Online Communion?

This one is really just by way of clearing my head and getting my own thoughts straight.  There are a good few articles out there at the moment addressing the question of whether we can celebrate Holy Communion 'together', and if so how we ought to do it, when the present crisis prevents us from physically gathering (for example, this from an Anglican perspective, and a pair of articles with different conclusions from TGC).  I can completely understand the caution around attempting this - novelty in liturgy, like novelty in theology, is always dangerous even when warranted and essential.  But I think I'm in favour of celebrating the Supper online, and this is my attempt to clarify (to myself primarily, and secondarily to anyone else interested) why that is.

To qualify this initially, I should describe our church situation and some presuppositions.  Our church is small, which means that for us meeting online means a Zoom meeting, in which we can all see each other and (at points when we don't have everyone except the preacher muted, hear each other).  We're not talking a livestream or anything like that.  Nor is anything pre-recorded (although I do record the sermon audio during the meeting for posterity!) - it feels as much like being together as is possible when we can't be together.

My theological presupposition around the Supper is that it is intended to be a community meal, albeit a very small one, taken together in remembrance of Christ; and that as it is taken together in faith, the Holy Spirit communicates the spiritual benefits of Christ's body and blood to the church and its individual members.  This understanding rules out entirely the idea that a minister could hold a Communion service apart from a congregation; there is no value in the liturgical act in and of itself without the collective meal.  So a livestream from an empty church of a clergyman reading the words of institution (or some more developed liturgical form) and eating and drinking is not Holy Communion in my reckoning, whatever else it may be.

What is essential, then, to a celebration of the Lord's Supper?  I take it the following elements:

1. The remembrance of the Lord's death.  In a normal meeting for corporate worship, where the gospel has (hopefully!) already been rehearsed in the liturgy and preached in the sermon, this might mean nothing more than the reading of the words of institution, to link the act of eating and drinking in to the gospel story.  In another context it might require something more extensive to ensure that what is done is understood, and is not a mere ritual.
2. Bread and wine being consumed together.  The elements are not there just to be looked at; the eating is an essential part of Communion.  It symbolises the gospel truth that Christ does not stand apart from us, but promises to dwell in us, to unite us to himself and thus communicate to us all the benefits of his death, resurrection, and ascension.  So there must be eating and drinking.
3. Recognition of the body of Christ.  The critique that the Apostle makes of the celebration of the Supper in Corinth is that it is not truly corporate, just everyone doing their own thing.  In particular, this has the effect that the rich feast whilst the poor go without; it is anti-gospel.  There is a necessary corporate element to the Supper, because there is a necessary corporate aspect to the gospel.  To take Communion as if it were merely about me and my spiritual state, and not about the church, is a denial of Christ's work.

Behind these three things, there are two essentials which are impossible to capture liturgically, although they may be alluded to - specifically:

1. Faith on the part of those who eat and drink.  Without faith, the celebration is of no benefit to the individual.  Just as a sermon heard without faith will not benefit the hearer, so a sacrament partaken without faith will be of no benefit.  (Albeit God in his mercy may use the sacrament to awaken and elicit faith).
2. The work of the Holy Spirit.  Only the Spirit can really communicate the benefits of Christ's victory to us, his people.  The Spirit unites us to Jesus (and also therefore to one another), doing really and spiritually what is done symbolically by the act of eating and drinking,.  The Spirit is not bound to the sacrament - but he is promised to those who look to Christ in faith.

So what does all that mean for online Communion?

Firstly, it must mean that any online celebration that did not involve the participants actually eating and drinking would not be Communion.  So we would all need to get our own bread and wine.  Can it be a shared meal, when we're not taking from the one loaf and cup?  I think so.  I presume we would all recognise that sometimes more than one loaf would be used in Communion - for example, in a very large church.  This does not impair the shared nature of the meal.  For the Apostle Paul, every Communion meal is "this bread" - a participation in the 'one loaf' which is Christ.  I see no reason why the bread which each person brings to the online gathering and eats in the context of the memorial of the Lord cannot be 'this bread'.

Second, I'd be anxious about taking Communion online if people weren't able to experience the body of Christ - that is, the church community.  Zoom is great for us in terms of creating a genuine togetherness even in our separation.  I wouldn't do online Communion through a livestream or any other setup where I couldn't see the others eating just as they could see me.

Third, the sheer physicality of Communion speaks to the importance of physical presence with one another.  Therefore online Communion could only ever be a stop-gap measure, which would be grounded in real physical celebration together in the past, and taken in anticipation of real physical celebration together in the future.  (I would reserve Communion and take it to the sick with a similar justification).  The Communion meal is always rooted in past celebration ("on the night he was betrayed") and always looks forward to future celebration (when we eat in the kingdom of God), so this weirdly strained version of Communion emphasises that.  All of which is to say, online Communion can never be normative.

