This is a bit of a controversial one, but I've been studying up a bit on the relationship between the Eucharist and the practice of private confession, and I have come to the conclusion that both biblically and confessionally, we Lutherans have a pastoral need to bring back the practice of withholding communion from those who have not gone through private confession beforehand. In addition, I would like to at least pose some questions about the helpfulness of corporate confession and absolution in general.
The confessions agree on this first point. Article 11 of the Augsburg Confession doesn't say anything more than that we retain the practice of private confession and absolution and that we don't require enumeration of sins for forgiveness. Article 25, however, does say something related to the topic,
Confession has not been abolished by the preachers on our side. For the custom has been retained among us of not administering the sacraments to those who have not previously been examined and absolved. At the same time, the people are diligently instructed how comforting the word of absolution is and how highly and dearly absolution is to be esteemed. (AC 25.1-3)
Such a statement seems bold and uncompromising. Simply put, confession precedes the supper. Melanchthon also repeats the same sentiment in Article 24 of the Apology:
At the outset it is again necessary, by way of preface, to point out that we do not abolish the Mass but religiously retain and defend it. Among us the Mass is celebrated every Lord's day and on other festivals, when the sacrament is made available to those who wish to partake of it, after they have been examined and absolved. (Ap 24.1)
With that said, there is a bit more complexity when we get to Luther's own thoughts on the matter. In his work An Order of Mass and Communion, he does affirm the requirement of examination and private confession, which he addresses separately. For the former, he says,
But I think it enough for the applicants for communion to be examined or explored once a year. Indeed, a man may be so understanding that he needs to be questioned only once in his lifetime or not at all. For, by this practice, we want to guard lest the worthy and unworthy alike rush to the Lord’s Supper, as we have hitherto seen done in the Roman church.
Regarding what this examination consists of, he says that it has two parts: first that they be able to explain what the Supper is, does, and why they need it, and second that they not be a crass and unrepentant "fornicator, adulterer, drunkard, gambler, usurer, slanderer, or anyone else disgrace by a manifest vice." He obviously specifies that one can repent of such actions and thus be allowed to partake, but that the unrepentant and those unwilling to amend their lives ought to be refused for their own sakes. This is both clear and sensible. If a person knows what the supper is and does, he likely doesn't need to be reminded very often that it's Jesus' body and blood, because if he forgets, he will hear the words of institution and remember! This, too, would be an excellent practice for the Lutheran Church to take up once more. As for his view on private confession, the actual topic of this article, however, his thoughts are a little less clear, in my reading, about the requirement of private confession:
Now concerning private confession before communion, I still think as I have held heretofore, namely, that it neither is necessary nor should be demanded. Nevertheless, it is useful and should not be despised; for the Lord did not even require the Supper itself as necessary or establish it by law, but left it free to everyone when he said, “as often as you do this,” etc. So concerning the preparation for the Supper, we think that preparing oneself by fasting and prayer is a matter of liberty.
While many of the statements, in themselves, appear perfectly clear, I don't find it a particularly helpful statement for our purposes. He first says that it isn't necessary or demanded, and yet at the same time it ought not be despised. What's more, the question also arises, who ought not despise it? Should pastors retain the requirement as useful and done in Christian freedom or should the laity continue going to confession beforehand in their Christian freedom? I would guess that, based on the confessional documents above, he is referring to pastors, but I could very easily seeing it read as the laity, seeing his reference to the preparation of "oneself" later. In addition, his reference to the Supper also muddies the water. When he says that it isn't required, is he saying that it isn't required in the same way that the Supper isn't, or is he merely making an offhand statement only vaguely related? Finally, I'm confused whether his reference to fasting and prayer is related or unrelated. Strictly speaking, private confession is neither fasting nor prayer, so I'd tend to believe it's unrelated, but with how much he goes on to talk about it and the fact that it's attached to his statements on private confession, I can't be too sure. Ordinarily, I would look for more clarity in the surrounding context, but this is all he says on the matter! In this way, I would err on the seemingly clear words of the confessions, since that is our actual confession of faith, not Luther's works.
For a supposed Protestant, I haven't addressed the scriptures much, but that is largely because they do not specify a required practice here. The only specific argument I think one can make is that there are a few passages in the Pentateuch that refers to confession of deliberate sins before a sacrifice (Lev. 5:1-6, Numbers 5:6-10), and in the day of atonement, the confession of sins and driving out of the scapegoat occurs before the burnt offering. In the same way, the confession of sins ought to precede the reception of the body and blood of Christ's sacrifice. I'll admit this is a very stretched argument, based more on typology than clear texts, so I will sit with at least the words of Dr. Luther and Melanchthon and instead argue that the practice is not a required one but instead a good one that we ought to retain. In this way, I do not need to prove that the practice of requiring the absolution before the supper is scripturally mandated, but instead is better than the current practice at confessing and fulfilling the scriptural mandates.
