Sixty-Second General Meeting         University of Notre Dame

August 7-10, 1999                           South Bend, Indiana

Summary:

Table fellowship, the Lord’s Supper, and covenant in Israel and the Early Church

After welcomes and introductions, the group read the following texts together: Mark 2:15-17; Matthew 11:18-19a; Luke 15:1-2; and 1Q28a. Two questions were introduced to begin the conversation. These were:

1. What was the purpose of Jesus’ meals?
2. To what degree, if any, were Jesus’ meal practices in conflict with or shocking to Jewish contemporaries?

Rather than narrating the subsequent discussion sequentially, it is more convenient to summarize the points or questions made by the participants. These are listed by topics, sometimes followed by specific comments, not all of which are in accord with one another.

1. There was general agreement that we are laboring under a paucity of information about important aspects of Jesus’ meals. More data is needed on such items as:
1. What were the conventions or regulations governing meals among the common people?
2. To what extent was Temple purity being urged, and by whom, at meals being eaten away from the Temple? Were (some) Pharisees involved in this movement?
3. If such urgings were happening, how were they being received by the average Galilean? Were they ignored? Opposed? Seen as an ideal that was not workable in daily life? Etc.
4. In general, what were the norms and boundaries around common table fellowship? A clearer picture of this is needed in order to assess if and to what extent Jesus was seen as different from such norms or expectations.
5. It was noted, to general agreement, that the Qumran texts are quite different from the Gospel narratives about Jesus’ meals since the former are describing the formal end of a process of admission, including boundary markers, while the latter are basically Jesus’ first contact with new people.
2. Who were the "sinners" with whom Jesus eats in the Gospels? A number of ideas were voiced:
1. In some ways, the "sinners" are everyone; e.g. Peter in Luke 5:8 in which Peter encountering one of the "great" sees himself as an outsider.
2. Could "sinners" be Gentiles? After some discussion this seemed unlikely.
3. Sinners could be anyone who just do not observe the whole Torah all the time for practical reasons.
4. Sinners could simply be an expansion of the original and specific "tax collectors." Others felt these were two separate groups.
5. Most participants agreed with Sanders that sinners were not simply the `am ha-aretz.
3. The meals and repentance or conversion. All seemed comfortable with Meyer’s thinking that Jesus did not require evidence of conversion before dining with someone and that this graciousness sometimes prompted conversion. All felt that Jesus expected some sort of response and were unconvinced by Sanders’ claim that Jesus never required a change of heart on the part of sinners.
4. Was there negative reaction to Jesus’ meals and if so why?
1. He was eating with tax collectors. There’s not much more to it than that. As a wandering preacher, Jesus was being hosted at dinners by people wealthy enough to have homes. This suggests many disputes in the narrative are really post-resurrectional.
2. He was transcending social norms about eating with his own kind.
3. He had close associates who were "sinners."
4. He was ignoring purity norms for meals that were becoming increasingly adopted.
5. He was a sort of iconoclast.
6. All of the above suggestions had difficulties of one sort or another, particularly in terms of supporting evidence. It seemed reasonable at least to claim that Jesus’ meals were distinctive enough to have become an distinguishing feature of his activity.
5. The entire subject is further muddied by uncertainties over the role of the evangelists in depicting contention associated with the meals. How much of the Gospel narrative is driven by Stage 3 concerns rather than reflecting Stage 1 occurrences? Even Mt 11:18-19a could be seen as a Stage 3 insertion of a the Jewish parable of the wicked son.
6. Some Conclusions:
1. Beyond agreeing that Jesus was probably distinguished by his meals in some way, and that they were related to his kingdom preaching, more detailed conclusions were difficult to reach. So many provisos and codicils were added as to make summative statements fairly meaningless.
2. Most seemed to agree that teaching was an important, though hardly unique, aspect of meals at which Jesus was present.
3. The main problem is a lack of "control" first-century Jewish dining practices.

The conversation began with the reading of Exodus 24:3-8; 12:43-49; Jeremiah 31:31-34; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25 (while noting parallels) and Didache 9-10. A topical summary follows:

1. The Development of the Eucharist – starting from Raymond Moloney’s model in "The notion of sacrifice in the Institution Narrative" (from The Eucharist [Problems in Theology] (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1995).  Moloney posits a three-stage process:
1. The "breaking of the bread" as not explicitly sacrificial
2. Understanding of deeds as offerings to God and so sacrificial in a figurative sense
3. The death of Jesus explicitly expressed as a sacrifice.

The group generally expressed reservations about this model for two main reasons:

1. developments were not so unilinear as Moloney suggests
2. sacrifice seems earlier in the tradition than even Moloney’s implicit stage would admit:
1. Romans 3:25-26 "…whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood…"
2. Features of the Didache, such as the virtual absence of sacrifice language, indicates that Moloney’s model is too simple.
3. Moloney’s argument that the earliest followers of Jesus would have avoided sacrificial imagery in order to distinguish themselves from Temple worship seems odd given their regular worship in the Temple. Moreover, in Luke-Acts God is seen as saving through the Temple and Jesus’ followers are linked to it in their worship.
4. It seemed odd to talk about sacrifice coming "back in." It would be more likely to be there from the beginning.
5. Was not the offering of bread to God at meals when the bread was blessed a sacrificial act? Was it not an action to please God?
6. Jesus’ words "Do this as my memorial offering" contains the sacrificial notion that his deed is an offering that pleases God. N.B. Almsgiving, offerings, "deeds of compassion" were gradually deemed in the diaspora as sacrificial and on par with Temple worship.
7. Perhaps what developed was an appreciation of significance of Jesus’ death. The earliest meals were memorials of his self-sacrifice, later they became celebrations of salvation.
8. Sacrifice is part of the parlance of the first century. We’re fussy about its nuances because we are not a sacrificially-oriented culture. "All prayer was sacrifice and all sacrifice was prayer."