Fourth, we need to remember that there is always another location involved in a Communion celebration - namely, heaven.  Lift up your hearts!  As Calvin emphasised (and there is a great essay on this in Sinclair Ferguson's book on pastoring, which I happen to be reading at the moment), the reality of the Supper is grounded in the ascended humanity of Christ.  We are to be lifted up faith to receive him in the Supper by the Spirit.  I would add that our unity as a body is also to be found in heaven; our little congregation on earth is just a foretaste of the great heavenly community still to be revealed.  Perhaps our separated Communion can bring out that emphasis clearly.

Given the positive command to celebrate the Supper, and given that we now have the technology to make something like an online Communion possible, I think we can do it.  I plan to do it on Maundy Thursday.  So if you think this is desperately wrong, please let me know ASAP!

A study in legalistic righteousness

By 'legalistic righteousness' I mean the attempt to establish a righteous status by keeping the rules.  The classic Biblical example is of course the New Testament perspective on first century Jews: they pursued the law of God as if it depended on works, rather than by faith.  But there are secular examples of legalistic righteousness as well; any attempt to secure 'righteousness' - right-ness - in the sight of others or of oneself by maintaining a standard of behaviour falls into the category.

The last week has provided a case study in legalistic righteousness.  Since HMG introduced stringent regulations restricting movement and interaction, many people (including, alas, many police forces) seem to have reacted with a classic case of legalism.  There are three particular traits I've observed which I think are characteristic:

1. Legalistic righteousness delights in policing other people's compliance.  Whether it's posting angry notes on the windscreens of cars which are suspected of carrying people on unnecessary trips, or calling the police to report your neighbour going for a second walk of the day, checking up on what others are doing is the first sign of legalistic righteousness.  The comparison game allows us to say we're doing okay by the rules, because we're doing better than the guy across the street.  I've seen posts by people excusing their minor infractions by reference to other people's major ones.  Legalism has to look down on others, and so it has to keep an eye on others to find their faults.

2. Legalistic righteousness consistently goes beyond what is written.  How long can your one daily exercise trip be?  People (and, once again, over-zealous police forces) have been keen to enforce a one hour limit, despite this not appearing at all in the legislation.  Fencing the regulations around with more regulations is a classic move of legalism, which delights to create additional layers of rules - both so that I can establish more righteousness, and so that I can find more ways to find fault with others (see above).

3. Legalistic righteousness uses shame as a weapon.  Why not take photographs of those people you see breaking the rules and post them online?  Why not Tweet out drone footage of people walking where you feel they shouldn't be walking (as the police, once again, have been doing)?  Shame is the classic weapon of the legalist, who aims to keep people in line out of fear that their unrighteousness will be exposed.  Those caught up in a legalistic system, which seems to be most of us, are typically afflicted with our own shame - and we like to bring others into the same net.

The legalism which we see around us at this difficult moment for society seems to me to shed a great deal of light on our legalistic approach to God.  We want to be able to stand before God on the basis of our own righteousness, established by our own efforts, our own law-keeping.  Under it all is a vision of law as a barrier against danger, rather than law as a blueprint for a beautiful and loving life.

Once again, trying times have exposed what lies in our hearts.  And it ain't pretty.

Just about managing

I see lots of posts flying around on various social media platforms about how I ought to use this funny old time.  Since lots of normal things have stopped, why don't I brush up on my Greek, or take the time to read that novel I've always meant to read, or... whatever?  Since we're in an enforced Sabbath (so I'm told), why not take the opportunity to refocus on patterns of more disciplined prayer and Bible study?  With the distractions of normal life stripped away, wouldn't this be a great time to go deeper with the Lord?

Well, no.

I'll tell you how I'm planning to use this period of lockdown: I'm hoping to just about manage.  And I'm less confident than I'd like to be that I will achieve my goal.

Before it all Got Real, lots of folk were joking about this being an introvert's dream.  I can report that it is not.  My house is small, and it has four people in it.  They are always there.  Apart from the days when I manage to take my state-sanctioned walk alone, I have not spent this much time with people for ages.  Some of those people (the kids, that is) require structured attention for much of the day; I am very glad that there are two adults to share the burden of giving it to them.  This is tiring.

Then again, lots of things that used to be easy and relatively relaxing are not.  Meeting with people is nice; meeting with people over video is still sorta nice but also much more tiring.  I haven't noticed any slow-down in 'normal work'; I get the same amount of e-mail, need to try to look out for the same number of people, prepare the same number of sermons - but with the brain-fog that comes from an upset routine and a lack of recreation.

And the news is draining, and the sense that you really ought to be doing something but you're not sure what is exhausting, and trying to learn new technologies is both boring and very difficult.

