64. World as Sacrament

7/30/2019 64. World as Sacrament

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agination, and that analogy is a critical means whereby to generate

the second immediacy which makes a faith both critical and rever

ent. It means finally that the intersection of cultic ritual and cultural

ritual is an area for continual inquiry.

Theodore Runyon

The World as the Original Sacrament

The Eucharist brings together and relates three basic forms of reality:the divine, the material world, and humankind. In the sacrament a

part of the material world becomes a sign, a means to act out, ex

press and participate in the divine-human relationship. Thus the

material world has always been implicated in the sacramental event;

it has always been there as a concomitant part of this relation. Unless

one stops to reflect on it, however, the world is scarcely noticed; it is

there as a taken-for-granted factor. Seldom has it been the focus of

interest. Even when attention has been directed toward it as a sacramental sign as in the debates over the nature of the real pres

ence the preoccupation has been with ways and means of insur

ing the divine presence, or the presence of proper human faith and

disposition. The presence of the worldseemed obvious by contrast

and one does not discuss the obvious. Hence the world has been

obscured or even, in Heidegger's sense, "forgotten," the neglected

member of the trinity of God, humankind and the world.

One reason for this neglect is because the paradigms for explaining and understanding the Eucharist have been borrowed primarily

from christology and have been shaped, therefore, by the

christological formulas and their concern to conjoin properly the hu

man and the divine. In these formulas perhaps the world has been

silently subsumed under the human as fellow creature, but seldom

Dr. Runyon is professor of systematic theology, Candler School of Theology, Em

ory University, Atlanta, and during the 1979-1980 academic year was a fellow at the

Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, Saint John's University, Collegeville,

Minnesota.


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has it been addressed explicitly, with the result that the world Jesus

came to reconcile has been understood as restricted to the anthro-

pocentric world of human sin and corruption, while the cosmic

themes of Johannine and Pauline literature have languished or have

been touched on only insofar as they could be treated under the

christological model.Consequently, in an age in which the world we inhabit can no

longer be taken for granted, the Church finds itself ill-prepared to

speak a theologically grounded word; nor does worship, with the

notable exception of some of the psalms, celebrate the structures of

humanity's relationship to the world. How can we raise to con

sciousness, both for our theologizing and for our worship, this neg

lected relationship?

In order to clarify the issues involved, I propose that we begin byraising the question, "What is the original sacrament?" What is the

most fundamental sacramental phenomenon in which all of the par

ticular sacraments are rooted? Henri de Lubac was perhaps the first

modern theologian to raise the question in this form when in the

mid-i930s he suggested, "All sacraments are essentially sacraments

of the Church."1 By this he meant that the individual sacraments

participate in and are mediated by the sacramental reality which the

Church is in its concrete visible and social nature. In its materialitythe Church is chosen by God to mediate his spiritual gifts. It serves

therefore as that underlying sacramental event in which the indi

vidual sacraments it celebrates are grounded.

Otto Semmelroth provided what was perhaps the most compre

hensive treatment of this theme and in the title of his book lent it its

classic motto: "the Church as the original sacrament [UrSakrament]."2

Karl Rahner picked up the theme and made some strategic and

helpful terminological distinctions. Because the reality of the Churchcannot be understood apart from Christ, the Lord of the Church, its

sacramentality can be properly grounded only in his prior sac-

ramentality. He is the more original, the primal, sacrament which

the Church in turn mediates through its corporeality in the world.

Thus Rahner reserves the term Ursakramentfor Christ, while he calls

the Church the Grundsakrament, the foundational sacrament which

through the means of grace it administers continues to transmit

1Catholicism (London: Burns, Oates & Washburn 1950) 35.

