In the study of the theology and practice of John Wesley one of the most evident realities was the very high place that John placed on the Sacraments. When you survey his journals it is obvious he celebrated the Lord’s Supper multiple times as week, and it became a cornerstone of the practice of the early Methodists so much so that it played a part in reshaping how often Communion was celebrated in Anglican parish life from as little as only a couple times a year (usually quarterly) to weekly.
But when it comes to the actual practice of the Methodist societies, class and band meetings, they are seemingly silent on their practice in those settings. While many a modern reader would take this silence to make it seem they were unimportant, I think when you read between the lines, a different story comes to bear. This question was recently pointed out to me by Rev. Dr. Doug Cullum, now retired pastor and faculty from Northeastern Seminary at Roberts Wesleyan University in Rochester New York.
We first need to work from the presupposition that Wesley did not set out to start a church. He was, in fact, a churchman in the Church of England, and remained so for the entirety of his life (something his brother Charles held strongly to as well). And, it wasn’t until the last few years of John’s life that a communion table was even present in one of the established Methodist gathering places.
This silence then is not because the Sacraments of Baptism & the Lord’s Supper were unimportant. Contrarily, they were seen as essential! But the nature of this silence or deficiency seems to be intentional, and it is from this place that we can come to understand the original purpose of Methodism.
John & Charles saw the Methodist movement as a renewal movement within the Church, not as a separate ecclesial movement. So with this in mind you can then see what this “sacramental deficiency” existed. Any Methodist society, class or band was for the spiritual growth of the individual to then go and be active and spiritually alive in the context of their local parish. It was then there where they were to receive the Lord’s Supper as often as it was offered, and to have their children baptized.
It was only when the Methodist movement, specifically in the American context became its own mother church in 1784 did the sacramental practice pass from the Anglican clergy to their own appointed and installed Elders. But what has happened over the last few centuries, as often does with the passing of time, is the loss of the context that provided the basis of understanding what was actually going on on that day.
If we look and see the lack of sacramental practice within early Methodism as an argument from silence, that the Evangelical focus that we are all familiar with was the sole focus, we then lose the full picture of who Wesley was, and the intent for what the Methodist movement was all about.
When you place the original Methodist movement within the context of an already existing parish system where the adherents of society, class and band meetings were already apart of, then it all clicks into place. What could be seen as intentional neglect or unimportance becomes in fact intentional deficiency; where the Sacramental need was already fulfilled in the churches these people were already members of.
What this then means for all forms of Methodism in the 21st Century, which now represent the status of “Mother Churches”, no longer a separate movement within an ecclesial body, but ecclesial bodies of their own is then the responsibility to faithfully administer the Sacraments of Christ. Baptism following birth or conversion, and the Lord’s Supper, weekly or more often as Wesley intended for his followers to partake.
It is this reality, both the Sacramental and the Evangelical that the Methodist movement holds in tension. Not in a contrary way, but in an complimentary way, understanding both for the need of the supremacy of the Word of God to drive us to personal relationship with Christ, and for Christ to then welcome us in through Baptism, and then continually feed us as He promised at the Table where He is both host and feast.
That is the picture of Methodism that Wesley intended for his descendants, a heritage we must reclaim and live in to.