Zooming in on the Lord’s Supper? Some reflections… Part 3

- Arguments based on analogies to other festivals or rites.

Strong biblical arguments have been brought forward here on the basis of OT sacrifices and the Passover. 

In Lev 10, Aaron is approved by God, even though he offers a sin offering in an irregular fashion. As Stephen Clark has pointed out, the law required the sin offering to be eaten, but Aaron does not do so because he cannot eat with “rejoicing and thanksgiving” (as per Deut 26:14; Hos. 9:4) in light of the death of his two sons. For Stephen, this is evidence that God considered the sacrifice to have been offered even though one its essential components (the eating of the flesh) had not been observed. 

Would that legitimate the irregular observance of the Lord’s Supper without one of its essential components (the gathering of the church). I’m not persuaded that it does. One could turn the analogy around and argue that Aaron is basically refusing to participate in the sacrifice in an unworthy manner, comparable to the believer who absents themselves from the table until they have made right a grievance. Regardless, it seems to me that the very essence of the Lord’s Supper is that it a communal meal, and for that reason it simply cannot be observed in any sense where the church is not gathered.

A closer analogy would seem to be the observance of the Passover in the OT. Of course, the Lord’s Supper has a strong connection to the Passover. Just as the nation of Israel annually commemorated its rescue with a festive meal, so the church retells its story of redemption through sacrifice when it meets. So it is striking that in extraordinary circumstances, irregular observance of Passover was permitted. In Exod 12 the Passover is set on the 14^th day of the first month, and in the event of ritual uncleanness this can be postponed for one month (Num 9:6). 2 Chronicles 30 records Hezekiah’s reforms where the temple is in need of cleansing and where Passover has not been observed at the proper time. Once the temple is purified he issues a decree that all Israel should gather to the proper place for worship. Although many refuse, a large crowd gathers in Jerusalem, shares in the work of stripping way idolatrous altars, and celebrates the Passover. They do so in an irregular way because many of them have not purified themselves (30:17-18), and the lambs had been sacrificed by the Levites instead of the people themselves.   Despite these irregularities, highlighted by the text (30:18), the LORD blesses the people (30:20).

This might seem to be an argument in favour of flexibility, and the wider trajectory might also reflect a sense in which the Passover evolves over time from a household meal to a national and centralised festival. And yet I don’t think there is anything here that argues clearly for flexibility in our observance of the Lord’s Supper. Passover in 2 Chron 30 remains a centralised festival for all who faithfully gathered. The LORD’s blessing seems to be more in response to those who are observing the festival after a period of national apostasy and who, though ritually unclean, have joined the effort to purify Jerusalem (30:13-14). There is no reversion back to a household celebration of the Passover, instead 2 Chron 30 looks like a step on the way to a climactic celebration of the Passover in 2 Chron 35 under Josiah which is now able to be celebrated at the right time and in the right manner.

Perhaps most significantly though, I would argue that in these instances you have an irregular but genuine observance of Passover. That is different to the proposal to describe a meal eaten apart from one another as the Lord’s Supper. I do not think we can say that is in any sense a Lord’s Supper since the church family are not meeting and nor are they sharing a meal.

That raises two questions. First, what about the possibility of households eating the Lord’s Supper together as smaller clusters of the church? And second, can we really say that a church which shares a Zoom call and takes bread and wine together are not in some sense a gathered church?

So, what about the idea, suggested by Andrew Wilson and Ian Paul that “households” could continue to share in the Lord’s Supper? It would depend on who makes up that “household.” In this time of lockdown it is in most cases biologically-related families. To observe the supper in those units could I think very seriously miss the nature of the new covenant community as a family of faith (hey, I’m a baptist after all). This is where the parallel with Passover is weakest. In its earliest form, the Jews celebrated it in their households as a national rescue of Abraham’s physical descendants. The new covenant celebrates the redemption of Abraham’s children who share his faith, and there is a real danger of obscuring that. The breaking of bread in homes in Acts is not I think a strong counter-argument to that, given how little we know about the size and make up of those households, save that they were often the locations where churches would meet.