Speaking of scriptural mandates, I have addressed the topic of closed communion before, but I think it is worth repeating some of my points: 1 Corinthians 10-11 clearly forbids the communion of schismatics and the unrepentant, as it can harm the body and soul. In addition, I would suggest that either Christ is our example for the practice, since He kept back Judas from the table, or we see in Judas an example of what happens to him who communes wrongfully. We also know that the supper is a unity meal, and thus we ought not confess unity where there is not unity, just as we ought not confess "peace where there is no peace." In addition, if the pastor is to keep back those who ought not commune and accept those who ought, then what's necessary is some kind of examination, and ideally a repeated one before the sacrament to remain "up to date," so to speak, on the status of a communicant. It's important to note that this is a very grave business. St. Paul calls the Church the "stewards of the mysteries [sacraments] of God," and with this vocation, one is then liable to great danger if performed wrongfully. Ezekiel 3 talks about the prophet's job to warn people and keep them back from judgment, and the pastor acts in this role in the examination and as the one barring the unprepared. However, as stated above, it is remarkably difficult for the pastor to steward the sacrament if there isn't some kind of regular examination. Otherwise, a pastor would either have to rely on gossip, which is obviously a breach of the 8th commandment, or on his own knowledge of events, via social media or something similar, which is likely pretty worthless and may fall victim to the same 8th commandment prohibition.
A passage that complicates the idea of witholding communion from some is Matthew 18, where our Lord prescribes the way in which excommunication ought to go in the congregation. In this passage, we see a specific and orderly way in which the Church is to perform such a grave duty of witholding forgiveness from the impenitent, specifically played out in formal excommunication. This would seem to complicate things because a pastor who holds back some from the table after examination appears to skirt around Christ's order and be the judge, jury, and executioner at the table. However, that is a misuderstanding of this kind of "soft penance," as I will call it. Instead, this very temporary witholding from the table for a week or two would be meant for a longer-term examination in order to prepare oneself in true repentance (i.e. contrition and faith; also see Luther's Small Catechism, the Sacrament of the Altar 9-10).
As a side note, I have begun to wonder if the practice of the corporate absolution is somewhat problematic for the actual use of the keys by the Church because there is no real control over such an absolution. You have no idea who you are absolving, for all you know, you could be declaring forgiveness to one whose sins are retained by another congregation. To be clear, this isn't an issue of giving forgiveness too freely but of giving it wrongfully. If a person is impenitent, then they ought not receive the absolution; if a person is excommunicated by another church, they ought not be absolved. For the purposes of explanation, I would like to describe a related issue that took place among those who practice(d) online communion. While I do believe such consecrations are invalid and thus not efficacious, if they were to be, then one would have to be concerned about the consecration of any bread in the vicinity of the pastor's words. Are the cheerios in the child's ziploc in the front of the church now our Lord's flesh and blood? Are and breadcrumbs that fell into one's pockets now partaking in the divine nature? A similar question needs to be asked around the corporate confession. Is the impenitent fornicator's sins forgiven because the pastor declared it to be? Is the excommunicated heretic forgiven of his heresy because the pastor declared him so, whether he believes the truth or not? To use an example, I would submit that of a doctor. This is a common comparison with the pastoral office, where one needs to divide law and gospel for the sake of the congregant's conscience and with precision comparable to a physician. One must cut out dead hearts and cancerous tumors with the scalpel of the law (2nd use), heal broken hearts and revive dead souls with the medicine of the gospel, and rehabilitate sinful limbs with the casts of the law (3rd use). To apply this to our discussion of corporate confession, it would be like giving the same salve to all patients without hearing anything more than "I feel bad." To someone with a broken arm, they don't need salve but a cast, and to someone with a calcified heart, they don't need medicine but a good hammer. Instead, a pastor ought to examine his congregants so he can break the hardened hearts, heal the broken, and encourage the confused into the way of good works.
After that excursus, I would also like to acknowledge another foreseen complaint, in which I am denounced as a pietist. Well, funnily enough, the opposition is far more influenced by pietism than my own. The pietistic era saw much laxer rules around the examination of the communicant, and with that, the invention of the service of corporate confession and absolution, which became much more popular than its private form and which we still retain in the Lutheran Service Book. This also evolved even later into the practice of "announcing" one's family's presence at communion to the pastor during the week before, with little examination involved, which itself atrophied and died, leaving us in the position we are now, where most Lutheran congregants have no experience with any rite of confession and absolution that isn't a part of a Sunday service. In addition, it is significant to note that the early Lutherans (Luther included) almost unanimously did not include any kind of corporate absolution in the service itself. The practice did technically exist, but it was relatively novel liturgically (showing up in the 10th century), though more common in Germany, where it was called the Offene schuld. This practice was addressed by the early reformers and was disapproved of by quite a few, though supported by others. Luther himself acknowledged that it was acceptable, but in one of his letters to Osiander (letter 302), he simply said that he didn't want divisions on either side over the practice and that both sides made good points. I would follow his lead here--this is by no means meant to condemn the nearly ubiquitous practices in modern Lutheranism, but it is rather simply a proposition of alternative, more historic practices which I find to be better than the current alternatives.
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