First let me thank Pastor Wieting on his superb articles on weekly communion, an important topic that was neglected for too long in our church. But as I read through the comments from the first four articles it seems to me that some are misunderstanding what Pastor Wieting is saying. As I see it one of Pastor Wieting's main points is that Jesus is coming to serve us in the Sacrament -- that it's not about our doing but Christ's doing for us. Yes, there are abuses and unkind words and actions from proponents on both sides of the argument, as there are in most arguments. But it's important not to get distracted by these side issues. The question is: Is Jesus Jesus coming to serve us with a great and necessary treasures in the Sacrament? If the answer is yes, which I believe it is, then we need to ask who gets to decide how often we need the Sacrament: the Pastor, the elders, 51 to 49% of the vote at a Voter's meeting? That seems to me to be the legalistic approach, at least from the perspective of those on the losing side of the issue.

That answer, of course, is that Christ decides. Hasn't He made clear His decision by virtue of what He offers us in the Sacrament? I've never heard anyone ask that we only have a sermon or the Lessons on the first and third Sundays of the month. We know that God's Word is too important to our faith for that. Is the Communion less important? How do we know which Sundays people will or will not have need for the Sacrament? I believe that's a more Gospel determinative approach.

I haven't seen anything in Pastor Wieting's articles that implies that we should force people to receive communion or judge people for not attending. That, of course, would be wrong. We are given the freedom of not attending on a given Sunday. But for the sake of our of our neighbor who feels a deep need it is best we allow Christ to serve us with all His gifts as He desires.