If, on the other hand, there are half a dozen Christian housemates living together, then could they celebrate the Supper together? I’d also be inclined to discourage that, given that this would still be “what you do at home” compared to “when the church gathers,” to recall the language from 1 Cor 11. It would also be to celebrate a meal that very many (all those living alone) would be excluded from.

Finally, then, what about the suggestion that a church could meet on Zoom, with bread and wine at hand, and share in the Lord’s Supper?

Zooming in on the Lord’s Supper? Some reflections… Part 5

Two final objections that could be raised:

Are we no longer churches then?

You might say the church is the gathered people of God and if there’s no gathering there’s no church. Well, of course the universal church remains. Secure in Christ, his church, his bride, his body endures. Local churches exist in complex ways, as legal entities, charities, and, at least for those churches with a formal membership, as a covenanted community of believers governed by elders. How the body build itself up in love and serves the Lord is clearly affected by a lockdown but is not prevented. Elders, like Paul, find themselves distanced from their congregations in some painful ways which require the use of media which allow some things to be done well, others not so much. In light of comments above though, I would be wary of saying the church meets on Zoom without qualifying that statement quite heavily. I would be even more wary of saying that a live-stream broadcast is same as a Sunday gathering in a different medium. In each of these scenarios I think there is a severely diminished sense in we are addressable, accountable, and vulnerable. I want to expand on that at some point, but this is long enough already!

A more Reformed definition of the church would emphasise two or three marks. In the words of the Belgic Confession,

“The marks by which the true Church is known are these: If the pure doctrine of the gospel is preached therein; if it maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ; if church discipline is exercised in punishing sin” (Belgic Confession, Article 29).

Can a church claim to be church then if the sacraments halt? Clearly yes, if they believe circumstances prevent their administration “as instituted by Christ”, namely, at the physical gatherings of the church.

Have we not effectively excommunicated believers?

Given the connection between the Lord’s Supper and church discipline, is the halting of the Lord’s Supper not adding an additional burden to God’s people? Punishing them in a season of hardship? No. Not every season of fasting or lament is a punishment. And what the Supper symbolises is still wonderfully true. It’s another point made clear in the BCP. In the event that someone is too unwell to receive communion, or if there is no-one who can accompany the minister to serve them the Lord’s Supper,

the Curate shall instruct him that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and steadfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the Cross for him, and shed his Blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty thanks therefore; he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth.

That after all, is what John 6 is all about. To believe in the Lord is to receive the bread from heaven, to feed on his flesh and to drink his blood. His completed work still stands.

Zooming in on the Lord’s Supper? Some reflections… Part 4

Is the Lord’s Supper online a shared meal?

Let’s imagine a best-case scenario where a church can gather its entire membership online in a Zoom call. Access to technology is not an issue, and this is not simply a broadcast, i.e. a one-way communication from leaders to people, but a live interaction such that elders can see who is present and ensure that no-one under church discipline is participating. Bread and wine are also present in every home, and so no-one is prevented from eating and drinking.

Although this fulfils some of the necessary criteria for a biblical practice of the Lord’s Supper I remain unpersuaded that this is a shared meal. It is a synchronised meal to be sure. But we have not sat down together and broken bread together. That, remember, is the essence of the Lord’s Supper. To remember the Lord’s death when we meet to share a meal. It matters that we are not sat shoulder to shoulder, accommodating each other, making room for one another, and serving one another.

 So I do not think attempting the Lord’s Supper in this way can be said to be a supper. Nor do I think we can say the church has truly gathered, although that needs a bit more unpacking.

Is the church online a gathered church?