And can I tell you what is more frustrating than all those things?  The endless advice.  I'm sorta grateful because some of it has been genuinely really useful, but it is also wearisome.  I can't do all the things you think I should be doing, okay?  And the relentless optimism: really we should see this as an opportunity!  No, we shouldn't; it's rubbish.

Now, by this point you might think I'm having a bit of a personal crisis - which would be worrying, because it's only day 3 (of ?).  I want to reassure you that I'm not.  I'm just about managing.  I'm praying, I'm reading Scripture, I'm doing my best by the family and the church and trying to think about how we can bless the wider community.  It's okay.  I'm managing, just about.

The reason for sharing this is not particularly to let you know that I'm struggling with stuff.  The reason for sharing is to let you know that if you're struggling with stuff, that's okay.  Join me in my great ambition: to just about manage.

By God's grace, we'll do it.  Just about.

Small and slow

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, which commemorates the arrival of the angel Gabriel in Nazareth to bring to the virgin Mary the news that she was to be the bearer of God's Son.  Whilst we celebrate the incarnation most obviously at Christmas, the Annunciation reminds us that the story didn't start with the birth in Bethlehem or the angelic chorus in the sky, but with the eternal Son of God taking on flesh in the womb of the virgin.

Traditionally, 25th March was also believed to be the day when Christ died; it was also believed to be the day when Adam was created!  Whether you can realistically put a date on that, I rather doubt, but symbolically it was important: in Jesus, we see the new creation, and the new Adam; but that new creation is not displayed until he has passed through death and been raised (the parallel between the womb and tomb was often stressed).  So, a momentous day - there is a good reason why Tolkien had the ring of power destroyed and Sauron vanquished on the 25th March!

This morning I've been thinking about another aspect of the Annunciation.  Here was the most astonishing thing that had ever happened - God in the womb, God in flesh!  The possessor of eternity stepping into human time.  Astonishing, but also really, really small.  I've been thinking about the apparent insignificance of this most significant event, the hiddenness of it.  I've been thinking about the fact that the Lord didn't fast-forward through human development; he was, for nine months, in the womb, and then grew up as a child amongst children.  It was small, and it was slow; this great new beginning.

The limitations on our lives at the moment, brought on as a necessary response to disease, are pervasive.  Everything is small and slow right now.  None of the big events we had planned are going to happen; nothing but daily plodding faithfulness in the home (and for a few the workplace).  Getting anything done takes ages, and there doesn't seem to be as much time as there used to be (although, by the end of the 'school' day, near infinite time seems to have passed...)

God doesn't seem bothered by the constraints of small and slow.  Maybe I shouldn't be either.

After all, think what great and eternal fruit came from this beginning.

Why is this happening?

A friend asked at the weekend whether people had been looking to me for a spiritual explanation for this pandemic.  Simple answer is no.  I'm aware that in past generations, and still perhaps today in some fringe sectors of the church, attempting to read providence to quite a detailed level has been commonplace.  It has been normal, for example, to draw a straight line between sin in society and 'punishments' through natural disaster or illness.

As I said to my friend, I don't see much of that.  People in the church are primarily asking not, why did this happen, but, how should we respond.  I see positives and negatives in that shift.  The particular positive is that it takes seriously the interaction between Jesus and a blind man in John 9.  The disciples want to know whether the man was born blind because of his own sin (presumably foreseen, rather than actually committed in utero) or because of the sin of his parents.  In other words, they want a causal chain to explain, in terms of divine providence, why this has happened.  Jesus doesn't offer them that sort of explanation.  They want to peer back into the man's family past to find the cause; Jesus directs them to the present.  Here and now, this man can be healed, in a demonstration of God's grace and kindness shown through Jesus.  So Jesus seems to cause the whole conversation to pivot from 'why has this happened' to 'how should we respond', and in so far as we're attempting to follow him this can only be good.

One negative that I'm aware of is that our spiritual forebears had a very lively sense of God being actually involved in directing the course of history.  For us, that has become largely a theological truth that has little bearing on our lives.  I think contemporary conservative evangelicalism has deistic tendencies; of course God has intervened in history, particularly in the incarnation, but now everything is (in practice, not in theory) just wound up and left to play out.  Under pressure from a philosophical concept of free will which is alien to Christian theology, and belatedly inheriting the themes of 18th century rationalism, we have tended to minimise the idea of God's direction of all things.

A particularly unfortunate consequence of that tendency at the moment is that we are reluctant to say things about providence which Scripture gives us clear warrant to say, and therefore we are hampered in hearing the message which I am convinced God wants to give us through these events.  Consider these verses from Psalm 90, for example:

You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”
For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.
You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning:
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.
For we are brought to an end by your anger;
by your wrath we are dismayed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
For all our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?

Well, who does consider it?  Who considers that we live in a creation that is not merely broken but cursed?  Who considers that God's wrath against sin is manifested daily?

