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Video Thoughts from Pastor Josh: Communion Edition 04/06/2020

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Hi friends,

You may have noticed that we haven’t had communion for a month now. And I don’t know about you, but I miss it a lot. I really love communion. I don’t think I’m exaggerating, and I’m not boasting, if I said I loved it more than any of you. And I am deeply saddened we haven’t been able to partake of it together. I was the first week we didn’t do it, and I continue to be sad when we don’t. The first service we stopped communion, which was the last service we met together in the church, I still put out the bread plate and the cup, but upside down, as a form of lament.

But the reason we haven’t had it isn’t because it’s inconvenient now that we’re streaming our service, or because it doesn’t matter. Communion, the gathered people of God breaking bread around a shared table, is very important.

But that’s also the very reason we haven’t had it. We’re not together physically. Our presence is mediated through the internet, and if we were to have communion, each in our own homes with our own bread and juice or wine, it wouldn’t be the body and blood of Christ but merely an empty substitute. As one pastor in our denomination said, “It is the one embodied practice of the Church that cannot be commodified, commercialized, or served digitally over the internet in an excarnate fashion.”[i]

And so it is my conviction that we must fast from taking the Lords’ Supper until we can once again gather in person. I do not think we can continue as if nothing is lost, or that we can do all the same things we could do if we were physically together.

Many of you will disagree with me, and even in our denomination there is difference of opinion among pastors and district leaders. And who can say with 100% confidence that he or she is right? I might not be right. For most church leaders, if not all, this is the first time we have had to really think about our theology surrounding communion.

And we all fall somewhere on a spectrum, ranging from “it’s only symbolic and the incidentals of it aren’t that important,” – that is, how we do it isn’t as important as the fact of doing it – to “the elements become the actual and literal flesh and blood of Jesus” and the how matters just as much as the what.

Where I’ve landed after reading books and talking to people and praying – not just in these last few months but also leading up to when we began celebrating it weekly – is that the Lord’s Supper is not just symbolic. And I’ve tried to emphasize the spiritual reality behind communion – that it’s more than just a memorial, but is in fact spiritual nourishment. We are spiritually partaking of Christ’s life given for our own when we take communion.

But I haven’t emphasized well the communal aspect of communion. That it’s not just bread and juice, but it’s a meal – and it’s in this meal at a shared table, just as Jesus was incarnate and physically present as He and His disciples ate – that the bread and juice become more than just material objects. That is, as we gather together Jesus is spiritually present with us at the table. And while we each personally encounter Christ in the taking of the bread and cup, we also as a community are drawn together as a community in Christ through the shared table. Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it “The fellowship of the Lord’s Supper is the highest[ii] fulfillment of Christian Fellowship.”[iii]

We cannot continue to treat Christianity as consumers – our way on our time – choosing which parts to do and which parts lose priority to work and school and kids, and which parts are convenient for us, and expect to grow in our faith. Christ deserves better than that, and expects better than that from us.

I don’t believe a pastor or elder needs to preside over the table. I don’t believe that the words of institution – reciting the words from 1 Cor. 11 over the elements – makes any meaningful difference. The difference happens when the gathered people of God partake of it together. As one theologian has said:

“At the table, God ministers to us in a way that reflects this plan of creation and new creation; we encounter and respond to God’s presence through our physical bodies – through actually taking and eating and drinking. But that encounter and response is not just about bread and juice or wine, which we might have at home. It is also sharing that bread and cup with God’s people, and about being drawn together as the community of God’s people – persons whose participation in the kingdom includes our physical bodies.”[iv]

 Fasting from communion will in itself act as a kind of remembrance of what Christ has done. As we long for the table – and I hope you do – and as we long for the time we can meet together once again, we will remember the meaning of the elements and of the shared meal.

This coming Sunday is Easter, and that makes it especially galling not to celebrate communion together. But during the service, we will still have a time of silent repentance and reflection, and assurance of God’s forgiveness. This practice is an appropriate preparation for communion, but isn’t actually part of communion itself.

As we long for Christ to return in glory and power, let us also long and pray for the time we can return together as a gather people of God, celebrating the life He gives us – and us together – through the bread and the cup, the body and the blood of Christ.

God bless you, and I’ll see you soon.

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 Resources for Further Reflection:

– Gordon Smith, A Holy Meal: The Lord’s Supper in the Life of the Church.

– James Armstrong (ed.), Understanding Four Views on the Lord’s Supper.

– David Fitch, Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines that Shape the Church for Mission.

– Andrew Murray, The Lord’s Table.

– Brad East, Assistant Professor of Theology at Abilene Christian University: https://mereorthodoxy.com/churches-livestream-public-worship/

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[i] Reverend Chris Smith, The Bridge Church, on a Facebook discussion thread.

[ii] “superlative” is the word he actually uses.

[iii] Life Together, p. 122.

[iv] Dr. James E. Pedlar, Associate Professor of Theology at Tyndale Seminary: https://jamespedlar.ca/2020/03/26/online-communion-why-i-dont-want-it/