What we mean by “the church online” is of course no one thing. When the church first started using modern broadcast media, there were a number of critiques raised. One was that the television is simply a medium for entertainment and therefore casts anything we do in that vein. That criticism does need weighing carefully I think, even if it minimises the potential of TV to be used for other ends. My own family have gathered round the TV to watch a pre-recorded sermon on Sunday mornings and the temptation to attend to it with less than our full attention and as something for our passive consumption has been strong. To describe that as “church going online” is also to communicate that church is a one-way transmission for my edification. If we persist in calling that church, I suspect we have a hard time recalling people back to meeting together, and we will have set their expectations in some very unhelpful ways.

Another critique, made by Robert Jenson,[1] was that this kind of communication makes the communicator the hub and recipients the spokes. That is to say, the audience have no relationships one to another, only with the hub. In Jenson’s terms, this use of mass media creates a “mass” not a “community.” Quite so. That does not mean such media should not be used, however, Jenson simply observes that they rely on other means to have already constituted the audience as a congregation. “Close pastoral and fraternal care” can accomplish this, such that “the broadcast does not itself carry the burden of integrating its hearers into the congregation.” The question, for our time, is how do we prevent the community ties from degrading when live-streams or broadcasts will do nothing to replenish them?

Enter Zoom (other communications platforms are available). This does allow for what Jenson calls “crosstalk”, i.e. for the members of a church to relate to one another as well as the centre. But can we say that we are “present” on Zoom, that we have met, or gathered? In relation to the Lord’s Supper, can we say the church is sufficiently gathered to qualify for Paul’s instructions about what we should do when we meet?

This is enormously complicated and more subtle than we might think. There are surely degrees of presence, and different concepts in view. I can be physically present but my attention can be completely elsewhere. My kids rightly expect me to be “present” in both senses at the meal table.

When we think about the Apostle Paul’s interactions with his churches, his letters signify both his absence and his presence. His absence is more obvious, and he frequently longs to be with his churches or co-workers (1 Cor 16:7, 1 Thess 2:17, 3:6, 2 Tim 1:4) that he might seem them face to face and so know how they are faring and to impart to them blessings that cannot be communicated by letter (Rom 1:11, 1 Thess 3:10). Likewise, 2 John 1:12 expresses the limits of the written word (and cf. 3 John 14). His letters nonetheless are a kind of presence with his churches. In 2 Cor 10:1-2 Paul is considered “timid” face to face” and “bold” in his writing; 2 Cor 13:2 repeats in absence a warning he gave in person. Most striking though are two further passages:

Col 2:5. Though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

Here Paul wants to assure the church of his concern and so speaks of being with them in spirit. I would think this is parallel to the expression in 1 Thess 2:17 that  Paul was torn away from the church in person but not in “heart” – in other words, Paul carries around his concern for the churches with him. In light of that separation, hearing from Epaphras about the Colossians enables Paul to “see” that they are disciplined and standing firm (Col 2:5).

1 Cor 5:3-5. For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this.⁴ So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present,⁵ hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

Here I think there are two additional notes. One is that Paul’s absence is polemical. From a distance, he can see what needs doing, even though those present are not administering the necessary discipline. Second, Paul is present with them in the sense that he has communicated his judgment and is with them in spirit when they enact the discipline. Here I suspect there is an authoritative presence. Certainly that is true of Jesus. In Matt 18 Jesus is present where two or three gather in his name in judicial settings and that probably explains the reference to “gathering in the name of the Lord Jesus” and the presence of “the power of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In light of these texts, we can say that presence is not simply a matter of being there in person. Paul is with his churches in some sense, and his letters can mediate his presence and exercise his authority or care in some crucial ways.

Similar judgments could be made in relation to Jesus himself. In a much more profound way he is able to be present by his Spirit with his people. By his apostles’ words he is able to command his people (1 Cor 7:10), and by the Spirit, he and the Father come and make their home in the believer (John 14:23). And yet we do not see him (1 Pet 1:8) and we long for his appearing (1 Pet 1:7), knowing that we will be transformed when we see him (1 John 3:2).

More generally still, we would want to affirm that believers are united with Christ and so are united with one another. There is one body united by one Spirit (Eph 4:4), and we have permanent access into the grace in which we know stand (Rom 5:2). But these are not adequate grounds to say that the church is permanently gathered, otherwise the commands to meet (Heb 10:25) or the instructions concerning when we do meet (1 Cor 10-11) make no sense.

