How I declined the invitation
Mazziotta, Richard
HOW I DECLINED THE INVITATION REFLECTIONS ON INTERCOMMUNION RICHARD MAZZIOTTA To mark the anniversary of Martin Luther's posting his Ninety-five Theses on the doors of the castle church of...
...Commentators, have suggested that these differences in geographical location, in number multiples, and in the types of baskets used develop Mark's theme, forwarding this Gospel's message that Jesus offers salvation not only to the Jews but to Gentiles, too...
...Here in Mark, Jesus is instructing the Twelve, shouting as it were in their deafened ears, to understand the meaning of the one loaf they had in the boat...
...HOW I DECLINED THE INVITATION REFLECTIONS ON INTERCOMMUNION RICHARD MAZZIOTTA To mark the anniversary of Martin Luther's posting his Ninety-five Theses on the doors of the castle church of Wittenberg in 1517, the Lutheran communion observes Reformation Sunday each October...
...And during the Johannine hillside feeding, Jesus delivers himself of an emphatic homily regarding the meaning of the bread given from his hands...
...Each Gospel reports Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes and feeding them not only to disciples but also to the crowds ever in attendance during his campaign for the kingdom...
...This is actually not a story about individuals declining an invitation...
...Should I have been more thoughtful...
...Referring to Roman Catholic teaching that insists that conditions for licit reception of the Eucharist go beyond assenting to belief in the real presence to requiring complete creedal consent, he maintained that the Roman Catholic church had turned the sock inside out...
...It was merely loaves and fishes...
...Now I even wonder, had I been sitting with the crowds while the bread and fishes were being passed, would I have taken and received or would I have seen fit to decline...
...We have searched," they say...
...Can the churches today effectively propose the same choice if they insist that it be done aside from the supper feedings of Christ...
...Only, "Come to the great banquet...
...And, as I say, it had all been very much according to script...
...Then, as the banquet room fills with the maimed, the blind, and the lame, we realize that the man who hosts the great banquet is revealing himself as a person determined at all costs to see his hope for a great banquet fulfilled...
...The Lutherans are gathering around the altar...
...The sphuris was a hamper used specifically for carrying provisions, and it was typical of Greek culture...
...the teacher says...
...The fragments picked up fill twelve baskets, a number representing, of course, the twelve tribes of Israel...
...For a moment, let's suppose this provocative suggestion in light of the parable of the great banquet...
...During the course of their conversation my abstinence from Communion was discussed...
...As the parables give Christians the richest experience possible of the teachings of Jesus, the parables provide Chris...
...For a Roman Catholic priest to be invited to stand in the pulpit of a Lutheran sanctuary on Reformation Sunday is surely a sign that these are days given to the churches by the Holy Spirit...
...The first is based on the Book of John...
...The pastor of the Lutheran community had met some of my colleagues...
...Look...
...You have one loaf...
...These are surely critical verses: Getting into the boat again he left for the other side...
...Here a different basket is used to pick up the fragments...
...As the story unfolds, as we learn that invitation after invitation has met rejection, the man exhibits extraordinary character and conviction, the praise of which becomes the moral of the parable...
...Still they shared the fishes...
...Imagine that after the readings and after witness to Jesus from many voices, the presiding archbishop invited everyone to share Communion"through him, with him, and in him.'' The invitation is offered to each without regard to one's customary religious practice, without regard to one's denominational loyalty, without regard to one's having been baptized, and even without regard to one's belief in God...
...8:1-10, and their reprise at 8:14-21...
...The real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist was not established until the Last Supper shared on the vigil of the Passion...
...In extending the invitation to preach, the pastor emphasized how welcome I would be to share Communion...
...In the sense that the parable is about the host and not the guests, on Reformation Sunday I joined company with those who when summoned to a great banquet had a very handy excuse...
...Without prejudice to the relationship between the Last Supper and the Passion, I find it increasingly difficult to separate the hillside meals from the Last Supper...
...Imagine a local church inviting one and all to a park or stadium for a celebration of the Eucharist shaped around the mission of evangelization...
...Indeed, perhaps it was because of the profound fellowship of that supper, perhaps it was because of the presence of Jesus who drew about him so large and so diverse a crowd, that they were able to understand all that Jesus meant in the choice he set before them...
...I love sending my students out, and going with them, too, to meet our selves in the parables...
