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