Why I will not conduct virtual Communion

Here in the Tennessee Conference, our bishop, Bill McAlilly, on March 28 emailed the pastors of the conference an update on the continuing suspension of in-person Sunday worship. One thing he wrote was this:

Based on the best information I have been able to receive from multiple sources, I have determined that it will be in the best interest of our communities for worship services to be suspended through April 26.  Should it become necessary to continue that suspension after April 26, we will notify you.

And of course since this email we have learned that our nation’s medical Covid managers expect the severity of the epidemic to peak in mid-April. Hopefully, they say, we can transition out of distancing as May begins.

So much to our regret, we will not gather in person for worship until May 3 (we pray). That is, of course, a regular monthly Communion Sunday.

So what about Communion? 

Since the first Sunday of our suspension of sanctuary worship, March 15, we have been offering online, video worship. That is, I have video recorded litanies, prayers, readings, my message, and such. With Elizabeth Webb’s assistance, I have identified video music recordings to integrate into the video. These recordings are hosted on YouTube and are published on our worship blog every Sunday morning.

So we are conducting “virtual” worship. But what about Communion this coming Sunday, April 5? Can that be done “virtually?” If so, how, and what are the implications and justification? That is what I shall explore for the rest of this post.

In the same email as I mentioned above, the bishop specifically addressed virtual Communion this way:

After prayerful and careful consideration of the theological concerns with virtual communion, I offer the attached guidelines on virtual communion as a way for our pastors to faithfully exercise sacramental authority.

Here is what the guidelines say (boldface original):

After prayerful and careful consideration of the theological concerns with virtual communion, I offer the following guidelines as a way for our pastors to faithfully exercise sacramental authority.

• There needs to be a discipling component of the service so that the theological understanding of Holy Communion is deepened in the community of faith. 

• The virtual service must be liturgically sound. Do not sacrifice the liturgy for the sake expediency. The Great Thanksgiving is our standard.    

• Urge those receiving communion to maintain integrity with the elements chosen. Grape juice and bread or crackers would be preferred, but I trust your discretion in using what you have available that you feel is an acceptable substitution under the circumstances. 

With these considerations, a pastor may decide to offer Holy Communion virtually only until the ban of gathering in worship in our sanctuaries is lifted.

Please note that our bishop is permitting, not requiring virtual Communion. So I want to explain why, having carefully considered these guidelines, and having been in discussion with other UM ministers and laypersons via electronic media, I will decline to serve Communion electronically.

To be clear: This is a difficult time and a difficult issue. I have read and had conversations with other ministers who will conduct virtual Communion. There are serious, well-considered arguments made in support of doing so. And I firmly believe that Bishop McAlilly came to his position as prayerfully and thoughtfully as he says. I trust him and truly support how he is leading our Conference.

Yet, speaking for myself, I can only echo how Martin Luther responded to those who argued against him: "Here I stand, I can do no other." I hope no one will consider my decision to be one of defiance, but of equal devotion and concern of those who have disagreed with me in a very reasonable manner. I admit I might be wrong, as I hope others will admit it as well.

First:

Communion is a sustaining sacrament, not a saving sacrament. It is an instituted means of grace but is far from the only means of grace that God provides. Not celebrating Communion for one or two Communion Sundays in a row is, in my view, a fairly minor thing. Communion is not minor, let me be clear, but not receiving Communion until May is not going to cause some kind of spiritual damage to us that warrants the extraordinary measure of making up a new way to serve it. After all, how many of my readers never miss a Communion service because of vacations or (I say with trepidation) Sunday-morning sports?

Covid-19 is medically urgent and for many patients it is a medical emergency. But that does not create a sacramental urgency or emergency.

In the millennia of the Church, departure from what the apostles taught (mainly Paul) about Communion have been justified only in extremis, meaning when there is no other resort, including waiting. That is, the Church has allowed non-standard consecration and offering of Communion only when waiting for a regular service was literally impossible – and that meant when a parishioner was at the point of death and would not live long enough to attend a regular Communion service. In that case – but only in that case – a layperson could consecrate the elements and serve them, if a priest or pastor would not make it in time.

The UMC has never developed its own doctrine of in extremis, and in any event, that is not what we are facing now.

Second:

I believe that virtual Communion may seriously harm our congregational unity and the broader connectionalism of our Wesleyan tradition.

In present practice, no one needs to equip themselves with skills or things to receive the sacrament. They simply need to show up. And we have long (since about forever) agreed that we do extend the table to the home-bound or ill by taking them the elements that were consecrated in the Communion service in the presence of the worshiping congregation.

But with virtual communion, what we are really saying to our people is that they better get a computer or smart phone and know how to work them, and get internet service and register for Facebook or Zoom or YouTube or some other such service. We are requiring not merely their presence, but certain possessions and skills.

When we come in person to the Lord's table, we are all equal. When only some can participate electronically, to borrow Orwell's phrase in Animal Farm, "some are more equal than others."