...Considering their placement in Mark, these verses serve as a reprise to the feeding stories...
...Had my decision not only been too easy but too simple as well...
...Watch Out...
...All I can say is that now I know what I didn't know before Reformation Sunday: when summoned to the great banquet, I, too, had an excuse handy...
...Although you have eyes, you do not see, Although you have ears, do you not hear...
...been imposed by self or others...
...Having converged into the assembly, they sang themselves into the praise of that One God, that Mighty Fortress God, that God by whom we are saved by faith alone...
...Then very much according to script, the visitor became other as I stood apart during the proclamation of the eucharistic prayer and apart as well while the Body and Blood of Christ were distributed...
...Though the conversation proceeded to other matters, on an unconscious level I was deeply affected by our discussion...
...And the collection of fragments suggests the gathering of Israel into the kingdom...
...And do you not remember...
...The Marcan community is struggling to be a church which transcends boundaries and limits...
...Soon the members of the church were gathering...
...I declined the invitation, however, attempting to do so with the same sensitivity with which it was extended...
...Still they ate the bread of Christ...
...Mark places the second feeding of the crowd in the De-capolis, a confederation of ten cities, east of Galilee and Samaria, and, important for Mark's, purposes, Hellenistic in culture...
...If this is a parable for the churches about the Holy Spirit's extraordinary intention to host a great banquet, initially invited guests in attendance or not, is the suggestion about the Eucharist in the park or stadium so outlandish after all...
...Those who live in story are oriented to something or someone outside themselves, the rich man (with the wily steward) to trusting others, and the man who planned to give a dinner to having guests.'' Thus, the parable might be more suitably named, "The Man Who Was Determined to Have a Great Banquet...
...You have bread...
...Turn again to the man who summoned guests to the great banquet...
...Several loaves of bread to provide for Jew and Gentile are no longer required...
...As it was reported to me during a staff meeting, some Lutheran members had approached their pastor after worship to inquire if I had abstained because a welcome had not been extended...
...I have never shared Holy Communion in an Orthodox or Reformation church...
...A few days later in a theology course I teach we were speaking about the parables...
...The picking-up of fragments climaxes this feeding story...
...tians their richest freedom, too, the freedom to suppose...
...By that I mean staving off the ordinary rules of understanding which have...
...I envy them both their supper and become more weary of my excuses...
...In the process, I remembered something about the Eucharist which a non-Catholic professor of mine had once taught...
...and, except for one loaf, they did not have bread with them in the boat...
...For that particular class we were reading the parable of the man who invited guests to a great banquet, only to have his messengers hear regrets from those they had been dispatched to summon...
...We quickly demur: surely it was not the Eucharist that was given...
...And because he was aware, Jesus said to them, "Why are you talking about how you have no bread...
...And he said to them, "And you do not yet understand...
...And I have never experienced a compelling desire to do so...
...Toward the end of our discussion, a student, referring back to my Reformation Sunday experience, said to me,"I hope you aren't offended by what I am about to say...
...Mark refers to sphuris rather than the kophinos...
...And the hillside stories have meaning only in light of the community' s subsequent eucharis-tic understanding...
...I have two reasons for maintaining this...
...Still failing, now I am standing apart as the Lutheran pastor begins the eucharistic prayer, the prayer which remains the hillside blessing of Christ...
...Would it be a response to the parable...
...Having supposed the parable about the man who sent invitations to the great banquet, doesn't it seem that you, too, were one of those invited who chose not to attend...
...Was the student supposing an appropriate reading of the parable, or, was she reiterating a "let's open that old Bible, let our finger fall on a verse, and find the answer to today's problem" approach to Scripture, a fundamentalist approach...
...How are your hearts so hardened...
...Emerging from these three scenes are three separate and carefully paired details, details concerning geographical location, numbers fed, and types of baskets used...
...The meaning of the both scenes comes together in Mark 8:14-21...
...Now I am in the boat, and while I am wondering how our one loaf will ever be enough, the rabbi is trying to explain something which I fail to understand...
...Orthodox and Roman Catholics, as well as believers of many other Christian families will, no doubt, dismiss such a suggestion as wholly outlandish...
...Do you not yet perceive and not yet understand...
...The pastor had assured them that that had not been the case...