I don't think we ought to try to trace this pandemic back in God's providence to particular sins, as if we could read God's mind.  But I do think we ought to think of this pandemic in line with God's revelation, as if we could read God's word.  Pain, as C.S. Lewis famously pointed out, is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world.  If we are being jolted awake right now, the right response is not to try to read an inscrutable providence to find out precisely why, but to pay attention to God's word, to examine ourselves and our society in the light of that word, and to repent of any and all sin that we find.

Ultimately, the reality of God's wrath should and must drive us to Jesus.

The long defeat

"...together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat."

So says Galadriel, Queen of the elves of Lothlorien.  And she does mean 'through ages'.  Galadriel, for those not already in the know, was daughter of Finarfin, born in Valinor to the royal house of the Noldor.  When the Silmarils were stolen from Fëanor, she enthusiastically followed him and his sons into exile back into Middle Earth to make war on the thief Morgoth, the original Dark Lord.  She therefore participated in the long struggle of the returned Noldor and their allies against Morgoth - she saw his fortress Angband successfully besieged by the new-come elves, and she saw the siege itself destroyed and the kingdoms of the Noldor broken one by one.  As even the strong and hidden refuges of the Noldor - Nargothrond and Gondolin - were betrayed and overthrown, Galadriel lived on.  She saw the overthrow of Morgoth by the powers of Valinor, but she did not return there; she stayed in Middle Earth, and so she saw the new enemy, Sauron, arise.  She saw the might of Númenor and the  imprisonment of Sauron; she also saw his return in greater might when Númenor was destroyed.  She saw the Last Alliance, and the forces of Elendil and Gil-Galad ride against Mordor.  She saw the overthrow of Sauron, and she saw the failure of Isildur to finally destroy the ring of power which led inevitably to his return.  She was there as the elves and their allies retreated before the might of Sauron and the strength of the Númenorean successor realms failed, Arnor collapsing and Gondor becoming a mere shadow of its former self.  She fought the long defeat through all these ages of the world.

I'm aware that not everyone is interested in the history of Middle Earth, but bear with me, because really I just want to underline that one concept: the long defeat.

I've been struck in the last week that this phrase captures one aspect of what it means to be a Christian in the world.  We fight the long defeat.  There are victories along the way, but on the whole the picture is not of victory.  One week I look out at my little church and see something that looks a lot like the gospel, and I rejoice in victories won; the next week, I look out and see the effects of sin and a fallen world, and I realise that we're fighting the long defeat.  None of our victories are decisive.  None of our little triumphs are the triumph.

In Tolkien's world, the battle of the elves must necessarily be the long defeat, for two reasons.  Firstly, Morgoth was a foe entirely beyond them; he was a Vala, a sort of demi-god, and although fallen was still mighty.  The Noldor consistently imagined that they could make war on him successfully; Maedhros son of Fëanor, for example, planned an assault on his fortress of Angband.  But the war was doomed to failure.  At their strongest, the Noldor could restrict, but not overthrow, Morgoth.  It took 'divine intervention' for him to be overthrown, with the arrival of the armies of the Valar.  Sauron could not be defeated by the dwindling elves or their Dúnedain allies.  It took the divine providence which oversaw the latter history of the rings of power to bring him down.  (It would be interesting to develop the Old Testament/New Testament contrast here, by the way - victory by overwhelming divine force in the First Age, victory by self-denial and suffering in the Third).

The other reason the elves must be defeated is that the lies of Morgoth have a grip on them, and their allies.  Fëanor and his sons are affected by his lies, to the extent that they mistrust the Valar without reason, and rush into the Kinslaying at Alqualondë - which continues as a shadow over all their later doings, even the most heroic, preventing alliances which should have strengthened them.  Later,  Maedhros is betrayed in battle by the human sons of Ulfang, who have secretly given their allegiance to Morgoth.  The enemy is not merely arrayed against them, but his tendrils reach within.

This is the story of our real long defeat.  Sin and death and Satan are enemies beyond our strength; and moreover, we find so often that the tendrils of Satan's power extend not merely into the midst of our church communities but into our own hearts.  Every victory is temporary.  Every defeat is doubly bitter, because we are ourselves implicated.  Noble rearguard actions (think of the wind whistling in the fens of Serech) are often all we can manage as our enemy carries all before him.

We fight the long defeat, but not with the melancholy of Galadriel.  We fight the long defeat with the knowledge that at the end of it all there is final victory.  The pattern is cross and resurrection.  Jesus has passed through, and has secured our triumph.  Every defeat in this long defeat is a reminder of the cross.  But every reminder of the cross is a call to lift up our eyes beyond the parameters of our own personal and communal battles, and to remember that the war itself is won, and will be won.  We will stand on the field of Cormallen and celebrate total and final victory, one day.  Until then, with the certain knowledge that the day is coming, we fight the long defeat.