This is the third article in our series, in which we ask leaders in our faith community to discuss important books in their lives. Past contributors have included Bishop Frederick Henry and Dr. Gerry Turcotte, President of St. Mary’s University. 
I grew up within an evangelical spiritual and theological tradition and religious sub-culture that was deeply ambivalent if not actually “anti” the sacraments. If we did anything at all that even looked sacramental, we insisted that it was merely an “ordinance” – that is, “just an symbol”, as we were wont to say – and we further insisted that it had no redeeming value, no grace for the Christian.
Well, a series of books – both fiction and non-fiction – led me to a change of heart and mind, and into a deep appreciation of the sacramental life of the church.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together was influential in my life in so many ways, including the rather intriguing suggestion that each time the community of faith gathers at Table they do so with the Risen Christ as their host. And, further, that the church is actually formed by the simple act of eating together in the presence of Christ.
Then there is the priest – typically referred to as the “whiskey priest” in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory – who is on the run for his life from Mexican authorities at a time that the church and religious were illegal in Mexico. Whenever he comes to a point of potential escape, crossing a state line, he feels compelled to stop and preside at the Eucharist. And for one coming from my background, I was amazed that the “table” would matter so much – that it would mean so much to one who was called into religious leadership.
Lesslie Newbigin was also an essential voice in my formation as a young adult, and he continues to be as significant a voice as any in my understanding of the church. His book, The Household of God, remains in my life as one of the most formative books when it comes to my appreciation of the vital place of the sacraments and especially the Lord’s Supper in the life and witness of the church. Newbigin is another voice that insisted for me and to me that what makes the church the church is that it gathers at table.
The above books were read in my twenties and thirties. But then, later in life – by then into my forties – I came across the exquisite book, the capstone of them all for me: For the Life of the World, by Alexander Schmemann, a Russian Orthodox priest who was for many years the Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary north of New York City. Schmemann writes with winsome power about the efficacy of God in the sacramental actions of the church and of the joy that is found in and through our participation in the Eucharist. Yes, that is precisely the word – joy! My upbringing seemed to assume that the saddest moment of all was this rather sober and solemn approach to the Lord’s Supper that we tacked on to our worship events once a month on the first Sunday of the month. It was an occasional event – not weekly; but more it was not in any way a happy event. No one looked forward to it; everyone viewed it as necessary, perhaps – because Christ had commanded it – but it was hardly a time when we felt any measure of joy! And here I am reading Schmemann who not only speaks of joy as indispensable to human life but also of the Table – the Lord’s Supper – as the very means by which we are being drawn up into the joy of God. I read the book in one sitting.
Since then, several other authors have contributed more insight into the meaning of the Eucharist for me. I have even myself gone on to write a book on the Lord’s Supper (A Holy Meal, Baker Publishers, 2005). But my gratitude to these authors is not merely that I came to write a book on the Eucharist, leaning on their insights, but the way in which they each, in different ways, helped me come to a greater appreciation of Table in the life and witness of the Church. In time I learned that all of this was part of John Wesley’s theology and practice, as is evident in his delightful sermon “The Duty of Constant Communion.” And I began to see references to the sacraments and to the Lord’s Supper in particular in A.W. Tozer, who was so formative in my own tradition.
But that sequence – from Bonhoeffer, to Greene, to Newbigin and eventually to Schmemann – had a deeply formative impact on my life.
