The Lord's Supper and the Church's Public Witness

Abstract

The Lord's Supper, as a God-given means of grace, has implications for the church's public witness. Rather than separate bodies from souls, and the secular from the sacred, the Supper holds together union with the heavenly Christ and communion with earthly bodies. Moreover, while union with Christ at the Supper is God's gift, this gift exposes the sinful inadequacy of the church's witness. In the eschatological tension between present gift and future promise, the Supper enacts the church's identity as a people empowered to live into God's promise in its public life, while avoiding both triumphalism and mere capitulation to social-political trends.