2 Di Ki h l U k t (F kf t J f K ht 1955)


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Christ's life.3 By pushing the question of the original sacrament back

one step from where Semmelroth had left it, Rahner achieves more

than just a clarification in terminology. He places the Church in

proper relativity to its Lord. The way was then prepared for Edward

Schillebeeckx's classic statement, Christ the Sacramentofthe Encounter

with God, which employs the insights of phenomenology and themodel of sacrament to understand the impact that Jesus made

upon those who came in contact with him during his earthly minis

try, and the impact he continues to make through his sacramentality

as mediated by the Church. Christ is "the one and only saving pri

mordial sacrament. . . the one and only 'Sacrament of God.'"4

I do not wish to deny the legitimacy and importance of any of

these interpretations. All of them found their continuing expression

in Vatican II's repeated references to the "servant Church" as thesacramentum mundi, placed in the world with a mission of reconcilia

tion to all peoples in continuity with the universality of Christ's own

mission.5 I believe we do justice to the concept of the original sacra

ment, however, only if we push it back one further step by asking,

"What is the horizon, the context, within which Christ's own minis

try and mission were set?" According to the general consensus of

biblical scholars this question has only one answer. In all the variety

of interpretations and speculations concerning messianic consciousness and Jesus' own self-understanding, one thing comes through

clearly. Jesus saw himself as an agent of God's kingdom whose task

it was to proclaim the radicality of God's rule over all aspects of

existence in accord with the intention of creation. "In the basileia,

creation and redemption are completed. . . . The only significance

of the whole of Jesus' activity is to gather the eschatological people

of God."6 From his baptism to his Last Supper, the kingdom is the

constant theme of his ministry, the point of reference of all histeaching. He is baptized in response to John the Baptist's call to

prepare for the kingdom. He begins his own ministry with the same

message, "The kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe the

3The Church and the Sacraments (New York: Herder and Herder 1963) 18.

4 New York: Sheed and Ward 1963, 40.5

The Constitution Lumen gentium on the Church, no. 48. See also Jan Groot, "The

Church as Sacrament of the World/' Concilium 3/: ed. Edward Schillebeeckx (New

York: Paulist Press 1968) 51-66.6Joachim Jeremas, New Testament Theology (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons

1971) 249 170


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good news." The metanoia, the repentance or turning, for which he

calls is a turning away from the world as it is now constituted and a

turning toward that power which constitutes the new age that is to

come when the Father's "will [is] done on earth as it is in heaven."

His healings, his exorcisms, his commands, his parables, all have

reference to the quality of the kingdom as it is even now beginningto break in wherever his word is truly heard, forgiveness is re

ceived, reconciliation takes place, and the order of God is reestab

lished. The kingdom he envisages is clearly a transformation ofthis

world in accordance with God's original intention and will for it.

True, in the Johannine account, in answer to Pilate's question, Jesus

says, "My kingdom is not of this world." But the world to which he

refers in that instance is the present age presided over by the likes of

Pilate, Herod and Caiaphas, which will be superseded by the age tocome presided over by God's own agent of justice, the Son of man.

The new age to come will be a radical transformation, therefore, but

in neither Old nor New Testament is it envisioned as a volatilization

of this material world into a realm of pure spirit. This world is the

object of God's redeeming and transforming activity; and christolo-

gy, Church, and sacraments, must all be seen within the context of

this overarching purpose. Indeed, material signs and actions become

the clearest indication of participation (or non-participation) in thepower of the kingdom food, drink, clothing, housing, visitation

(Mt 25:31-46). The notion of sacrament has as it ultimate context this

notion of renewal, as Yves Congar writes: "The incarnation of his

Son inserted the principle into history . . . of that renewal of the

world on which God had irrevocably decided. . . . Seen in this

light, the notion of sacrament assumes dynamic value; it is related to

the world and its history. It becomes the concrete historical expres

sion of God's design for salvation in this world, the sign and instrument through which God works out his decision to intervene with

his grace in mankind and in creation in order to make them achieve

the end for which he had destined them from the beginning."7

As Jesus assembles his disciples for a final meal together, there

fore, he enacts a parable which states in summary fashion and

dramatizes his own life as a servant of the kingdom, a kingdom

whose first signs are the forgiveness of sins and God's love poured

out for the reconciliation of those who are open to the good news of

7


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divine mercy. As they begin the meal he says to them, "I have

earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; for I

tell you I shall not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of

God" (Lk 22:15, J6). And as he passes the cup he says, "From now

on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God

comes" (v. 18). With these actions he transforms the paschal mealthat celebrates the faithfulness of God in the past into an eschato-

logical feast, the first fruits of the age to come.