...The invitation to receive the Eucharist,'' he insisted,"might more appropriately be extended to anyone present, believers and unbelievers alike, both those committed to Jesus and those who came into church that morning because it was cold on the street...
...And the seven among four thousand, how many food hampers full of fragments did you pick up?'' And they said to him, "Seven...
...Though it was a very good excuse, it was, nevertheless, an excuse...
...for the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod...
...Would this be an act in the tradition of Jesus, or would it stand outside the tradition...
...And he began to warn them, saying, "Look Out...
...I emphasize to my students that we understand these teachings best by supposing our way through them...
...Now I am supposing again the parable...
...I recall that as that class was beginning, I mentioned my experience on Reformation Sunday to my students...
...Jesus' discourse arrived at a decision point, for linked with the bread and fishes was the choice of discipleship that Jesus proposed, a choice which many found to be repellent because of the unbearable consequences it augured for their lives...
...As James Breech comments in The Silence of Jesus (Fortress, 1983): "The man who once gave a dinner and invited guests is someone who refuses to abandon living in story...
...One loaf provides for both...
...The comparison of the crowd to sheep without a shepherd evokes prophecy and psalmody...
...The visitor's homily was preached...
...this is a story about a man who summons guests to a great banquet...
...And we have no loaves of bread...
...Talking about intercommunion now with my Roman Catholic colleagues, we discussed many of the contemporary viewpoints on the issue...
...Since the encounter with the Lutherans had obviously been on my mind, I decided to do some supposing for myself about intercommunion in light of the parable of the man who summoned guests to a great banquet...
...A few days later, however, my Sunday ministry among the Lutherans assumed an interesting afterlife...
...There was a bona fide excuse for my sudden departure: a Roman Catholic assembly was waiting...
...Until then this had been a question simple, if not easy, to REV...
...But we turned soon enough to the parables...
...Though I knew I had done the prudent thing by abstaining, now I wondered: had I done the right thing...
...Other than the hillside and shoreline suppers, John provides no explicit institution of the Eucharist...
...Is Jesus here calling for an admixture of disciples into one community...
...The repetition of the number five in the scene, five loaves, five thousand people, suggests the five books of the Law...
...The type of basket which Mark refers to during the collection of fragments is a kophinos, a large, sturdy, multipurpose wicker tub typical of Jewish use...
...Look...
...Would this be an act of faithful, loving remembrance of the Lord...
...answer...
...RICHARD MAZZIOTTA, D.S.C., is a campus minister at Stonehill College, North Easton, Massachusetts...
...These hillside suppers were hardly ephemeral love feasts...
...As the liturgy was drawing to a close, I exited...
...Look, again...
...What intention do you suppose Jesus had in so doing, if not that which my former professor had suggested...
...Note how the author is careful to introduce again references to numbers fed and baskets filled...
...They said to him, "Twelve...
...Here number multiples of four and of seven are distinct from Jewish multiples in the earlier scene and point to the presence of a Gentile audience...
...Remember, we are supposing now...
...The second reason is based on the pair of feeding stories in Mark(6:30-44...
...The author is careful, too, to refer again to the types of baskets used during the picking-up of fragments...
...The readings were proclaimed...
...Mark places the first feeding of the crowd in a Jewish district, the southeastern side of the Sea of Galilee...
...And among themselves they started to discuss with one another, saying, "We do not have loaves of bread...
...And therein taste and see the goodness of the Lord...
...Seven loaves and seven baskets can suggest the customary seventy-fold division of the Gentile world into nations, the Septuagint, the mission of the seventy (Lk 10:1), and the extension of the apostolic mission to the Hellenists with the election of the seven Greek-speaking deacons (Acts 6:3...
...Last year I was invited to preach during this liturgy in a nearby church...
...We learn how at one moment the parables render obscure the kingdom, only in the next to become its inner light...
...Look...
...Like the others, you, too, had an excuse...
...Now they had forgotten to bring loaves of bread...
...With agreement on this sealed, off to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church I went...
...Driving off, I admitted to that feeling of relief and satisfaction we often experience when an out-of-theordinary commitment is completed...
...Is this an instance where the author of John wanted to enlarge the com-munity's understanding of the Eucharist...
...When I broke five loaves of bread among five thousand, how many wicker tubs full of fragments did you pick up...
Vol. 115 • January 1988 • No. 2
