Succession, Character, and Validity

The discussion that Kyle and I have been having on issues of Eucharist, Apostolic Succession, and sacramental validity came up this morning in our Wednesday morning Bible Study as we discussed Luke 8:1-3.

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others [other women: πολλαι], who provided for them out of their resources.

In summation of the debate, while both of us are nonplussed by a mechanical view of the historic episcopate as some pipeline of sacramental validity, I still see the central importance, if not necessity, of the church in Apostolic Succession meaning the chronic persistence of covenantal history as the proper object of the eschatological descent of the Holy Spirit. If I may be so bold to anticipate Kyle’s focus, he is more concerned that the congregation invoking the presence of the Spirit is a community of character. Legitimacy as Church is tied more to the extent the congregation is formed by the Christian narrative.

I would submit that both foci are necessary for ecclesial existence. The creedal marks of the Church include not only apostolicity but, lest we forget, holiness. The church that rests on Apostolic Orders and neglects its sanctification presumes upon the grace of God, which, in turn, will end in the removal of its lamp stand.

What we discussed in the Bible Study today is how we find both of these aspects of the Church’s creedal life reflected in this passage, covenantal continuity and covenantal character. In terms of character we see this in Luke’s focus upon the women who are a part of this new Kingdom community around Jesus. As Tom Wright points out in his remarks on this pericope in Luke for Everyone, the focus is upon a new community formed in Christ bursting through social conventions relating to women that would inhibit the Kingdom being wrought through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And in the reference to the generosity of the women and their participation in the community Luke anticipates the new community he describes more completely in Acts of the Apostles:

Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2: 43-47)

But we also need to recognize that the context of this covenantal character is the covenantal continuity represented by the reference to the twelve in the passage from Luke 8. In choosing twelve disciples Jesus is reconstituting spiritually exiled Israel for a new exodus through the Paschal Mystery. As with the choice of Daughter Zion, the Virgin Mary, in Luke 2, the new work of restoring creation is not ex nihilo in either an absolute sense, or in a political one in God choosing a new people instead of Israel. (This has some interesting implications for Jewish-Christian relations, but that is obviously another post.) Jesus constitutes the new messianic Israel in actual and organic continuity with the people of covenantal history going back to Abraham, and not from some “spiritual” or “metaphorical” continuity.

This covenantal continuity is reinforced in the first chapter of Acts as Matthias is chosen to replace Judas among the twelve Apostles. Organic and actual continuity is still the norm, now with the added aspect of being apart of the Kingdom community formed by Jesus and being a witness to his Resurrection. It is within the context of the apostolic band that the Spirit descends on Pentecost (another parallel to the pattern we have noticed in the Annunciation).

When we turn to the question of sacramental “validity” (we need to think about better terminology here), I would affirm that the normative community that both invokes the Spirit and is recipient of sacramental grace. I think this is suggested in the most complete and earliest discussion of the Eucharist in the New Testament, I Corinthians 10 and 11. Paul begins with a typological interpretation of the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist as the fulfillment of the Exodus experience, manna in the wilderness and water from the rock. The people who receive the sacraments of the new covenant live in continuity with the people of the Exodus. That Paul is thinking organically and realistically rather than metaphorically is evident in his language in Romans about the Gentiles being grafted into the covenant tree of Israel. (Another avenue for inquiry would be to ask if the strictly metaphorical reading of these themes were read back into the New Testament by Protestant theologians to justify the sixteenth century breach with 1500 years of understanding the church in terms of historical continuity, including Apostolic Succession.)

Now, we have seemed to have moved away from the significance of the community of covenantal character. But we do see these two aspects of ecclesial existence come together in the eleventh chapter of I Corinthians. I have already suggested above that Paul affirms the continuity of the Church with the covenant history of Israel in chapter 10. Here at the end of chapter 11 Paul speaks of how the character of the community figures into the reception of the Eucharist:

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (I Corinthians 11:27-32)

By virtue of apostolic continuity the congregation is the recipient of the One invoked in the epiclesis. But the deformed character of the people receives the sacramental presence of the Lord not as grace but as judgment. Apostolic Succession and the holiness of community are necessary correlates. (A broader conversation should also bring unity and catholicity as marks of the Church into perspective as well, but we will leave that for another day.)

We cannot pit the marks of the Church as they have been received in Holy Tradition against one another. In the end I think both Kyle’s concerns and mine must coincide.