Setting the Lord's Table: Reflections on Altar Guild Ministry

Detail of miniature of the Marriage of the Lamb, "Dyson Perrins Apocalypse"
(England, 13th c.) [J. Paul Getty Museum]

by Audra Yoder

I

Feasts hosted by lords or kings in medieval England were occasions of great pomp and ceremony. Elaborate rituals governed every aspect of the decking of a great feudal hall. The rites of preparation began in the morning with the laying of the tablecloth, and culminated in the evening with the ceremonial uncovering of the lord’s bread and utensils in preparation for eating.

The retainers charged with the task of laying the tablecloth had the highest honor. While the hall was being prepared, these retainers—known collectively as the “affinity” of their lord—were required and expected to behave as though they were in the presence of the lord himself. They were to bow, to avoid turning their backs to the high table, and to observe every detail of etiquette even in their master’s absence. In ceremonial practice, the presence of the lord’s table was equivalent to the presence of the lord himself.

In the same way, altar guilds are charged with assuming the Lord’s presence as they handle his dishes and table linens. As a generous host delights both in the anticipation of beloved guests and in their presence, altar guild members solemnly rejoice in the preparation of the Table, knowing that its Guest and Head is already present. When we approach Christ’s Table, we approach Christ himself. The technicalities of our Eucharistic theology ought not to affect how we behave in the Lord’s presence.

There is a unique joy in altar guild ministry, because it affords the opportunity of serving Christ, the clergy, and fellow parishioners on different levels simultaneously. In a lower sense than the Sacrament itself, altar guild service brings into being that which it represents—the communal Supper of the Lamb. Truly, those with whom we Commune are our companions in the highest sense—the word “companion” means literally “one who breaks bread with another.” In the Eucharist, Christ is simultaneously the Host, the Guest of honor, and the Meal itself. Like the medieval host, he shares his bread with his companions in order to communicate and realize two essential truths: that he is the provider of the food, and the one who elevates his companions by sharing his bread, and by extension his life, with them.

II

In 1939, a German sociologist named Norbert Elias published a massive work that would later be translated into English as The Civilizing Process. Elias attempted to trace the evolution of modern manners and thereby to articulate what exactly differentiated the “civilized” from the “uncivilized” in the European mind. Like any good scholar, Elias avoided placing value judgments on changes wrought by centuries-long historical processes. Still, it seems to me that some of his arguments point to what our contemporary society has to gain by communing together at the Eucharist:

“People who ate together in the way customary in the Middle Ages, taking meat with their fingers from the same dish, wine from the same goblet, soup from the same pot or the same plate…such people stood in a different relationship to one another than we do. And this involves not only the level of clear, rational consciousness; their emotional life also had a different structure and character. Their affects were conditioned to forms of relationship and conduct which, by today’s standard of conditioning, are embarrassing or at least unattractive. What was lacking in this courtois world, or at least had not been developed to the same degree, was the invisible wall of affects which seems now to rise between one human body and another, repelling and separating, the wall which is often perceptible today at the mere approach of something that has been in contact with the mouth or hands of someone else, and which manifests itself as embarrassment at the mere sight of many bodily functions of others, and often at their mere mention, or as a feeling of shame when one’s own functions are exposed to the gaze of others, and by no means only then.” [1]

A great deal has been written on the multitude of ways in which the Eucharist breaks down barriers between people, and between people and God. I am expressing no new insight when I say that the Eucharist both transcends and transforms human cultures, overcoming prejudices and divisions wrought by sin and uniting people to each other and to God. Just as Christ’s Incarnation shattered the barrier between human flesh and Divinity, the Eucharist feeds and unites us physically and spiritually, nourishing our whole selves, our souls, bodies, and relationships.


[1] Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations, vol. 1, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 60. I hope readers can forgive me for taking Elias’ words out of context and using them in a way he certainly did not intend. The entire work is a most thought-provoking and interesting read, and remains very influential, although sociologists and historians today object to his arguments and methodology.