Learning from Lockdown: rethinking eucharistic worship
By Michael Graham, CEN:
For much of Christian history, eucharistic worship has been bounded by concepts of leader and location. Jesus – as an anointed leader – gathered people together in a specific location – an upper room – to impart to them food which drew them to feed on higher food: his body broken for them, his blood shed for them. In similar vein, ever since Christianity became formally instituted in the 4th Century, an anointed leader – an episcopally ordained representative of Jesus – has gathered people together in a specific location – an episcopally consecrated building – in order to preside in the distribution of bread and wine.
Since the Reformation and earlier, there have, of course, been departures from this in non-episcopal traditions, but even in house churches the concepts of anointed leader and location prevail. Today, however, we find ourselves inhabiting not just a physical world, but a virtual one, in which location – and, to a certain extent, leader – are conceived of more broadly. Moreover, a coronavirus pandemic is upon us and is shaking all our institutions. Had the pandemic hit us as little as a decade ago, the mass virtual communication on which we now depend would not have been reliably in place. So what is God saying to his human creation, and to his Church, through the current coincidence of global pandemic and global virtual communication?
[…] In an age of equality, when our physical and virtual worlds are coming together, can mere observation of the Eucharist be improved upon for virtual worshipers? Can we be more welcoming to them, rather than locking them outside our walls whilst encouraging them to peer through the windows?
The answer to the above question is yes! Firstly, though, we need to expand our theology in relation to the worship location (the gathering): its boundaries need to stretch beyond our walls, so as to embrace our physical and virtual congregations as one. Secondly, we need to expand our theology in relation to the scope and reach of eucharistic prayer, so that the prayer said by the priest in a livestream broadcast from church (or indeed from home) is seen to be effectual – via the internet – in consecrating bread and wine in the virtual location, just as in the physical location. For God, whose reach is infinite, I suggest this would be no problem.
In the prayer of consecration, suitable liturgical wording would be needed to invoke God’s blessing on ‘this bread and wine and that consumed in our wider gathering.’ Then, in the virtual location of the home or elsewhere, as people share bread and wine, they would not only be benefiting from Cranmer’s full sensory experience, but participating on an equal footing with the physical congregation.
See also:
Holy Communion – on line by David Holloway, Jesmond Parish Church Newsletter
Can Holy Communion be celebrated remotely at home? Two views (the ACNA Bishops say ‘no’; Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies says ‘yes’.)
The Eucharistic Feast: participation, representation and sacramental integrity in the time of social distancing, by Charlie Bell, anglicanism.org (also says ‘no’).
Can Holy Communion be celebrated remotely at home? The Gospel Coalition presents different views from two evangelicals
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