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Making the Case for Online Eucharist

.by The Rev. Thomas L. Weitzel
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

10 July 2020
 

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EUCHARIST

The Augsburg Confession states that “the sacraments were instituted not only to be signs by which people might be identified outwardly as Christians, but that they are signs and testimonies of God’s will toward us for the purpose of awakening and strengthening our faith. For this reason they require faith, and they are rightly used when they are received in faith and for the purpose of strengthening faith.” [“The Use of the Sacraments,” XIII]

This is surely the reason that many churches, having been closed during the pandemic for many months, are longing to find a way back to their usual Eucharistic practice. And while online worship has provided good opportunities to continue to feed faith through God’s Word and keep the faithful together, the centrality of the Eucharistic in the life of most Lutherans has been sorely missed.


WHAT MAKES FOR A SACRAMENT?

When it comes to the sacrament of Holy Communion, the issue of what makes for a sacrament and what does not in the Lutheran Church is addressed succinctly in the Formula of Concord, as follows (emphasis added):

“⁸³But this blessing or recitation of Christ’s words of institution by itself, if the entire action of the Lord’s Supper as Christ ordained it is not observed (if, for instance, the blessed bread is not distributed, received, and eaten but is locked up, offered up, or carried about), does not make a sacrament. ⁸⁴But the command of Christ, “Do this,” which comprehends the whole action or administration of this sacrament (namely, that in a Christian assembly we take bread and wine, consecrate it, distribute it, receive it, eat and drink it, and therewith proclaim the Lord’s death), must be kept integrally and inviolately, just as St. Paul sets the whole action of the breaking of bread, or of the distribution and reception, before our eyes in 1 Cor. 10:16.” [Tappert, T. G. (2000, c1959). The Book of Concord : The confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (The Formula of Concord: 2, VII, 83-85). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.]

From this and from other Lutheran Documents as noted below, we can derive the following list of necessary things that make for a sacrament:

1. The assembly of God’s people (Augsburg Confession VII)
2. An ordained presider (Augsburg Confession, XIV “Order in the Church”)
3. The Word of God
a. Proclaimed (Augsburg Confession VII)
b. Spoken in the Words of Institution (Large Catechism V:10-14)
4. Earthly elements of bread and wine (Augsburg Confession X)
5. Reception of those elements by God’s people in assembly (Augsburg Conf. X, XXII)


WORSHIPING COMMUNITY ONLINE

On June 18, 2020, a small group of bishops of Region 8 of the ELCA and theologians from United Lutheran Seminary published a series of statements and questions “On Communion and Worship Amidst Covid-19,” following several meetings and discussions on this topic. In the section “Key Doctrines and Shared Affirmations,” they stated:

“6. Online community is real community that operates in a different form. Both types of community require intentionality.
“7. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, humans across time and space, including technologically-mediated spaces, are held together as the one body of Christ. Holy Communion is an essential, necessary sign of this union, and a means to grow that union.”

These statements bear witness to what individual churches and pastors have themselves discovered through online worship – namely, that congregations have indeed been held together by the Holy Spirit through their worship, whether that worship has been prerecorded and viewed later by individual congregants or is presented “live” at a particular time on the Lord’s day through social media, a website or video-conferencing platform.


ONLINE COMMUNITY & SACRAMENTAL BASICS

While “online community” may indeed be “real community,” it does not necessarily follow that all technologically-mediated worship can be construed as an assembly of God’s people that is a necessary component for the celebration of the Eucharist as described in Lutheran theology. Pre-recorded and individually viewed worship, while certainly helping to create community, would seem by definition to be an individual viewer’s activity and not that of a gathered assembly. And although an ordained pastor may be leading that worship in the video, that pastor is not “present” as presider for an assembly as such, which again is a necessary component for a Eucharist in the Lutheran Church.

For an assembly to occur, there would need to be a common time for gathering, a common place for gathering, and a common activity in that gathering that expresses the unity and faith of those gathered, as occurs for in-church worship. For a Eucharistic assembly to occur, an ordained pastor would need to preside on those scheduled occasions.

Given that, a case can be made that “live” forms of worship – live streaming via social media or through a church website or gatherings in a video-conference platform – could meet all the criteria for assembly with a presiding pastor that is required for a Eucharist. Specifically, it happens at a given gathering time when all in the community know to be “present” online and may in fact be able to engage with one another prior to and after worship just as they would at church if a video-conferencing platform is used. Similarly, while live-stream worship may only have one-way communication during worship itself, many churches follow these specific worship times with “watch groups” on social media that include group discussion of the lessons and preaching for the day in much the same way a gathering might occur following worship at church.

In order to have a Eucharist in a “live” form online, those in the gathering assembly would need to bring their own morsel of bread and wine. While that may seem to deny the sense of “one bread” and “one cup” as Paul refers to it in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, it is certainly noteworthy that many Eucharistic writers and commentators have reported that early Christians brought their own bread to worship gatherings (Christine W. Stugard, Living Bread, p.5, Forward Mvt, 1983; Christopher L Webber, A User’s Guide to the Holy Eucharist Rites I & II, p.26, Moorhouse Pub., 1997). For the sake of good order and maintaining as close a link to in-church Lutheran Eucharistic practice as possible, it would be important to emphasis that only bread and wine are the appropriate elements to bring to the Eucharist, allowing for whatever non-wheat or non-alcoholic substitutions are normal for individual congregations (cf. Use of the Means of Grace, “Bread and Wine Are Used,” p.48, ELCA 1997).

Additionally, it would be important for each communicant attending the “live” service to “present” their bread and wine as the presiding pastor presents the bread and wine during the reciting of the Words of Institution in the Eucharistic Prayer prior to communion reception itself.

Thus it would seem to be possible for an online worshiping community meeting in “live” situations to celebrate Holy Communion on a regular basis while fulfilling the necessary criteria of Lutheran theology and practice. This would not be “virtual communion” nor “spiritual communion,” as these terms have come to the fore. Rather it would be an actual communion for all who are part of the assembly.


QUESTIONS REMAINING

That being said, there remain questions regarding pre-recorded and individually-viewed worship. Particularly, could the forming of community through pre-recorded worship, which clearly seems to be “real community” as stated above, be construed to be another form of assembly, especially in an extraordinary time such as a pandemic when in-church assembly is not possible? Although individually viewed, does sequential viewing of the same worship video by the members of one particular congregation constitute assembly in some form?

Similarly, if a “live” online Eucharist is recorded for later viewing by those who could not attend the appointed hour, then should the communion section be included or deleted from that recording, since later viewing would not include a pastor “present” for communion, nor an assembly to be a part of as such?

Or could later viewing of a pre-recorded Eucharist constitute something like communion for the home-bound, even if the pastor is not “present”? It is certainly noteworthy that the earliest record of Eucharists indicate that afterward it was taken to those who could not be present, such as the sick, and taken not by the presider, but by others (Justin Martyr, Apology LXVII, Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 14-17).