While its significance may be lost on modern westerners, the breaking of bread with another person is a significant event with a long history. Our word 'companion means one with whom bread is shared. In ancient cultures "“ Jewish, Pagan and Christian "“ sharing a meal and breaking bread was an indication of a cultural connection. It was a form of fellowship.

Most churches agree that the chief expression of fellowship between Christian people is the Holy Communion service. Paul called it 'the Lord's supper' (I Corinthians 11:20), which indicates what it is, namely the fellowship meal of disciples, by invitation of their Lord. Instituted by Jesus himself during his last evening on earth, it has been almost universally recognized ever since as the heart of Christian worship. Luke seems to indicate that, at least in Asia Minor in AD 57, it was the churches' custom on the first day of each week to assemble in order 'to break bread' (Acts 20:7). The Lord's Day would have been incomplete without the Lord's Supper. Some churches this century have been seeking to recover its centrality by making it the main Sunday service. Others believe they can best emphasize its importance by holding a Communion service for the whole church family on one Sunday a month.

Our Prayer Book calls it The Lords Supper because that is Pauls way of referring to it (1 Corinthians 11:20). Our only window into the activity and meaning of the Lords Supper in the New Testament is First Corinthians chapters 10 and 11.

We all know the importance of food for the family, because we know it is important for ourselves that our bodies are fuelled with energy for life. While some live to eat, we all eat to live. Yet as Christians it is not only our physical nourishment that is important but our spiritual nourishment as well. That Jesus should institute a meal of remembrance for his disciples, whereby the reality of feeding on Christ was not only pictured but also conveyed, is of great significance for the family of God.

Dr James R Harrison discusses controversies over the Lords Supper after the New Testament era and reactions of first-century unbelievers to the Lords Supper.

The clear desire of the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney for lay administration provokes puzzlement, dismay and rejection in some other parts of the Anglican Communion. Sometimes it is seen as a sort of "pay back" for the ordination of women. Often it is regarded as thoroughly un-Anglican, almost a betrayal of the Anglican theology of sacraments and ministry. Frequently it is used as evidence that Sydney is extremist and totally unlike any other Anglicans anywhere. Sometimes, with more sympathy, the question is raised why such a development would be needed in an urban setting such as Sydney and in a Church with hundreds of priests available for Eucharistic ministry.

There are differing sacramental theologies in contemporary Anglicanism, which express themselves in quite different ways of conducting the Eucharist. The clearest distinction is between more 'Reformed and more 'Catholic emphases, and it would be naïve to suggest that these do not represent significant and even competing theological commitments. What is sometimes forgotten is that a number of the practices and ornaments to be found in the contemporary Anglican Church were illegal when they were introduced (often in the 19th century), and were certainly regarded as 'unanglican. Catholic innovation has now become very 'establishment "“ but there has always existed a Reformed and Evangelical tradition in the church. This may now seem strange and, for the historically uninformed, even innovative itself. But at heart it goes back beyond the 19th century.

There is a growing desire on the part of leading figures especially in the predominantly evangelical Diocese of Sydney, in particular, to authorise lay presidency, or "lay administration" as they term it, of the Holy Communion. We should actually be grateful to those in the Diocese of Sydney who have raised the question, since it forces all of us to re-examine our inherited tradition. The real opportunity for most of us in this debate is not to fulminate about what we are against but to remind ourselves of what we are for, and to ask how well our teaching and our practice represent truth, charity and the demands of the Gospel, and whether and how we might all need to consider changes.