So on Sunday afternoons, following the Sunday morning services that we had communion, the deacons of the church fanned out across our little town and brought a communion kit with bread and grape juice to those people so they could also partake.
The deacons spent a few minutes talking with them, read scripture and prayed, reminded them of the church’s love and concern for them, and then shared the bread and the juice with them. It was beautiful and so much the epitome of the church and the sacrament.
And theologically, what could possibly be the problem? They were members/attenders of the church, unable to physically attend and we, as the church, went to them on the days we celebrated communion to include them in the spirit of community and joint celebration of the sacrament.
Fast forward.
You’re celebrating communion as a church in the 2020s, and you have people unable to attend in person who are joining you online. They may be in a hospital, in a nursing home, a shut-in, traveling on business in a hotel room, on vacation and watching as a family, or living in a place where they have no church home and the online service has been their lifeline—becoming the only church home they are able to have.
What do you do?
Could you use the same theological and ecclesiastical reasoning that was applied by my former church?
What if an online campus pastor were to say, “For those of you joining us online who cannot be with us physically, go get a bit of bread and some juice or wine, and when we partake as a church, join us as part of that community.”
Why is that different from deacons taking it to them?
Today it’s just the internet “taking” it to them and they self-serve the elements. It’s still done in full honor of the sacrament, under the leadership of pastors, under the authority of the church and in the spirit of community.
So are there limits to online participation in such things as the sacraments? I would argue that there are. Take, for example, baptism. Do we say, “For those of you watching online, feel free to fill your bathtub and baptize yourself as we perform the sacrament of baptism as part of this service”?