All of these texts then make us aware of a kind of presence that isn’t full or face to face presence. We need to acknowledge both the potential and the limitations of the ways in which we can be present with others during a lockdown, but I do not think that any of these ways of being present are what Paul means when he speaks of a church gathering to break bread together. One confirmation of that might be the way that the Messianic banquet with Jesus is postponed until there is a face to face presence (Matt 26:29).

In the final post we'll address two final objections to the view I'm defending.

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[1] Robert W. Jenson, “The Church and Mass Electronic Media: The Hermeneutic Problem,” Religious Education 82.2 (1987): 279–84.

Zooming in on the Lord’s Supper? Some reflections… Part 2

A number of arguments have been made in support of continuing to offer the Lord's Supper:

- Arguments on the basis of current practice.

It can be argued that our standard practice of the Lord’s Supper falls short of the NT prescriptions, and so we should not be purists about its observance. Every supper is unsatisfactory in some measure: few churches actually employ one cup and one loaf; fewer still are close to the practice of actual meals together; instead, slightly dry morsels of bread and thimbles of grape juice are passed round. The mood is frequently one of quiet introspection, rather than attention to the corporate realities spoken of in one loaf and one body. And for a variety of reasons, attendance and engagement are not what they could be. So: the Lord’s Supper is already observed in a variety of less-than-ideal ways. So we can relax a little…

By way of response, I must admit I have a great deal of sympathy with these observations.[1] For those of us who argue that the nature of the Lord’s Supper as a corporate and unifying meal of the gathered means that we cannot observe now, it will be interesting to see whether our past practice lends those arguments any plausibility! There might, therefore, be an argument here to review our practice when we begin meeting again and make sure it embodies as best it can the nature of the Supper as given to us. How can we better reflect the corporate, unifying, and festive elements of the Lord’s Supper? I’m not sure though that there is an argument here for observing the Supper in even more irregular ways. Indeed, whatever its shortcomings, all of our current practice has fulfilled the basic essence of the Lord’s Supper: a shared meal of the gathered church, and I cannot see how a live streamed communion service or a synchronised meal over Zoom fulfils that basic criterion.

- Arguments on the basis of current exceptions.

Some appeal to the fact that communion is offered to believers who are housebound or sick, and that provides precedent for making the Lord’s Supper available now. Again, different churches will take a different view on whether this is an admissible practice in itself. What is striking about the Anglican Book of Common Prayer’s provision for communion in such cases, is that it still aims to preserve as many of those distinctives of the Lord’s Supper as possible. It is still be administered by an ordained minister, and ideally that minister would be able to take other parishioners with them so that the body is represented in that visit. It is only in very exceptional circumstances that the minister would go alone.[2] Even in those cases, we are talking about a person actually attending the sick person.[3]

- Arguments on the basis of the priesthood of all believers

It has been argued that the priesthood of all believers in the New Testament legitimates anyone officiating at home. There is an important Reformation principle here that undergirds much of the Protestant practice of the Lord’s Supper, but the Reformers would still have argued that it is the duly appointed ministers of the gospel who should oversee the table, and would see the sacraments as belonging to a separate sphere of authority: the church, not the home. Although some have invoked Luther on this point, it is interesting how he dealt with one related “what-if”:

“If a little company of pious Christian laymen were taken prisoners and carried away to a desert, and had not among them a priest consecrated by a bishop, and were there to agree to elect one of them, born in wedlock or not, and were to order him to baptise, to celebrate the mass, to absolve, and to preach, this man would as truly be a priest, as if all the bishops and all the Popes had consecrated him.” (Luther’s Address to the German Nobility)

Note that what happens in this scenario is the constitution of a church in the wilderness. The people have the right to ordain a minister (they are not stranded without a Pope on that score); but it is the ordained minister who then has the right to officiate. Luther does not support the view that this hypothetical wilderness generation can go ahead and serve themselves, by virtue of the priesthood of all believers.

