Communion in Quarantine
What do we do about communion while in quarantine? Our church takes communion once a month, on the first Sunday of the month, and it is now upon us. Eventually every church is going to come to this moment. So what are the options before us? I can see at least three different options. As we look at each one, we will think about what the Bible says about communion and how it does or does not fit in each of the options.
Option #1 - Take Communion as a Family in Our Own Home
I anticipate this to be a very common, if not the most common, option people will take. If families are already attempting to have a worship time in their house, then why not do communion as well? This same reasoning applies to baptism as well, but that will have to be addressed another day. The problem with this option stems from a weak understanding of ecclesiology; the doctrine of the church. First, church is not happening in the family worship time. I covered this when I addressed the increase of livestreaming services. We have to remind ourselves that this is not church in the living room. Church is happening when there is preaching, teaching, shepherding and administering of the ordinances by the elders; and there is speaking, exhorting, praying, spurring, confessing, comforting, and encouraging by all the members. If these things are not all happening to some degree, then church is not happening. Yes, you are worshipping in your living room. And yes, some of these are happening in a livestream. But no, you are not experiencing the gathered church.
Of all those activities mentioned, there is one that stands out as an activity focused upon the whole body: the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. The fullest teaching we have about the Lord’s Supper is found in 1 Corinthians 11. Amazingly, the whole context of the teaching on the Lord’s Supper is centered on the idea of a corporate event. Additionally, the problems the church was having with the Lord’s Supper were stemming from the fact that they weren’t thinking about the whole body. In 1 Corinthians 11, in five separate verses no less, Paul speaks of the Lord’s Supper as an event that happens when you come together.
Vs. 17 But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse.
Vs. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it.
Vs. 20 Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper,
Vs. Vs. 33 So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
Vs. 34 If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you will not come together for judgment. The remaining matters I will arrange when I come.
Communion is not just a vertical experience of communing with Christ as we remember all he accomplished for us. Communion is also a horizontal experience of communing with Christ together, remembering together as those who have been joined into one new man in the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). This is why we require membership in a local church before taking communion. The universal body of Christ is expressed in local churches, and local churches are marked off from the world by having a membership. Doing communion alone or with your family doesn’t fit with the gathered communion the saints are to share together.
Option #2 – Take Communion Virtually in a Livestream
This is the option that will undoubtedly to be tried by many churches during this pandemic. The expected argument for this is that the church is gathered, kind of. While not in a physical space together, they are joining together virtually. Since they are watching live via livestream, then the elder can walk them through taking communion wherever they are.
I still don’t recommend this. The disembodied nature of the whole thing, and the fraction of real church ministry it is trying to prop up, remains problematic. Another problem is the nature of accountability. Who is the elder actually leading into the taking of communion? As we have stated, it should be members of that church or another gospel preaching church. Now, even if the elder says during the livestream that communion is only for members of a gospel teaching church, there still might be non-members who take communion in their home. That is a problem. But isn’t that a problem that can happen even if that non-member were physically at the church? Yes it is. When communion is passed around, some non-members may still take it. The difference is accountability. If a non-member takes communion during a livestream, no one ever knows. If a non-member takes it while at church, the leaders would notice and they could talk with them afterward. This is the kind of thing that happens when you tout livestream ministry as good enough.
Option #3 – Don’t Take Communion and Wait with Increased Longing
Thankfully, our salvation does not depend upon taking communion. When we are providentially hindered from taking it, and from physically being in the presence of God’s people, we do not fret. We ache and long and pray, but we don’t lose heart. What we have in Christ, we have by grace alone through faith alone. Yet, just as communion is a vivid physical reminder of our participation in the benefits of Christ, perhaps its absence can also be a vivid physical reminder of the absence of our blessed fellowship with God’s people. While we are never separated from Christ, we can be separated from those channels of grace that help us see and know Christ more deeply. That should grieve us. That should make us recognize that we cannot substitute them for other things. While we don’t lose heart, we do ache in heart.
Let us pray for endurance as we wait to gather again, remembering that we ultimately wait for our final gathering when we will all eat and drink with Christ at the marriage supper of the Lamb.
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