What is this kingdom for which Jesus risks everything? And how

can bread and wine serve as appropriate signs of its coming and at

the same time be identified with Jesus' own life and mission? The

kingdom is the rule of God that will establish an order that promises

not just the reconciliation of humankind but fulfillment for all that

God has created. As the prophet envisions this messianic age, it is atransformation in which both the human and the natural world

share:

With righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; . . .

Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist,

and faithfulness the girdle of his loins.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

and the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them. . . .

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea (Is 11:4-6, 9).

No sharp demarcation is drawn between humanity and the rest of

the created order, for their futures intertwine. As St. Paul later wasto describe it, the creation itself will benefit from the redemption of

humankind through Christ, just as it now suffers from human cor

ruption. "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing

of the sons of God . . . because the creation itself will be set free

from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the chil

dren of God" (Rom 8:19, 21).

In the hands of Jesus the bread and wine, signs of the old order

and the previous covenant, become signs of the new covenant of


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ticipate in that life is to receive eschatological food and drink, the

new creation in its promissory form, the earnest (arrabn) of that

which is to come. As the presence ofChrist, the real presence is the

presence of the power of the kingdom which was the driving force

in his existence as he embodied and lived out the intention of God.

You cannot eat his body (i.e., partake in who he was in his very

being) and drinkhis blood (i.e., partake in that for which he poured

out his life's blood)) and not eat and drinkthe kingdom of God. This

is why, according to Paul, to participate in the sacramental power of

the new age and yet to operate habitually in terms of selfishness,

injustice and insensitivity, is to partake unworthily and to invite

judgment and dire consequences (cf. Cor 11:20-32).

Once we have grasped the eschatological quality of the sacramentas revealed in Christ, we are in a position to look back from the

eschaton to the proton, from the kingdom to creation, and to look at

the creation with new eyes. Turning to the first chapter of Genesis,

we find that the ancient Hebrew story opens up the character of our

relationship to the world afresh. In the hands of its Creator the

world was itself the first sacrament, the first use of the material to

communicate and facilitate the divine-human relation. Thus the world

is the "originalsacrament."To be sure, Christ remains the sacramentalmeans to reconcile a fallen humanity. But Christ's giving of freedom

through bread and wine to humankind is prefigured in the Creator's

bestowal of freedom to his creatures as in Genesis 1 he entrusts to

male and female the care and protection of the world he has made.

He calls upon them to use it in consistency with his intention. The

veryterm "image of God" may have been used by the priestly au

thors of Genesis 1 (which was written during the exile in Babylon) in

conscious analogy to the custom of the Babylonian emperor who,

when he had conquered a new territory, set up an image of himself

in the capital city of the province and appointed a governor who

ruled by virtue of the authority vested in the image. The governor

was granted a considerable degree of independence to rely on his

own judgment in most matters as long as he kept the province loyal

to the emperor. If this combination of image and governor was in

deed in the minds of those who in Genesis 1 recorded the Hebrewperception of human life, it stood in stark contrast to the official

B b l i i t i d i th E li h i f ti I


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ness had originated precisely in the revolt against slavery. Their God

called them not into slavery but into a suzerainty covenant, into

coresponsibility for the world.8 "And God blessed them, and God

said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue

it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of

the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.' AndGod said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which

is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit;

you shall have them for food. . . . And God saw everything that he

had made, and behold, it was very good'" (Gen 1:28-30).

The original sacrament is not the Church, therefore, and not even

Christ, important as the sacramental nature of Christ and of the

Church are for Christian faith and practice. But the original, visible

sign of God's grace is the world he entrusts to our care. Moreover,in giving us this gift God gives us not just something. In, with, and

through it he gives us himself as our Father. He endows us with the

possibility of receiving him as Creator/Father by giving us the inheri

tance that makes possible our freedom and independence as mature

sons and daughters. Referring to the renewal of creation, Paul says,

"You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but

you have received the spirit of sonship. . . . We are the children of

God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs withChrist." And the inheritance given us both in creation and re

creation is the proper relationship to the world. "For the creation

waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God" (Rom

8:15, 17, 19). The term "Father" is an appropriate way of speaking of

God, therefore, not just because of the love which a mother or

father has toward a child but because to parentis to create a life

related to oneself yet free, an independent center of will and action.

In giving us the world God both undergirds us with a Father's loveand affirms us in our maturity and responsibility to care for that

which he has entrusted to us.

