Koinonia in Communion

In 2019, I read Remembrance, Communion, and Hope: Rediscovering the Gospel at the Lord’s Table by J. Todd Billings. I chose to read this book because I have been bothered for a few years by the low frequency with which our church (and, more broadly, the evangelical church) chooses to practice communion. I have never heard an argument against practicing it more. I can only assume that we limit the frequency because of the time it takes during the worship service and perhaps the extra volunteer burden for preparation and clean-up. Billings opens with a wager:

...that a renewed theology and practice of the Lord’s Supper can be an instrument for congregations to develop a deeper, more multifaceted sense of the gospel itself. The fundamental reason for this is not anthropological but theological: the Supper is God’s own instrument for conforming believers to the image of Christ. The Supper is a God-given icon—displaying the Word in signs and actions in the assembled community—an icon that draws us into a divine drama by the power of the Spirit. In this icon, we do not simply reflect from a distance but we enter in, living into our new identities as adopted children of the Father and tasting fellowship with Christ and others in the covenant community.

Billings points out that our "functional theologies" may be different than our "stated theologies." He argues that both "traditional" and "contemporary" evangelical churches have a limited "functional theology" of the Lord's Supper that focuses solely on "remembrance of the cross," failing "to inhabit God's Word more fully." This inward focus of "individual devotion" results in a lack of hunger for "the multifaceted character of the gospel," which is about more than the forgiveness of sins. To address this problem, we need to develop a deeper hunger for God's Word. We need to view Christ the Word as more than a get out of hell free card. We need to abide in Christ for our spiritual food and nourishment (John 6:56).

Billings echoes K. A. Smith, suggesting that we need a counterliturgy of Christian worship to counteract the "secular" liturgies that turn our affections and behaviors away from Christ and His kingdom. We need to form our lives through "the church's distinctive repertoire of disciplines, from singing psalms to daily prayer to communing with Christ at the Supper." Both intellectual memorialism and human-centered revivalism fail to capture "the affective perception of the gospel" in which believers fellowship with God "through the means of Word and sacrament with his people." We ought not "reduce the benefits of the gospel to either forgiveness or transformation." Rather, we ought "to recover a multifaceted sense of the gospel by returning to the scriptural narrative of Israel, as fulfilled in Christ."

In the Reformed tradition, God uses the Supper as a means and instrument of grace, where believers receive the grace through the Spirit by faith. The sacrament or ordinance does not signify the faith of believers; rather, it signifies Jesus Christ. When we partake, we eat Christ's body and drink his blood by the Spirit through faith. Thus, we should focus not on objects but on the sign-action of enacting a communal meal, a foretaste of heaven. Our participation (koinonia) in the blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16) is always horizontal (with other believers) and vertical (with Christ).

To transform our identity "in the triune drama of salvation, then we need a robust and multifaceted remembrance of God's promises...inseparably connected with a present communion with our Lord Jesus Christ mediated by the Spirit...[and] a hope for the return of the same Christ, and the final consummation of creation giving way to the promised kingdom." In fact, the communion at the Supper is "a dual encounter with Christ and with others around the table." During this sacrament or ordinance, we should remember that we are rehearsing the future Supper in heaven, where there as now we will and do touch and taste, enjoying "the embodied fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ."