“So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the LORD for seven days. The first day is a day of sabbath rest; the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees – from palms, willows, and other leafy trees – and rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.”
- Leviticus 23:39-40
It seems an odd thing, to be talking about celebrations when we’re in the midst of isolation and pandemic. Yet as Christians around the world approach Holy Week, we’re confronted with exactly that question – how can we celebrate? Should we still celebrate?
In normal times we rely on our traditions and the familiar rhythms of worship to guide us through this holiest stretch of the Christian calendar. We look forward to receiving our palm leaves from the hands of the eagerly helpful children of the congregation on Palm Sunday. We gather in remembrance and reflection on Maundy Thursday. We pray in vigil through Good Friday. And we sing out in joyful “Alleluia’s!” on Easter morning.
Our worship centers around the gathering, yet it is precisely the gathering that our current reality prohibits.
Most immediately the question we have coming in to Holy Week is how we approach the Lord’s Supper? We celebrate communion on the first Sunday of the month, which happens to be Palm Sunday this year. And the Lord’s Supper is also the centerpiece of the Maundy Thursday worship. So how do we observe the sacrament when we cannot gather to share it?
Earlier this week the Reformed Church Center of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary held an online seminar with ideas on how to tackle that very question. Over 100 Reformed pastors from across the United States, Canada, and Japan signed in for that discussion, and we heard from four different speakers from across the Reformed theological spectrum with ideas on how to approach the sacrament.
Generally there are three different approaches that churches are taking. In the first, the pastor celebrates communion in his/her own home, church, or office, while the congregation simply observes. In this setting, the elements are consecrated and consumed only by the pastor and their household.
A second option is for the pastor to celebrate communion as above, while inviting the congregation to participate as best they can with whatever materials are available to them. If they don’t have wine or grape juice in the house, they might substitute apple juice or water. If there’s no bread, then a piece of cracker or cereal. This opens up the sacrament to the congregation (at least, those with access to the videofeed), but loses the shared sense of communion.
The third option is to fast from the Lord’s Supper altogether during this time. Many pastors are legitimately concerned that any sort of virtual access to the Table necessarily excludes people who do not have reliable internet access, and that it would be better to forego communion until the entire body of the church can celebrate it together.
There is no perfect theological or practical answer to how we approach communion or celebration during this time. Simply put, there is no liturgy or church order that anticipates the body of the church not being physically together as the body. Each approach to the Lord’s Supper offers sound theological reasoning, but also tremendous flaws.
For our congregation’s purposes, I would like us to observe the sacrament as best we can, through the second option. Because I believe it is not so much the bread and the wine that are consecrated in communion, as the people who receive them. When we “gather” for Sunday morning worship (and this week, I hope to have the online liturgy available by Saturday evening), I’d encourage you to have elements for the Lord’s Supper, as closely as you can approximate them with whatever is on hand, available as we worship.
We might not quite be able to gather grapes from many hills into one cup, or grains from many fields into one loaf, but we can celebrate with the fruits and waters of many hills, and the grains of many fields, gathered not into one cup or one loaf, but into one body of Christ’s church.
In many ways this season may be reminiscent of the worship of early Christians. We will not have brass plates and silver chalices to share at the Table. We may not be eating the same bread and drinking the same cup. But we will make humble and reverent worship together. We will be making the best worship we can with the tools we have available. And it will be imperfect. It might not always be pretty. But we will offer our worship humbly and honestly, in sincere devotion to our God.
I hope each of you will be able to “gather” in your own places and join in our celebrations as best you can. May God bless our devotions and our worship, and may all of his faithful in our church and all churches be blessed during this time.
- Leviticus 23:39-40
It seems an odd thing, to be talking about celebrations when we’re in the midst of isolation and pandemic. Yet as Christians around the world approach Holy Week, we’re confronted with exactly that question – how can we celebrate? Should we still celebrate?
In normal times we rely on our traditions and the familiar rhythms of worship to guide us through this holiest stretch of the Christian calendar. We look forward to receiving our palm leaves from the hands of the eagerly helpful children of the congregation on Palm Sunday. We gather in remembrance and reflection on Maundy Thursday. We pray in vigil through Good Friday. And we sing out in joyful “Alleluia’s!” on Easter morning.
Our worship centers around the gathering, yet it is precisely the gathering that our current reality prohibits.
Most immediately the question we have coming in to Holy Week is how we approach the Lord’s Supper? We celebrate communion on the first Sunday of the month, which happens to be Palm Sunday this year. And the Lord’s Supper is also the centerpiece of the Maundy Thursday worship. So how do we observe the sacrament when we cannot gather to share it?
Earlier this week the Reformed Church Center of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary held an online seminar with ideas on how to tackle that very question. Over 100 Reformed pastors from across the United States, Canada, and Japan signed in for that discussion, and we heard from four different speakers from across the Reformed theological spectrum with ideas on how to approach the sacrament.
Generally there are three different approaches that churches are taking. In the first, the pastor celebrates communion in his/her own home, church, or office, while the congregation simply observes. In this setting, the elements are consecrated and consumed only by the pastor and their household.
A second option is for the pastor to celebrate communion as above, while inviting the congregation to participate as best they can with whatever materials are available to them. If they don’t have wine or grape juice in the house, they might substitute apple juice or water. If there’s no bread, then a piece of cracker or cereal. This opens up the sacrament to the congregation (at least, those with access to the videofeed), but loses the shared sense of communion.
The third option is to fast from the Lord’s Supper altogether during this time. Many pastors are legitimately concerned that any sort of virtual access to the Table necessarily excludes people who do not have reliable internet access, and that it would be better to forego communion until the entire body of the church can celebrate it together.
There is no perfect theological or practical answer to how we approach communion or celebration during this time. Simply put, there is no liturgy or church order that anticipates the body of the church not being physically together as the body. Each approach to the Lord’s Supper offers sound theological reasoning, but also tremendous flaws.
For our congregation’s purposes, I would like us to observe the sacrament as best we can, through the second option. Because I believe it is not so much the bread and the wine that are consecrated in communion, as the people who receive them. When we “gather” for Sunday morning worship (and this week, I hope to have the online liturgy available by Saturday evening), I’d encourage you to have elements for the Lord’s Supper, as closely as you can approximate them with whatever is on hand, available as we worship.
We might not quite be able to gather grapes from many hills into one cup, or grains from many fields into one loaf, but we can celebrate with the fruits and waters of many hills, and the grains of many fields, gathered not into one cup or one loaf, but into one body of Christ’s church.
In many ways this season may be reminiscent of the worship of early Christians. We will not have brass plates and silver chalices to share at the Table. We may not be eating the same bread and drinking the same cup. But we will make humble and reverent worship together. We will be making the best worship we can with the tools we have available. And it will be imperfect. It might not always be pretty. But we will offer our worship humbly and honestly, in sincere devotion to our God.
I hope each of you will be able to “gather” in your own places and join in our celebrations as best you can. May God bless our devotions and our worship, and may all of his faithful in our church and all churches be blessed during this time.