The implications of this for a theology of ecology and an ethic of

responsibility are evident. But just as evident is the fact that we are

far gone from the original divine intention. We have separated the

gift from the giver, the inheritance from the testator, and acted as if

it were our own with no answerability to anyone. The ironic result

of this willful absconding with our inheritance has been not increased freedom but fateful bondage; the world is becoming an ever


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more intolerable burden, an ominous fate and threat, our own white

whale from which, like Captain Ahab, try as we will we cannot dis

entangle ourselves though it carry us with it to our destruction.

Consequently, contemporary human beings simply cannot see the

world in its original sacramental form. They cannot envision it as

the continuing "gift of the Father's unfailing grace." And theChurch has been little help in this regard because it has fostered a

timid, truncated sacramentalism. The Church has been content to

settle for a small piece of the world, a religious preserve it can con

trol, a sacred corner where the Church keeps the sacramental keys

to heavenbut has somehow lost the keys of the kingdom. Loisy' s

words have not lost their poignant accuracy: "Jesus preached the

coming of the kingdom of God but the Church came instead."

In Protestantism as well as Catholicism the words of Augustine,"Christ dies that the Church might be born,"9 continue to be mis

construed. There is a legitimate way to interpret these words, as

Vatican II did in its more inspired moments. Christ, through his

suffering death and victorious resurrection, calls a community into

existence to continue his mission for the kingdom, which is the

transformation of the whole world according to God's original inten

tion. Too often, however, Augustine's words are taken to mean that

Christ died in order to endow an institution with a sacrificial systempowerful enough to appease and placate God and insure that every

thing will stay in its proper place. Sacrament then becomes rites

geared to meet what is vaguely termed "the religious needs of

man," which seem to be roughly equivalent to aesthetic needs rein

forced by compulsive behavior. If that is all Christianity is, in what

respect does it differ from paganism, which also has its altars and

sacrifices that assuage guilt for being human and finite, and occa

sionally stepping out of line? In paganism, both ancient and modern, religion functions to legitimize the status quo by viewing the

present order of things as the will of the gods, declaring any offense

against this order a sin. The conservative effect of this kind of reli

gion is clear. And who can deny that Christianity too often in the

past has functioned in this way, and was therefore prized and re

warded by oppressive regimes. Although it may have consistently

maintained the distinction between "this world" and the kingdom,

the Church in effect removed the critical and transforming power of9

Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God (New York


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the kingdom by equating it with an etherealized, neo-platonic

heaven. This metaphysical version of the kingdom could exist as an

alternative to this world without having any impact on the struc

tures of this world. Hence the kingdom lost its Jewishness and its

critical leverage on the present, and was trivialized. Given the new

awareness of the eschatological character of Jesus' ministry and therecovery of the Jewishness of the kingdom after centuries of helle-

nistic and neoplatonic distortions, we are without excuse if in our

time we continue to etherealize or trivialize the kingdom and pre

vent it from exercising its revolutionary power.

This is all very well, you may say, but if we did want to change,

how would we move from here to there? Theologians are very good

at telling us where we ought to be, but notoriously poor in concrete

suggestions about how to get there.A remarkable beginning has already been made in the Second

Vatican Council. Seldom in the history of the Church has there been

such a demonstration of the presence of Christ and the working of

the Spirit. Two hundred years of biblical, historical and liturgical

scholarship have been appropriated in less than two decades, not

just as thought but as praxis, with liturgical and doctrinal reforms

that have had profound effects on the Church's life and self-

understanding. Never mind the occasional indigestion. Let any Protestant inclined to take offense at the remaining vestiges in the

documents of medievalism and triumphalism look to his own

church to see what changes have taken place there in so short a

time. While Protestant scholars are noted for their pyrotechnic dis

plays in the realm of thought, these usually fizzle out before they

produce institutional reforms.

One of the recurrent themes of Vatican II was, as I have already

noted, the Church as the sacramentum mundi, the sacrament given to

the world to serve the world. This was a salutary interpretation be

cause it recognized that the Church does not exist for its own sake

and is fulfilling its mission only as it resists the temptation to be

fascinated and preoccupied by its own institutional life. This re

orientation, and the concomitant willingness to risk institutional

security for the sake of the world and the gospel, can only be ap

plauded. What I am attempting to do is to extend this horizon forward and backward, to kingdom and to creation, so that the world


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stood in these terms, the redeeming work of Christ can also be seen

in a new light.

If the world as we experience it is unrecognizable as the creation

of a loving God; if it has become more a threat than a promise, a

tragic destiny in which we are embroiled but over which we feel we

have little control; if it is the domain of principalities and powersrather than the creature of God, how can the sacrament represent

both the world and Christ? Are they not antithetical? Yet, precisely

here the redemptive work of Christ is made evident in the sacra

ment. In the hands of Christ the sacrament is presented to us as the

worldin its original andeschatological form. He takes the bread and

wine, which are products of our ordinary world and therefore

related to the complexities of international grain cartels, embargoes,

starvation, alcoholism, and all the other ways in which God's goodgifts have gone awry and turns them into signs of his kingdom of

justice and love. He does this by identifying them with himself and

his mission, just as he did the paschal bread and wine at the Last

Supper. Having joined them with his life for the kingdom, he hands

the bread and wine back to us to make us participants in that king

dom by sharing its first fruits which nourish us along the way. Be

cause these are signs of the resurrectedChrist, they bring with them

the unquenchable assurance that he cannot finally be defeated.Therefore, as overwhelming as the task of stewardship of the world

may seem, it is not meaningless and without ultimate purpose be

cause it joins us to Christ's own redemptive work of bringing order

out of chaos. In the end he will prevail. Because these are also signs

of the crucifiedChrist, we are reminded that responsibility always

involves suffering. There are no guarantees of progress, no promises

of easy victories. Yet these signs enable us to receive that profound

and persistent love that sustains us even when we are faced withdefeat, assuring us that "neither death, nor life . . . nor principali

ties, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all

creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ

Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:38).

Two traditional questions still remain to be considered if this no

tion of the Eucharist is to contribute to the ecumenical discussion,

namely, "real presence" and "sacrifice/' How does this reinterpreta-

tion relate to the issue of the real presence of Christ. Does it open

up new possibilities for dialogue?


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tributions of Piet Schoonenberg and Edward Schillebeeckx in their

theories oftransfinalization and transsignification. Though obviously

not received uncritically, 10 their proposals and others akin to them

are seen in both Catholic and Protestant circles as significant steps

toward meeting previous objections and giving creative, contempor

ary expression to the traditional doctrine of transubstantiation. Theaffinities between my position and these new interpretations are evi

dent. As in transfinalization, the purpose or final end of the bread

and wine is transformed from ordinary nourishment in this age that

is passing away into eschatological food and drink, enabling us to

participate in that which is lasting and of eternal significance. As in

transsignification, the "interiority" of Christ, which was made visi

ble through his historical ministry, assumes "bodiliness" through

his sacramental presence by which he incorporates us into thatcause for which he gave his life. As his historical body was the

means of encounter then, his sacramental body is the means of en

counter now.11

Although it may seem surprising for a Protestant to make this

point, there is one element within the doctrine of transubstantiation

that is well worth retaining, the emphasis upon transformation and

change. Traditionally Protestants have not looked kindly upon this

aspect of the doctrine. Not even F. J. Leenhardt, whose attempt torethink transubstantiation along Calvinist lines proved seminal for

Catholic as well as Protestant sacramental thought, could develop a

notion of change that could satisfy his critics.12

Leenhardt argued

that the ontological reality of anything is what God calls it to be.

When Christ calls the bread his body, therefore, that is what it is

ontologically.13 From a Catholic standpoint this proves to be insuf

ficient, however, because the change required by the doctrine of

transubstantiation is an intrinsic rather than an extrinsic or forensicchange of the type familiar to Calvinists and Lutherans from the

doctrines of election and justification. Consecration is a sanctifying,

not just declaratory, action. This Catholic objection has legitimacy if

on a biblical basis one understands the Eucharist to be in a real

10Cf. the encyclical of Paul VI, Mysterium fidei, 3 September 1965 (Washington:

National Catholic Welfare Conference 1965) pp. 3, 7, 13, 14.11

E. Schillebeeckx, The Eucharist (New York: Sheed and Ward 1968) 99-101.12

Ibid. 78.13

Cf. Oscar Cullmann and F. J. Leenhardt, Essays on the Lord's Supper (Atlanta: John


12/18

sense a koinnia in Christ's body and therefore in his ministry and

the firstfruits of the kingdom in him. Where the kingdom breaks

through, even provisionally, it brings change in this world. Thus a

sacrament that mediates the power of the new age in Christ must be

affected at its very core by the kingdom-reality of which it is a part.

