Absence, Grief, and Hunger for Real Presence

A lot of digital ink is being spilled over the question of virtual Holy Communion. I hold strong convictions about that, but that is not the concern I write about here. I write about grief; the anguish of our felt loss of sharing in the same physical space. My grief – dare I include you – is our loss of contact with others. Now we are nearly two months into not gathering to share one another’s real presence. I hunger for the real presence of those who make up the body of Christ. The “we” is the loss I feel.

Ironically the global pandemic broke up the “we” just as the church was ready to observe Holy Week, Easter and the fifty days of recognizing Christ in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:13-35). That Christ is keeping his promise to go before us into the Galilee of this pandemic is not in question.

Lament
There is plenty of grief to go around. Owning it – speaking it out loud— is to share with Job, Lamentation and the long biblical tradition the lament of loss in the face of slavery, oppression, poverty, and the privation of hope. Lament breaks the silence and the power of loss. Lament is in the air.

When PBS Newshour shares the names accompanied by photos of some of those who have died from the Covid19 virus, I weep. We weep for the death, suffering and impoverishment of the global family due to the failures and delays of governments. The suffering and loss are beyond quantifying. But the grief I focus on here is the loss of being together. Even with the best fixes we have — ZOOM, Facebook Live, Skype — “gathering” must be put in quotation marks. It is clearly a patch, a substitute. Maybe we will not go back to meeting face to face as our “go to” for everything in the future. Still, a virtual church coffee hour with my coffee and my cookies in front of a screen is “make-do” for the time of pandemic. It is a loss of presence. It is “real”, but only sort of! Holy Communion via digital means is “make-do” too!

One bright spot in our United Methodist story
One small cause for gratitude is the conversation going on among United Methodists about Holy Communion. Real presence, as a theological concept, applied to the Holy Meal is under serious discussion. Those who tended toward a “memorialist” view are suddenly leaning toward “real presence” as justification for how virtual communion is “real communion”! We are discerning whether there is a real ‘there’ there! And, oddly, those who vigorously champion the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist are hard pressed to affirm that when considering virtual communion.

What may be a genuine gain – a liturgical leap forward – is that United Methodists are talking about the Sacrament with a fervor and a gravity unanticipated during times when we could have celebrated it regularly. This Holy Mystery: A United Methodist Understanding of Holy Communion (THM) adopted by the 2004 General Conference commended celebrating the Lord’s Supper with greater frequency, even weekly. It reinforces the 1988 and 1992 General Conference decision that “Word and Table” are normative Sunday worship for United Methodists. For over 30 years, the Church has been calling us to celebrate the Lord’s Supper weekly without widespread acceptance in practice.

For the most part United Methodists have continued with quarterly or monthly communion. Many of us on the liturgical right[i] have been discouraged at the seeming heedlessness of the churches to General Conference’ ritual resources and teaching statements. Suddenly, there is evidence that United Methodists are hungry! Hungry for “more” of Christ in his self-giving. (See the opening story in THM.)[ii]

Technology embraced—one and the many or not at all
With onset of the global pandemic congregations large and small are offering virtual communion. It takes different forms: 1) spiritual communion by intention without actual partaking of bread and cup, 2) virtual invocation of the Holy Spirit on the bread and cup on one table, praying “Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ,”[iii] so that other bread and cups can be the means of grace on many domestic tables. There are other innovative approaches such as drive-up, drive-through or drive-in communion. In the latter, the service of Word and Table is conducted with people sheltering in their cars in the church parking lot or a rented drive-in theater.

Then there are other congregations whose pastors by conviction or by a directive from their bishop refrain from any semblance of Holy Communion—a kind of intentional fast—using a service of the Word.[iv]

Time to Fast and Heal
The questioning of “legitimacy” on theological, liturgical, metaphysical, and psychological grounds rages on. With the issues far from settled, Ed Phillips, associate professor of worship and liturgical theology at Candler School of Theology, invites moderation. In a recent interview he said: “I don’t want to complicate this for laity and pastors who are operating in good faith,” he said. “Let’s think about it afterwards and decide whether it was a good thing when we have a little time away from the crisis.” I take this like a wise pastor or counselor urging “Give yourself time to grieve and in time you’ll heal.”[v]

We will heal. We will find grace to know what practices will abide and which will not. In the meantime, I accept the discipline of fasting from gathering with sisters and brothers. There is no question or disagreement that the crucified and risen Lord is present to all in all creation. In that we all rejoice in faith.

It is honest and OK to grieve the loss of embodiment together. We can tell the truth so that we don’t pretend that current reality is the future for humanity and the church! Or for Jews or Muslims. Humanity will never go back to what was normal. We know that in our bones. Still, Christ goes before us. When Christ gathers us on the other side of physical distancing we will feast with skin on!

[i] On the spectrum of liturgical positions, the “liturgical right” are those who hold closely to the historic understandings and practices of worship and the sacraments. On the other extreme, the “liturgical left”, are those who tend toward innovation and freely disregard historical norms and practices of worship. United Methodists have tended to be left of center in this regard, though we have a long history of publishing and commending ritual grounded in the long tradition of the universal Church.
[ii] This Holy Mystery: A United Methodist Understanding of Holy Communion is available for download as a searchable pdf: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/this-holy-mystery-a-united-methodist-understanding-of-holy-communion Accessed 5/2/2020.
[iii] From “The Great Thanksgiving” in “A Service of Word and Table I”, The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 10.
[iv] The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) and The United Methodist Book of Worship (1992) contain the official ritual for Sunday Worship as services of “Word and Table”. Neither book contains an authorized “service of the word”. The services of Word and Table do make provision for occasions “without communion”.
[v] Reported in “Online Communion” by Sam Hodges. https://www.umnews.org/en/news/both-green-light-red-light-for-online-communion-2 Accessed 5/2/2020.

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