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[1] There is though sometimes an undue primitivism lurking here, that says our aim should only be to recover first generation Christian practices. Even within the NT we sees aspects of development and the formalisation of church offices and structures.

[2] In the BCP text, “In the time of the plague, sweat, or such other like contagious times of sickness or diseases, when none of the Parish or neighbours can be gotten to communicate with the sick in their houses, for fear of the infection, upon special request of the diseased, the Minister may only communicate with him.”

[3] For my money, I think the BCP has it right: that ideally someone who is housebound and wishes to share in the Lord’s Supper could do so if a group of church members attends their home, as a microcosm of the whole body.

Zooming in on the Lord’s Supper? Some reflections… Part 1

This has become a sprawling debate. I have tried to capture the major arguments here without naming lots of names. Of course no-one is making all these arguments; I’ve just found it helpful to spread out the pieces and try and organise them a little…

By way of a headline, I don’t think we can celebrate the Lord’s Supper until we physically gather again as God’s people. But I want to acknowledge the breadth and quality of many arguments for a different conclusion. There are some biblical arguments that need addressing and there are very tricky questions around what it means to be “present” online. Could it not be said that the church has gathered in a Zoom chat room?

Let’s begin with some basic convictions about the Lord’s Supper, widely recognised:

1. The Lord’s Supper is the sign of a sacrifice for sins offered once for all. The loss of the Lord’s Supper would be much, much worse if we believed it atones for sins. 

2. The Lord’s Supper is a sign for the new covenant community.

a.       It signifies the unity of God’s people. There is one loaf, one body, one cup. Indeed, it constitutes us as one. We who are many are one “because there is one loaf.” (1 Cor 10:17)

b.      It is to be celebrated as the gathered church. Paul’s instructions on the Lord’s Supper are given along with other aspects of corporate worship under the category of things to do “when you come together” (1 Cor 11:18, 20, 14:23, 26).

c.       It is closely related to church discipline. To excommunicate someone is to ex-communion them, to deny them the right to eat at the family table. 1 Corinthians 5-6 speaks of those who should be excluded from table fellowship because of their sinful conduct as an act of discipline.[1] Likewise Matt 18:17 speaks of ending fellowship as the climax of a process of discipline.

This responsibility to “judge those inside” the church falls to the whole church community in 1 Cor 5:12-13 and the unrepentant sinner’s case is brought before the whole church in Matt 18:17. That said, there is a clear need for mature believers to be engaged in the process (Gal 6:1) and it is the responsibility of leaders in particular to refute error, rebuke, correct, and restore, as the Pastoral Epistles demonstrate.

Protestant churches have developed a number of ways of administering the Lord’s Supper which will raise some more specific issues, beyond the need to observe the basic contours on the Lord’s Supper. In some traditions, it is only the ordained ministers of the gospel or elders of the church who may preside. In others, the bread and wine must be consecrated by an ordained minister and any surplus reverently consumed.[2] To the extent that these are felt to be important, they will feed into our decision about what is permissible or advisable in this season.

But, to return to those broader convictions about the Lord’s Supper, the basic question emerges clearly enough: if the church can’t meet together, then how can it celebrate the Lord’s Supper?

The next few posts looks at a number of recent arguments arguing it can...

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[1] In the words of the Westminster Larger Catechism Question 173: “May any who profess his faith, and desire to come to the Lord’s Supper, be kept from it?” Answer: “Such as are found to be ignorant or scandalous, notwithstanding their profession of the faith, and desire to come to the Lord’s Supper, may and ought to be kept from that sacrament, by the power which Christ hath left in his church, until they receive instruction and manifest their reformation.

[2] What is meant by consecration varies; it can mean that bread and wine are accompanied by words which proclaim their significance (thereby keeping word and sacrament together). See Calvin Institutes 4.17.39 on this); it can also include the prayer that the Spirit would enable the people to feed in Christ in the Supper.