When at the Last Supper Jesus identifies bread and wine with him

self, his mission, and the new covenant, he raises them to a new

power, he transforms them into their original and eschatological

destiny. When he identifies himself with bread and wine he enables

these material elements to communicate who he is at the center of

his being and to incorporate his disciples into that same reality. This

kind of change is consistent with the intent of the Giver of the feast

as indicated, for instance, in his attitude toward miracles. He stead

fastly refuses to perform signs where they would be misunderstood

as displays of wonder-working ability rather than as signs of the

kingdom come nigh to transform nature as well as human relations.

The wonders associated with his ministry are never ends in them

selves but parables of the kingdom. The focus is not upon change

for its own sake but for the kingdom's sake. This change is at one

and the same time the transformation of the world and the

empowering of the sanctified world to be the bearer of Christ to as

many as will receive him; it is the proleptic renewal of the order of

creation and the reconciliation of humankind through his body.

In another important respect, however, the traditional doctrine of

transubstantiation proves to be inadequate. If the Supper is to be a

true eschatological sign, it must signify the restoration of the created

world as well as the reconciliation of the human world. If the Lord

of the new age restores the world to its intended relation to the

Creator, it is important that the bread and wine remain genuine crea

turesbread and wine in the full creaturely sense. In its historical

development the doctrine of transubstantiation has tended to under

mine this creaturehood. To explain this it will be necessary to ex

amine briefly this development.

The Council of Constance in 1415, in order to counter what was

felt to be Wycliffe's evacuation of the real presence of Christ in the

Eucharist, sought to guarantee that presence by a formulation which

to our eyes today appears to have the docetic effect of evacuating

the real presence of the world, leaving only a "veil" of seeming

materiality behind "After the consecration by the priest there is in


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material bread and material wine bu t wholly Christ wh o suffered on

the Cross and sits at the right hand of the Father." 14 To raise the

specter of docetism in this regard may seem odd because the inten

tion of the Council was just the opposite. Docetic gnosticism, with

its abhorrence of the material world, denies that the divine could

join itself to human flesh. The docetists argued that although Christ

appeared to have a human body, this appearance was only a veil

which hid his true, divine being. In contrast to any such view the

Council insisted that Christ was indeed present in the world, inex

tricably linked with the physical elements of bread and wine. Yet to

express this they chose the language of transubstantiation, which

may guarantee the divine but does so at the expense of the creature.

It is interesting to note that St. Thomas shows sensitivity to this

issue of the integrity of the material creature. He opposed the then

popular notion of the "annihilation" of the substance of the bread

and wine, quoting Augustine as saying, "God is not the cause that

anything should tend towards non-existence." Therefore the anni

hilation theory cannot be true.15 Nevertheless Thomas finds it im

possible to suggest an alternative that does not make the presence of

the divine dependent upon the translation of the substance of the

creaturely into the substance of the divine. Moreover, he adds a

distinction between this and other sacraments which implies that

real presence requires precisely this kind of transmutation, a notion

which persists in Mysterium fidei. "In the other sacraments we have

not got Christ himself really, as we have in this sacrament. Hence in

the others the substance of the material element remains, but not in

this one."1 6

It was Luther who likened this interpretation to an aberration in

christology. "What is true in regard to Christ is also true in regard to

the sacrament. In order for the divine nature to dwell in him bodily

(Col 2:9), it is not necessary for the human nature to be transub

stantiated and the divine nature contained under the accidents of

the human nature. Both natures are simply there in their

entirety." 17

14Josef Neuner, The Teaching oftheCatholicChurch as Contained in her Documents, ed

Karl Rahner (Staten Island Alba Hous e 1967) 283 (Denzmger-Schonmetzer, Enchiri-

dion Symbolorum 1256)

15 Summa theologiae III, 75, 316

Ibid III 75, 2, ad 217


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To put Luther's point somewhat more sharply, if the*theory ap

plied to the sacrament were applied to Christ, the result would be

docetism. But this inconsistency between christological and sac

ramental theory does not seem to have been taken into account by

the Council of Trent. In any case, that Council in 1551 reiterated and

reinforced the position of Constance by employing instead of "mate

rial" the more precise Aristotelian term "substance," as interpreted

by Thomas, which allowed the "accidents" or "species" or "appear

ances" to be separated and remain behind after the metaphysical

substance has been changed. "If anyone shall say that in the sacred

and holy sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of the bread and

wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus

Christ, and deny that wonderful and singular change of the whole

substance of the bread into the body and the whole substance of the

wine into the blood, the appearances only of bread and wine re

maining, which change the Catholic Church most aptly calls tran

substantiationanathema sit."18

Roman Catholic commentators have rightly observed that Trent

did not bind the Church to the term "transubstantiation" as such,

but only referred to it as "most aptly" applied to the change in

volved. It is this change that is insisted upon, not the word. "Con-substantiation" is specifically rejected because it implies joint pre

sence but no change.19 We can safely assume that it was not the

intention of the Council that this change be docetic in its effect. Its

purpose was to give expression to the presence of Christ in his sav

ing and transforming power. This being the case, one might legiti

mately argue that a reinterpretation such as I have proposed, that

does not ignore Trent's concern for change but sees that change as a

proleptic participation in the eschaton, preserves the integrity of thecreature while exhibiting the power of the kingdom. Thus it does

justice to the intent of the doctrine of transubstantiation, as called

for by Trent and Mysterium fidei in more genuinely biblical terms.

When Christ associates the bread and wine with himself and his

kingdom mission, bread and wine are raised to their eschatological

destiny. No more fundamental change is imaginable. Nor could the

18Neuner, 290 (Denzinger-Schnmetzer 1653).

19

Thus E. Gutwenger is correct when he argues (against Schillebeeckx) that theCouncil's intent was not simply to emphasize real presence. 'The Council went

b d h l i h h i i h h d ffi i


15/18

presence of Christ be more faithfully portrayed than as his presence

in the power of the in-breaking kingdom which restores the world

to its creaturely integrity. Thus the Eucharist enables us to partici

pate in the very recreation of the cosmos that is being effected in

Christ Jesus.20

Another advantage that accrues from viewing the world as God'soriginal sacrament is that it allows us to avoid some of the medieval

isms associated with Eucharist as "sacrifice" and to reinterpret sac

rifice in a more biblical perspective. The notions of propitiation and

satisfaction, for example, are more at home in a pagan context

where the gods must be placated or restitution made by a blood

offering because an impersonal code has been offended against.

True, the language of sacrifice appears in the New Testament

whenever early Christians are groping for ways to understand andexpress the significance of the death of Christ in the context of their

inherited religions. The Epistle to the Hebrews, for example, draws20 Those familiar with the thought of Teilhard de Chardin will note a similar con

cern to bring the world into the sphere of redemption. The underlying ontology is

quite different, however. Teilhard interprets incarnation as the presence of a divine

spiritual power within all material things, a "radial energy" which through the proc

ess of//christogenesis

,,gradually transforms matter into spirit as the whole universe

is attracted back to the divine source from whence it originally came. When "the

whole divinissable substance of matter" has passed over into spirit, the world will

have reached its omega, and all will be in Christ, and Christ in God (cf. The Divine

Milieu [London: Collins i960] n o, 116). This interpretation represents a marked de

parture, however, from the Hebraic and Pauline picture of the consummation.

According to that picture there is no need for matter to become spirit in order to reach

its goal. The telos of the creatures is not to be transmuted into divine substance but to

be transformed from a life of alienation into true creaturehood, into those healthy and

just relations to God and the rest of creation for which they were created. The king

dom is envisioned as a social order, therefore, that does not dissolve creation but

restores it, and reconciles nature and humanity. It was the gnostics who transformedthe picture of the kingdom into a divine cosmic soul. Yet Teilhard claims to be car

rying out the implications of the doctrine of transubstantiation. "When Christ, ex

tending the process of his incarnation, descends into the bread in order to replace it,

his action is not limited to the material morsel which his presence will, for a brief

moment volatilize: this transubstantiation is aureoled with.a real though attenuated

divinizing of the entire universe" (Hymn ofthe Universe [New York: Harper & Row

1965] 14). The similarities between Teilhard's notion of divinization and gnosticism

and pantheism have troubled his Catholic critics. He tries to assure them that trans

mutation of the material order need not result in pantheism or monism (cf. The Divine

