional paper, the undersigned presented a paper on the pastoral care of catechumens and communicants, and all of the above participated in a panel discussion on the topic of Confirmation and First Communion.  Other presenters included Fr. Joel Baseley of Dearborn, Michigan, and Fr. Daniel Reuning of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Special Events Raise Vigil Anticipation: including a Very Young First Communicant

One of the more successful ideas I have employed over the years is the scheduling of special events during the Great Vigil of Easter.  The idea isn't really my own: as early as the Fourth Century the catechumenate was presented for Baptism at the Vigil.  So I have sought to follow suit, employing the third of the four parts of the Vigil ceremony not only for Baptisms, but more notably, for confirmations.  It's kind of scary doing this at first, since people are more inclined to expect confirmations on a Sunday, whether it be Palm Sunday or some Sunday after Easter, and this forces them to come out for another service.  It might even be unmanageable in some parishes.  But in my case it worked pretty well, and people have grown accustomed to thinking of the Vigil as the Big Day for such things.  Admittedly my parish is small, which sometimes works in one's favor.

This year I have no confirmations, though I do have one (pre-confirmation) first communion.  In the past, first communions have taken place on  Maundy Thursday as a rule.  But this year it will be at the Vigil, and that works out just fine, in keeping with my desire to give people more reason for coming to the Vigil.

And this first communion will be a special occasion for me as well: it will be for the youngest communicant I have ever had.  Several years ago I began to commune this little four-year-old's big brother, at age five.  But she won't be five until summer.  A communicant this young is sometimes shy about answering catechetical questions in class, simple as they must be, but her answers ring true.

What do people get when they come up for communion?  "A chip," she says.   Hm, a chip?  What is that chip?  A potato chip?  "No."  A piece of bread? Her head nods.  And what is that piece of bread?  Silence.  What did Jesus say that it is?  Silence.  He said, This is ____.  She finishes: "My Body."   So is it Jesus' Body?  Head nods.  So, tell me, what did Jesus say?  Now she answers: "This is my Body."  Yes, and what's it for?  And so on.  This child knows the ten commandments, she knows how to say the Creed, and she knows that the Sacrament is Jesus' Body, for the forgiveness of sins.  And she knows it's something she wants.  Who am I to forbid this?  In our parish I abide by the rule that while confirmation remains at the conclusion of eighth grade, first communion will happen whenever the child is ready, whether early or not.