Do we really want to "fence the table" like that? I cannot take a step that establishes a financial and skill-set prerequisite to receive Communion. I cannot see how God's grace is honored by requiring special transactions and abilities of the people in order to receive it.

Third:

Who will take part in virtual Communion? My fear is that participants will be defined by economic class, education, existing technical skills and equipment, and urban or suburban location. One pastor I know personally told me that his parish area is very rural, and a minority of members even have internet. The Tennessean has documented this issue. And I know that is true for some of the people of my two churches.

So in my view, virtual communion unavoidably excludes some people because they either cannot obtain the capability to connect or an inability to operate the technical means to participate even if they have internet. I have always thought of Communion as a shortening of common union, in which we are united first in our baptism and then in our assembling together to receive the bread and wine, shared in unity among us. I cannot with integrity minister in a way that unavoidably excludes some persons from the sacrament.

Fourth:

The way we consecrate and serve Communion is either valid or it is not. Since apostolic days everyone has agreed that the bread and wine are properly consecrated by a priest or pastor in person, not remotely.

One might argue that sure, in the third century or so there was no other way to do it. On the other hand, even when the plague was sweeping Europe, priests did not write out the consecration on paper and hand them out to hospitals or homes and tell the people, “If you have bread and wine and one of you is dying, this letter counts as consecration.”

So, does virtual Communion --

• have to be live-streamed, or could I just record it, and everyone watch the YouTube when they wish? If not, why not? After all, if the consecration need not be present with you in space, why would it have to be present with you in time?
• Or could I simply email everyone the liturgy and say that counts as virtual consecration? 
• Since we are doing this electronically, what difference does the electronic means make? Via computer, why would consecration even have to be spoken aloud? Isn’t one electronic means as good as another? 

Some pastors have referred to the Real presence of Christ in the bread and wine, a Greek philosophical concept that means (basically) that while the bread and wine do not transubstantiate into the flesh and blood of Christ (as the Roman Catholic Church says), nonetheless, Christ is "really," though not corporeally, present in the Communion elements. I personally reject that whole idea as well as transubstantiation but consider: in virtual Communion I am by definition not physically present with either the bread and wine or the congregation - so how am I present with them at all? 

There is only an electronic facsimile of the pastor's presence, which again brings me to my serious question: if I am going to consecrate the elements only by facsimile, but not actual, physical  presence with them, on what basis is there to say, for example, only video conference is permitted like Zoom, but not email? Or smart phone photos of The Great Thanksgiving from the Book of Worship, texted to everyone to use?

Does anyone have an answer other than "video is better facsimile than email"? Because I do not see how.

Fifth:

If virtual Communion is valid for the next six weeks or so, why does it suddenly become invalid on May 3 (or whenever we re-gather in person)?

In our Wesleyan-Methodist understanding of Communion, God is the actual actor in Communion (also in baptism). That is, in every service in which I consecrate the elements and you receive and partake them, it is God who makes the bread and wine into the body of Christ for us and who gives us grace in the celebration.

So, if the consecration and efficacy of the sacrament are fundamentally acts of God, then why will God's power suddenly vanish from it once we return to the sanctuary? If God will be at work in virtual Communion now, by what authority do we claim virtual Communion will not include God later? Isn’t that up to God?

The consecration and administration of the sacrament is either valid – in accordance with apostolic teaching – or it is not. If virtual Communion is valid this coming Sunday, then it will be valid until the Second Coming. The circumstances of the present day do not determine the validity of celebrating the sacrament. The celebration is either inherently valid or inherently invalid. I am grateful that our bishop recognizes this by pointing out, “The virtual service must be liturgically sound.” But I have serious reservations that even the usual liturgy confers overall validity on virtual Communion for the reasons I have explained.

If virtual Communion becomes our practice, I think we will be crossing a bridge that will be burned behind us. We must not turn Communion into something oriented on temporary expediency rather than the holy mystery we have always understood it to be. The sacraments must remain oriented on God, not ourselves.

After all, what's next, virtual baptism? Why not?

We do not offer Communion to make ourselves feel better or get an “Ah!” moment, but to receive grace from God by being in common union with one another in our baptism and the sharing of one bread and one cup.

I hope that for Palm Sunday we can gather safely for worship in person (we are working on drive-in worship) and serve Communion both non-virtually and safely. But this essay is long enough, so I will cover that in another post.

Additional reading:

“Communion chaos in the UMC,” by Justus H. Hunter, assistant professor of church history at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2020/03/27/communion-in-chaos-in-the-umc/

“Online Communion Calmly Considered,” by Drew McIntyre
http://wesleyanway.org/?p=3254

Ryan Danker from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. writes for the Baltimore-Washington Conference about why patience, and leaning into the other means of grace, are better options for the people called Methodists in this unusual season,
https://www.bwcumc.org/news-and-views/grace-upon-grace-united-methodism-holy-communion-social-isolation/