1. Sources of Lord’s Supper Rituals

The discussion began with Moloney’s list of Jewish practices that form the backdrop for the Eucharist: Grace at Meals, Fellowship Meals (Haburah Meals), Eschatological Meals (e.g. Qumran), Sacrifice in Second Temple Judaism, (including Sin Offerings, Thank Offerings, Covenant Sacrifices, Passover Sacrifices) and the Passover  Seder. With the addition of funerary memorial meals, all agreed with the sentiment that all of the elements are contributory but their relative weights cannot be unscrambled.

It was hard to judge whether the Last Supper was a Passover meal because of the conflicting evidence. In any case, its occurrence proximate to Passover exerted a shaping influence in the later interpretation of the meal’s significance.

 

2. Supersessionism (i.e. replacement theology) – if communities are defined by what you eat, when and where you eat, and with whom you eat, does the emerging church’s practice of the Lord’s Supper inevitably lead to supersessionism? By supersessionism we mean the idea that the Church has replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people. The reason for this replacement is often held to be alleged Jewish responsibility for the death of Christ.

Some interesting comments were made in this phase of the conversation, including –

1. The Gospels are supersessionist because they’re embedded in a canon that is not part of Israel’s scriptures. Some remarked that certain Gospels were intended to be supersessionist by their authors (esp. John), but others such as Matthew were not. (Matthew was described as arguing about how to live in fidelity and integrity now that the Temple was gone.)
2. Would early Christians have been as offended with the words "gnaw the flesh and drink the blood" in John 6:53 as are the Jewish characters in that scene?
3. Salvation history approaches (esp. to Luke-Acts) may lead to supersessionism.

A wide-ranging, pastorally-oriented conversation began with defining the term supersessionism (see above).  The notion that "the Jews" had been rejected by God was seen as central.  A question as to how the obsolescence language of the Letter to the Hebrews  relates to supersessionism suggests that further discussion of this theology might be fruitful.  (It was later observed that the Temple in Hebrews functions as sort of a "virtual reality," a template for human-divine relationship, even when it no longer exists physically.)

Another possible future topic for discussion that emerged concerned hermeneutics - namely, how it is possible hermeneutically for today's Church to disagree with the supersessionist attitudes found in parts of the New Testament.

It short, many agreed with the idea that supersessionism is an example of a heresy that results from building a theology on one biblical verse - a truth that got lonely.

A more theological discussion followed, including the following:

1. Jewish-Christian relations are a special case in terms of the Church's relationship to non-Christian religions. This can be seen in the organizational placement of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews within the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.  
2. How does one balance a Christian concern to maintain the uniqueness and universal significance of Christ with pluralistic approaches that hold there are many ways to God?
3. "Salvation history" approaches were seen as supersessionist because they are unilinear. What follows is always superior to what precedes.   Theologies based on relationship rather than historical sequences are preferable. 
4. Much conversation occurred around sacrificial conceptions of the Eucharist.  Some felt it was a "dead end" in terms of current Jewish-Christian relationships. Communion and intimacy should be stressed. Others felt sacrifice was necessary for a balanced theology of the Eucharist. Referring to Christ as a "perfect sacrifice" was seen as problematic.  It was observed that Exodus 24:9-10's meal setting supplements 24:3-8's sacrifice ritual. 
5. It was suggested that there can be no intimacy without sacrifice or gift-giving. This elicited a concern that such an idea would delegitimize Torah services, which are devoid of sacrificial themes. This, however, was would be dependent on how sacrifice was understood. Seen broadly, sacrifice as doing things to please God would not have that effect.
6. There was a distinction offered between expiation and redemption.  Expiation is what God does so God can be pleased with us and our liturgies. Redemption is happens to save us in history.  Blood, e.g., is God's gift to the offerant to enable right relationship, not a gift brought to God. In the Hebrew tradition, being rightly in God's presence is this world is just as important as saving the world. 
7. There was an exchange about the uniqueness of the cross. If understood only temporally, as the center of history, it leads to supersessionist thinking. Non-temporal approaches were advised.  It was noted that much Christian teaching over the centuries has presented the cross in a temporal way. Perhaps the resurrection needed greater mention.
8. It was observed that sacrifice just is not part of our culture. Students from other cultures, such as Africa, don't have our difficulties with it.

Some concluding comments were:

1. Judaism also has supersessionist dynamics - the First Temple replaced the local shrines, the Second Temple replaced the First, the rabbis replaced the Second Temple, etc.  In modern Jewish-Christian relations, there are two distinct "replacements" of Second Temple Judaism that are in tension with one another.
2. While distinctions between the two traditions should be delineated, the commonalties should be stressed in pastoral settings. 
3. All the theological elements raised in our discussion must be integrated to form a coherent and balanced theology.
4. Good teaching is essential.

Next year's topics: The Passion Narrative of the Gospel of John

1999 Participants: