Church discipline …

JASON BYASSEE'S "Dare to discipline?" (July 27) implies that the only way a layperson could be kicked out of the United Methodist Church is to be a member of a hate group. That is one way, but the United Methodist Book of Discipline lists the following chargeable offenses that could lead to the termination of a layperson's membership: immorality, crime, disobedience to the Order and Discipline of the United Methodist Church, dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrine of the United Methodist Church, racial harassment, sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment or child abuse.

These chargeable offenses are more often enforced on wayward clergy, but they apply to lay members as well.

Paul Blankenship

Memphis, Tenn.

Jason Byassee seems to think that the essence of communion is who's in and who's out, who's fit and who's not. I think he misses the central truth of the Eucharist, that it is God's grace, extended to sinners, uniting us with Christ and with one another in order that we may repent of our sin and find new life. To exclude persons from God's table because we judge them to be in sin is to shut them out from the very thing they need in order to become more conformed to the mind of God. Jesus set the example (Luke 22: 14-23) by giving the bread and wine even to Judas.

Byassee quotes 1 Corinthians 11.27 about "eating the bread and drinking the cup in an unworthy manner." He misses the thrust of the passage, which is that we must "discern the body" (v. 29). Either this means discerning the presence of Christ or Christ present in his body, the church, or both. Paul's conclusion is not to exclude anyone but rather that those who partake should be careful to savor the experience and be patient with one another. My vision is that John Kerry and George Bush and Pope John Paul II will soon eat the bread and drink the wine together, making dear that God has a greater purpose than proving who's right about abortion.

David Doreau

Waterville, Me.

Jason Byassee replies:

In response to Paul Blankenship: the presence of an option for disciplining laypeople only sharpens my question of why we never do it.

To David Doreau: I am trying to reclaim the Eucharist as something more than another token of tolerance. In the Eucharist, Christ meets his people in judgment and grace and remakes us into his body. In preparation for this dangerous encounter with God, the church long saw itself as responsible to encourage some to participate and others not to do so. The final criterion for admission was not whether anyone would feel good or bad about their inclusion, but the holiness of the entire assembly and the growth in grace of each person as determined by the whole. Classic examples abound, the most dramatic of which include St. Ambrose's refusal of communion to the Emperor Theodosius after he ordered the slaughter of civilians. The bishop put his life and his church's imperial favor in danger but won the emperor's repentance.

I fear that my own Methodist tradition's common interpretation of "open communion," a debated concept since Wesley first nudged us toward it, has degenerated into a rather vacuous plea for open-mindedness that fails to take seriously both the Eucharist and the state of those souls who present themselves for it.

The vision of Bush, Kerry and John Paul II communing together is a lovely reminder of St. Paul's description of the day when "every knee shall bow." Before that eschaton, however, we must respect the theological stance of the community of which two of them are a part by not insisting that such a eucharistic gathering happen now. For complicated and painful reasons, Roman Catholics do not commune with Protestants. It is a surprisingly intolerant brand of "tolerance" that refuses to be patient with Catholic inability to "discern the body" among Protestants (as Doreau tightly exegetes that Pauline phrase). Indeed, ecclesial division mars any church's ability to administer eucharistic discipline as I suggest ed, since millions of other believers are de facto barred Dora each church's table.

I served a parish once in which a member of our all-white church married a black man. Her family boycotted the wedding and broke off all contact with her. One of those family members presented himself for communion the next Sunday. The senior pastor told me later he had felt like saying, "Not so fast," and sending him back to his pew. He didn't. But wouldn't it have been morally powerful if he had?

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