Milieu 116). If Teilhard's position is judged ambiguous, however, is it not possiblethat the ambiguity is shared by his model, transubstantiation, which lends itself to an


16/18

analogies from the Jewish sacrificial system but only in order to

show how that system has been superseded. In the Gospels Jesus

cuts through the sacrificial system, just as he cuts through the legal

system, by forgiving sins directly, thus bypassing the system. In

fact, this was one of his main offenses. To read the significance of

his death primarily in terms of providing a means of cultic sacrifice,therefore, would be fundamentally to misconstrue it.

This is said not in order to eliminate the motif of sacrifice from

eucharistie worship but to clear the decks to emphasize it in its

proper role. There is no way to exclude the theme of sacrifice from

the death of the Savior. But God is not providing his own blood

offering to himself, or punishing his innocent Son to meet the re

quirements of an impersonal law of retribution. The cause of justice

is not served by further injustice. The one sacrifice that is decisivefor the gospel is not humanity's sacrifice to God, but God's sacrifice

for humanity. This is the self-offering that is already written into crea

tion as the Creator gives himself to humanity through the giving of

the world, granting therewith a life in relation and independence.

God sacrifices control in order to gain freedom for his creatures.

This is the self-offering present again in the Son who acts out the

self-giving love of the Father in the world, the love that Jesus

announces as the life-principle of the kingdom, the love that persistsat the end when all else passes away. This love is sacrifice, and it

calls forth sacrifice for the kingdom's sake. All else can be aban

doned, all else given up, all else put in second place by Jesus' disci

ples for the sake of the one goal that finally counts. Thus sacrifice is

demanded in the struggle with the forces that would defeat the

Father's intention for the fulfillment of creation in the age to come.

But this sacrifice is an inevitable part of the battle with the powers of

evil and injustice. Cultic sacrifice on an altar cannot serve as a substitute for it, nor can ritualized obedience replace the ethical obedi

ence the kingdom requires.

What then are the benefits that reasonably might be expected

from a reinterpretation of eucharistie celebration along the lines I

have proposed? The problem with most traditional eucharistie

theologies, Protestant and Catholic, is that their horizons do not ex

tend far enough. They stretch neither to the eschaton nor to crea

tion. As a result they have not provided that cosmic context withinwhich the Eucharist could illumine and give meaning to our life to


17/18

truncatedversions of eucharistie interpretation and practice. They in

terrupt the divine intention short of its ultimate goal. The Protestant

truncation typically has reduced the sacrament to an occasion for

repentance and the receiving of divine forgiveness, not recognizing

that in the ministry of Jesus forgiveness is given as a sign of the

kingdom, and its purpose is to prepare those who receive it to fightin the warfare against the forces that oppose the kingdom. The

Catholic truncation has been to see the purpose of Christ's coming

as the founding of an institution to provide the means of grace and a

safe passage to the other shore. Redemption took place in and

under the auspices of the Church. Only with Vatican II do we see

clearly the world itself as the object of redemption. But even in some

of the best Catholic htought, such as the earlier work of Schil

lebeeckx, the understanding of the significance of the Eucharistseems to begin and end with the personal and interpersonal and

miss its final purpose. The alternative I am suggesting seeks to fol

low the arrow of God's intention through to its ultimate goal as

Jesus enunciated it, that kingdom where God's will is done as it was

intended to be in creation.

When the Eucharist is rethought in terms such as these it can

speak more directly to our contemporaries who are at a loss to know

how worship illumines the larger world in which they live, and whoseek for their own lives a more ultimate context within which to

understand and practice the responsibility for the world which they

feel. Interpreted eschatologically, the Eucharist communicates to us

the assurance of the ultimate victory of the new creation, releasing

us from the immobilizing anxiety of carrying the burden of the

world alone. And it assures us that this world within which our

stewardship is exercised is the gift of the loving Creator/Father re

vealed in Jesus Christ.


18/18

^ s

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