Response to Kyle Potter on Eucharist, "Validity", and Apostolic Succession

In a recent post Kyle Potter over at “Vindicated” argues against those, including an Episcopalian bishop, who dismiss the efficacy of the Eucharist as celebrated by the Vine and Branches Community as they do not possess holy orders with Apostolic Succession. I have complete sympathy with his impatience with the opinions of Episcopalians, who trot out the necessity of the Historic Episcopate in a way that suggests the most crass theology of sacramental “validity” as mere historical mechanism, while simultaneously holding incoherent and incommensurate ecclesiologies that render the issue of Succession meaningless. Is the episcopate of the esse, plene esse, or bene esse of the Church, for instance? And if this is so gosh darn important, why have we entered into inter-communion with the ELCA?

But my purpose here is not to support him in his fully justified irritation toward those who are so facilely dismissive of the integrity of the Eucharist at Vine and Branches. Rather it is to respond to what I would consider a rather one sided view of the Eucharist that tends, albeit unintentionally, toward a gnostification of sacramental theology.

Let me begin by quoting him at length:

I do not believe that "legitimacy" is passed down through a mechanical "apostolic succession" down two thousand years of history, such that God can be invoked by some priests and bishops but not others. When I hear an argument that I find convincing, trust me, you'll know.

Here's the thing: remember our little discussion on what sacraments are? The bottom line is that we beg for the healing presence of Jesus that has been promised. I think that the triune God would have a really big and obvious reason for denying our entreaties for the crumbs from his table, and I'm not terribly sure what that would be.

When we start talking about the rules and special circumstances by which God will mediate his presence or not, it seems to me that we move out of the categories of promise and gift, and of begging and humbly receiving, that make Christian sense of the whole thing. Discussions about who has whose ducks all in a row get silly very quickly.

First, let me say that, as I intimated above, that I too find the crass mechanical arguments made about “validity” unconvincing, to say the least. In the mouth of an Episcopalian it reveals how vacuous we have become. Coming from a Catholic it is an exhibition of a certain type of theological laziness that cites the Catechism and various promulgations and encyclicals as proof-texts, and avoiding the richness and nuance of Catholic thought.

No Catholic or Anglican is required to say that the communion as practiced in a congregation outside of Apostolic Orders is null and void of any grace or spiritual benefit to the worshippers. Benedict XVI said as much a year ago, I believe, in the midst of the recent Eucharistic Congress held in Rome. (Catholics, correct me here if I am wrong.) What the Catholic I think would be required to say is that he or she cannot with any assurance precisely what the nature of that grace. In fact, I am reminded of the saying hear from time to time from the Orthodox “We know where the Church is, we do not now where the Church is not.” Perhaps one way of reading some Catholic comments on validity of the Mass would be “we know where the sacrament is, we do not know where it is not.”

Of course, there are other issues here as well, but my main interest is in addressing Kyle’s sacramental theology of promise and gift. He pits “rules and special circumstances” over and against the sheer grace of the liturgical action of invoking the presence of Jesus. His focus is thus upon epiclesis. The Eucharist is primarily epicletic and eschatological. We invoke the Spirit to come upon the oblations to make them the body and blood of Christ. Jesus who is present is not only the one who was crucified and risen, but also the eschatological Lord who presides over the messianic banquet. (See John Zizioulas on “Apostolicity” in Being as Communion for more here.)

Kyle has retained an important aspect of Eucharistic theology often missed both by memorialists on the one hand and those more catholic minded sorts who spout facile ideas of mechanical “validity.” It is not, however, the entire story. If the Eucharist is eschatological epicletic event, then one unintended consequence might be that it renders the chronic continuance of the Church through history as insignificant. By this I mean that if the Church is constituted by the Eucharist, as we see so often in the Fathers from at least Ignatius of Antioch on (not to mention Paul in I Cor.), then the Church is an eschatological event with a problematic relationship with history. Who invokes the Eucharistic presence and their relationship to the diachronic catholicity of the church is immaterial. Does it matter who does the asking, and to whom the promise was made? Does this promise have any chronic continuance beyond the individual believer?

Kyle himself briefly mentions the issue of being a “legitimate church:”

This is bound up in the issue of what makes a legitimate church. (It won't surprise you that I believe it's possible for a congregation to be completely illegitimate as a church, but I have particular ideas about why that might be.)

Is an illegitimate church the recipient of the promise? And who (other than Stan Hauerwas of course) arbitrates what divides the legitimate from the illegitimate church? Are we not then in the same situation as far as sacramental validity that Kyle decries? The added problem here, however, is that we are now employing criteria for validity which are more obscure and capricious than recourse to Apostolic Succession. Can I with any certainty know that my congregation is legitimate enough to invoke the Spirit?

Perhaps it would be best to give a sense of what I would suggest as an alternative, or better a corrective, to this singular focus upon the epiclesis. Let me employ the image of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin as a veritable icon of the Eucharistic presence. Certainly of surpassing importance for the incarnation is the descent of the Holy Spirit. It is the same Spirit who hovered over the waters of the creatio originalis who begins the eschatological New Creation in the incarnation of the Word. As the fulfillment of the covenant promises of God this procession of the Spirit is akin to the epiclesis. But upon whom the Spirit descends is not insignificant. The New Creation is not ex nihilo but is a fulfillment of the covenantal history brought to its fullness in Daughter Zion, the one who by grace and assent became the Mother of God. The presence of Christ is both eschatological New Creation from the Spirit and the fulfillment of the diachronic covenantal history.

We can see this same dynamic of eschatological gift joined with historical continuity in several instances in the Gospels. In Jesus’ baptism the descent of the Spirit comes upon Jesus as he recapitulates the exodus in solidarity with the covenant people. In the resurrection, certainly an eschatological event, much importance is laid on the fact that it is the crucified one who became faithful Israel as covenant partner with God who is raised.

It will be the Docetists and Gnostics who will try to put a categorical wedge between history and eschatology. (Actually, when they are sundered eschatology ceases to be eschatological as it is no longer the end of history. Eschatology is emptied into ahistorical transcendence.) The patristic concept of Apostolic Succession was a response to this gnostification of Christian existence, and as the chronic persistence of covenantal history now recapitulated in Christ. The mechanization of Succession into some channel of sacramental validity is a debasement of the patristic concept.

Kyle is one of the brightest young theologians I have come across in some time. I look forward to his rejoinder in this.