Pr. Paul,
The operational concept in hyper-ritualism is the “ism”, no? As in the ism of legalism, no?
[[McCain: No, actually, it is not legalism, but what my good friend Bill Cwirla reminded me recently of, when Prof. Marquart referred to this obsession with rubrics-on-steroid approach: liturgical pietism, that is, considering the precise manner and ritual to be the truly "right" way and those not doing them to be less enlightened and deprived of the "higher" or "better" or "truest and best" manner of conducting and doing the liturgy.]]

I’ve seen that painting of the Last Supper and it sure looks like the bread is sitting on the table. Hope no crumbs came off. DaVinci was there to paint it, so it must be true

In the end, the hyper-liturgical and the contemporary charismatic arrive at the same place: that they have the true and most salutary opinion and others need to embrace their worship form.
The freedom of the Gospel requires that we resist this temptation in favor of the preservation of Christian liberty (as St. Paul did several times in Acts and the Epistles and the reformers did in the confessions). It is our duty to protect those who are weaker in the faith from those who would take the focus off of the love and grace of Christ by placing too much emphasis on human acts, rites, and opinions.
That does not mean that chaos should reign among us. Good order is an admirable and pious goal. There is a big difference between encouraging traditions that support unity under the testimony of Scripture and inventing methods to address extra-scriptural assertions that detract from the clarity of Sola Fide.

Rev. McCain:
Somehow, it seems insignificant to some brothers that the host elements of bread and wine; in, with and under which forms we receive the true Body and Blood of our Blessed Savior always come in contact with sinful, corrupt, dying human flesh in the very act of giving and receiving Holy Communion. I am thankful that you mentioned the scourge, nail and spear. After all, Our Lord, when He walked among us did not hesitate to touch the leprous, the dead, and all manner of sinful people. He walked dirty and manure covered roads, crossed muddy streams, rode upon an animal, allowed Himself to be beaten, spit upon, crucified. Most incredible of all, He even took upon Himself our sins. None of these corrupted his Holy Presence in the least. I suspect that our loving, gracious and ascended Lord is not overly concerned with precisely how we hold our fingers or if by accident a communicant drops some crumbs or spills some wine upon the floor. He is much more concerned with our souls. He’s been treated a lot worse by man and didn’t complain.
Our reverential and thoughtful handling of the elements is proper. Irreverence reveals something sinful about our own attitudes toward our Lord and His Sacramental Gifts. But His Supper must also be rightly observable in many less than perfect situations: under persecution, in poverty stricken and filthy slums of the world, in tribal and wilderness worship settings, etc. Yet wherever His Meal is celebrated, however beautiful or however simple, His Body and Blood are always given to and by sinful imperfect people who desperately need to focus on what it is Jesus gives us – forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. From Him we receive grace upon grace, John reminds us. Let us beware making his Supper a matter of law upon law.
rh

Pastor McCain:
Why are these issues on celebrating the Lord’s Supper keep coming up on your blog? Aren’t the new seminarians being taught the Confessions as they should? There seems to be either too much rubrics, or maybe congregations are trying to de-emphasize Communion, through only having the Lord’s Supper on a lesser basis, like once a month. It may be one movement in reaction to another, as our churches are adopting contemporary forms of worship. It seems your blog either has people trying to cross the Tiber to the church of Rome, or trying to scale the Alps to Calvinist Geneva. All joking aside, it disturbs me that maybe something is amiss in how pastors are being taught about the sacrement. What’s your take on why this is happening?
[[McCain: I believe it is chiefly caused by over-reaction to concerns, and stirred up by a [thankfully] few number of pastors who encourage this kind of thing.]]

Interesting. However, in our parish, we let the very body and blood of our risen Lord wander out the door every Sunday. The focus on the minutiae of the rubric misses the nature of the gift – it is to the communicants. Extreme care needs to be taken of the elements, but perhaps, it should be remembered that even more extreme care should be taken of those elements that are wandering about our parish in the very parishioners for whom Christ gave his body and blood.
I will not comment of the vapor pressures exerted at the cup (or even plastic cup) interfaces and the nature of the vapor exchanges across the pastoral hand and the wafer … You have done well enough with that area. I also realize that your answer speaks to the tremendous care that you would exercise with the elements all the while remembering that Christ said “do this in remembrance of me” and that he was speaking to the Church not to the janitor.
In Christ,
Gleason

There is, of course, a complementary side to this discussion. E.g., in the Church of Rome, there is, after Vatican II, an ongoing debate concerning receiving the consecrated host by the communicants (for those who read German, see this recent article concerning the upcoming visit of the pope to France: http://www.kreuz.net/article.7482.html): should it be received by the hands or only by the mouth? (The reception of both kinds there is still not as frequent as some might think.) The concern there is that none of the body of Christ (and the blood in the body of Christ: concommitance) be dropped to the ground and trampled under foot by the communicants. An additional concern is of course also that hand communion betray a lack of faith in the miracle of transubstantiation.
This seems to be a debate about which practice is careful enough given the precious goods we indeed do handle in communion. The same questions can be raised regarding the touching of God’s word. We ought to wash our hands not only when handling the Lord’s body and blood, but certainly also when handling the bible, his word. My concern is here always: what happens to our bulletins that have God’s word on them, both during the service and once the service is over? Do we carelessly throw them away, do we let our children draw funny pictures on them? Muslims rebelling at their scriptures being thrown to the ground? Well, do we Christians have no problems with bibles being mistreated by confirmands and others? Americans should treat and dispose their flag reverently; Jews had (have?) the custom of storing worn out scripture scrolls in the synagogue’s attic where they over time are allowed to disintegrate to dust — what do we Christians do with printed forms of God’s word? Has it become a disposable article of consumption that is quickly replaced by the laser printer and copier in the church office? In the RC mass, the gospel book is treated in an outwardly reverent fashion (incense etc.). What do Lutherans do externally?
While these are, IMHO, valid concerns, we shouldn’t forget that, while outward reverence, purity, and cleanliness are certainly “fine outward training,” true worthiness to handle and receive God’s word and Christ’s body and blood comes from a heart that is cleansed by faith in the gospel. The latter surely shouldn’t exclude the former, but rather inspire and shape (and limit) it.

For every action there is a greater and opposite overreaction. I think the slide toward purpose-driven worship in many Lutheran churches has caused many to obsess on rubrics as the antidote, with the result being that everyone who is not equally obsessed about the exact same rubrics is viewed with deep suspicion.
[[McCain: Extremely well put!]]