Stay-at-home orders have left many Christians without regular communion. But what if we can no longer share communion safely?

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I don’t come to this question cynically.

Since the pandemic began, I’ve read conflicting arguments about the nature of communion. These arguments are simultaneously and uniquely compelling.

It is no surprise that these arguments seem to manifest themselves in our world. The nature of our sacrament is indelibly tied to our material form.

Therefore, the question of whether to gather in the midst of pandemic is also material.

selfish grace

Watching churches “open” and “close” again is causing a kind of triggered heartbreak. Like the revisiting of wounds upon our hearts. Over and over.

At its root, that desire to be together is genuine. We want that community we long for and to which we have committed our lives.

Fulfilling that desire is also reckless.

And like many public arguments, both of these characteristics remain present.

Our desire to commune with other people and with God is not just functional. It reflects the incarnational core of our theology. We desire to experience and practice the love of God. And yet, at this moment, it is also a selfish act.

It is a thing we do with and for others. And yet we desire it for ourselves and risk spreading a deadly virus to other people.

Since March, several churches publicly defied stay-at-home orders. And others eagerly returned to business as usual. Many with safety measures. But the evidence is showing even these precautions are not enough. This is reckless, even if well-intentioned.

The idea of gathering during the COVID-19 pandemic is selfish. Not just for personal desire, but because of the public harm. The virus is spread through public encounters. So the act of gathering becomes individualistic. The opposite of communing.

It becomes my (community’s) will to jeopardize public health.

And this sense of defying the public good is fundamentally anti-social. Even when done in full view. It is less rebellious as it is wantonly reckless.

Perhaps they imagine themselves martyrs or defenders of Christ. But they remind me of something else. A child who steals a book of matches and lights them in his room. In a tenement building full of the elderly and disabled.

When we can’t gather.

My bishop discouraged us from practicing communion during the pandemic. As I read her guidance, it feels like she is saying I can’t prevent you from doing this thing. I hope you don’t. But if you do, please do it safely.

At this moment, public communion seems less like an act of incarnational abundance and more like an expression of impudent pride. Hubris. A desire for satisfaction and control. Something closer to narcissism.

The question of gathering during the pandemic is extraordinarily material. Far less the incarnating Spirit of hope. It strikes me as the desperate desire for mandating normal be imposed onto reality.

What if, instead of rejecting reality, we embraced it more fully?

Gone is the idea this pandemic would last a handful of weeks. The pandemic already exceeds that estimate. And honestly, this was never likely.

We need to adjust our expectations upward. A year’s separation from the Eucharist is a minimal possibility.

And with that, the question surfaces.

What if we can never commune again?

The relationship of body to bread, of contact to eating, the substance of communion is revealing new things now.

The materialist character of our theology is the product of two thousand years of gathering with intention. Eating bread. Drinking wine. Communing in a community.

And it is that theology that is colliding with an equal materialist concern for our very ability to commune in community. Not recklessly, but safely. To administer communion in a world in which public eating is no longer safe.

Let us think past the current pandemic—one which is both exceptional in its capacity for impacting us and in revealing our susceptibility to being so impacted. This knowledge reveals that the concern extends beyond a single global pandemic. Not just this one but the next one and the one after that.

What if this becomes normal?

What if the danger of traditional communion becomes untenable? At least as a regular practice. Or as a public practice. What if this becomes the norm? Not just because we are left here for today, but because this is the way things will be? Sometimes? All the time?

What comes of a materialist theology of an incarnate Eucharist, when there is no potential for us to ever safely gather again in this way?

I don’t mean we don’t come to church. But social distancing may become the practice for a whole generation. What if we keep 6 feet of distance from each other? And no sharing of food, no common cup? What becomes of the Eucharist if we can’t share it this way in our lifetimes?

Our theological conviction is built around the common cup being safe.

Many try to make the current practice safer. Sanitary separation and single-use innovations are practical solutions. Yet these sidestep the theological problem.

Most arguments assume a return to normal and material safety. But what if we cannot safely gather? If we cannot share across hereditary boundaries, what will happen to the sacrament?

We need to be open to the possibility that communion will have to change.

Rethinking Communion

Rethinking the Eucharist at the moment invites us into a series of questions rather than a sequence of answers.

• What if communion as we know it had to end?
• What changes in practice? And in theology?
• And what if it becomes scarce, rather than abundant?
• Would we accept this evolution?
• How will theology lead to new practices, not just the other way around?
• Can we ourselves acknowledge the necessary practice even if it goes against our current norms?
• What would we do to allow the Eucharist to continue?
• Are we willing to do the work of re-imagining? Precisely because the terrain has changed and not in spite of it?
• What will this new landscape reveal about us? About what we already do?

These questions about communion have followed me for years. In part because I find so many arguments compelling.

And yet, I’m increasingly inspired by things we’d rather ignore. Or avoid. Questions that have unsatisfying answers. Convictions which seem tied to the generosity of grace rather than the firmness of church canons.

And I return to the sacraments. I return to what they are: signs of grace.

My heart changes when I notice the incarnate presence in the everyday. When I notice those places of incarnational grace. I find them sacramental.

I’m left with new visions for what communion could become. It might look a bit closer to dinner with the family. A little bit closer to sharing cheese sticks or an offering of donuts. Perhaps even the occasional visit to the grandparents’ for ice cream cones.

A late-night snack when they can’t sleep,
with soft assurance,
and the cuddles, tucking in, and the kiss goodnight.

All the places I pray for God’s presence and encounter God’s grace right now.