Karl Barth on celebrating the Lord’s Supper weekly:
“In those circles which embraced the Reformation, the sacramental Church of Rome was replaced by a Church of the Word. Very soon, preaching became the center of worship and the celebration of the sacrament came to occupy a more restricted place, so that today in the Roman Church, the Church of the sacrament, preaching has little significance, while in the Reformed Church the sacrament, while it exists, does not form an integral and necessary element of worship. These two positions are in effect a destruction of the Church. What meaning can there be in preaching which exalts itself at the expense of the sacrament, and does not look back to the sacrament which it should interpret? Our life does not depend on what the minister may be able to say, but on the fact that we are baptized, that God has called us. This lack has indeed been recognized, and attempts have been made to fill it by various means (reform of the liturgy, beautifying worship with music, etc.). But these palliative measures are bound to fail because they do not touch the real issue.
Those who advocate such methods of renewing the forms of worship take their stand—mistakenly—on Luther. But he, seeking to retain all that was of value in the Roman liturgy, gave first place to the Lord’s Supper. Calvin, also, consistently emphasized the necessity for a service of Communion at every Sunday worship. And this is precisely what we lack today: the sacrament every Sunday… Only when worship is rightly ordered, with preaching and sacrament, will the liturgy come into its own, for it is only in this way that it can fulfill its office, which is to lead to the sacrament. The administration of the sacraments must not be separated from the preaching of the gospel, because the Church is a physical and a historical organism, a real and visible body as well as the invisible, mystical body of Christ, and because she is both of these at once.
There is no doubt that we should be better Protestants if we allowed ourselves to be instructed in this matter by Roman Catholicism; not to neglect preaching, as it so often does, but to restore the sacrament to its rightful place…. A good Protestant will allow himself to admit this, and at the same time will insist on good preaching.”[1]
<>
