I received this question from a parishioner at Rez. It’s such a great question and I wanted to share my response with the rest of you.
First off, notice the good news that this question implies: people are longing to participate in the life of God in the Church while they are physically apart. I’m sure you’ve seen the many creative ways that folks are participating with their churches recently (online, zoom, social media, times of prayer). As awful as this pandemic is, difficult and abnormal situations often provoke us to rethink and more closely consider questions like, “why do we practice the faith this way?” “And what is it we believe about this or that?” Asking these questions is an opportunity to come to a deeper understanding and maturity in our faith.
Second, I am not interested in passing judgment on anyone in this response. As Anglicans we are merely Christians, leaning on a rich biblical and historic tradition of faith and practice. However, many of us have come from different church traditions, or never considered this particular question so closely. We are also part of a great community of churches in Austin, with brothers and sisters in Christ that we deeply love and respect. My response for our parish does not come as disrespect to others.
Third, in these extraordinary times we are not left to rethink everything about the Eucharist or how to practice it. We aren’t starting from scratch when thinking about our liturgical and sacramental practices. We’ve got good clarity from the Scriptures and history.
With that said, here is my shot at answering the question, “Can I receive Eucharist at home with my own bread and wine?”
In short, the answer to this question is “no.” It would not be appropriate to take bread and wine at home as communion. To do so would not be receiving the Eucharist.
Here’s the (long) "why":
The meal that Christ gave his disciples was everything like and nothing like other meals. It was everything like them in that it involved real food (bread and wine) and real people (the disciples). But it was nothing like other meals in that it was the Passover feast, which had long pointed to a sign that Jesus revealed in his suffering and death—His body and blood. So, while you can have bread and wine at home, it would be misleading to intend it as communion in and of itself. It’s similar to a great book that makes you think of Jesus, compared to reading Holy Scripture: these texts are everything like each other and nothing like each other. God can speak through a good novel, but He is assuredly and clearly speaking in scripture in a way that is unlike any other writing we have known.
While people generally recognize this meal is unlike any other, this leads to the question, why should it be taken in the manner prescribed by the Church, instead of some other way, or even as I might experience it in my own home?
God certainly makes himself present to us by His Holy Spirit all the time. And God can do whatever He wants. However, the Church has been built not upon the possibilities of what God could do, but the specifics of what God has done; what He has revealed in scripture, and what He has given to us (through his Apostles) that are assured as Sacraments (Baptism and Eucharist).
Who Gets To Say?
and other questions of authority.
Backing up, there is a threshold question here, which is how do we know that in the Eucharist we have the authoritative and trustworthy meal that Christ gave the Apostles in the upper room? As a parallel example, how do we know that in the Bible we have an authoritative and trustworthy revelation of God? We believe that it is by personal experience with it, certainly. But even before that, we believe it is authoritative because these sacred writings belong to the Apostles and the Church, who have preserved and delivered them to us throughout history. For the same reasons, we receive the Eucharist as the authoritative and trustworthy transmission (or giving) of the holy meal Jesus shared because it has been preserved and delivered to us in this way from the Apostles and the Church. Even the apostle Paul received it this way, "For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread….” (1 Corinthians 11:23). It was the Church, and particularly the Apostles who were in the upper room, who delivered this meal to us.
So, the next question might be, why should we limit administering the Eucharist to designated people in the Church? One answer is that we need a reliable, normative, trustworthy means of receiving this gift. I think this is why Jesus chose to share this meal with his disciples, and why he gave them authority unlike any others to do authoritative work in His name. I just did a quick search of moments Jesus was speaking to his disciples and/or authorizing them to perform the work of the Kingdom:
• To “go and make disciples,” baptizing them and teaching them (Matthew 28:18-20);
• To administer communion, “do this in remembrance of me” (Mark 14:22-25,Luke 22:18-20,1 Cor. 11:23-25);
• To have authority over unclean spirits (Matthew 10);
• To cast out demons (Mark 3);
• To heal diseases (Luke 9);
• To forgive sins (John 20:23);
• To bind and loose things on earth and heaven (Matthew 18);
• And for building up the Church (2 Cor. 13:10).
There are more, but these few biblical examples reveal the shape of the unique role of the Apostles in the life of the Church. We see in Acts how their role worked, and how it was given to other ministers through the laying on of hands in what we now call Holy Orders (or ordination). People were not self-appointed or self-authorized to do this ministry, but the Apostles and the Church discerned and confirmed God’s call in people to be ordained into this ministry.
So What About Priests?
The priesthood is one such ministry, and part of this ministry was particularly authorized to administer Holy Eucharist, this unique meal that is a most intimate sharing in Christ (1 Cor. 10:16). The Church discerns and puts forward those who they believe God has called to serve in this unique way. Part of what a priest is called to do is to administer the sacraments in a manner that is in keeping with the Church throughout the ages, and most importantly, in the manner it was given to the Apostles by Christ himself. (If I could make a footnote here it would say “see apostolic succession” or the giving of Holy Orders by the Church throughout history. For example, it’s no small thing that the Church traces this lineage of Apostles; my own Holy Orders can be traced to the Apostle John, but that’s another giant topic of discussion.)
What Did Jesus Say?
So, let’s now consider how the Lord gave us this meal and attempt to contemplate its significance and sacred character. It’s amazing that the simple words “this is my body” and “this is my blood” would involve so much. One key invitation for us here is not to make priests or bread "magical" but to put our trust in what Jesus gave us, and the way in which He still gives it to us. The particulars of this can feel fussy to some, but it’s really just a careful attention to a few key things: putting faith in Jesus, believing his words, paying attention to those words he actually said (and noticing what he didn’t say!).
For example, taking bread, Jesus said “this is my body.” The particularity of “this” here is striking to me. Also, “This is my body,” not this “represents” or “is like” my body. That’s a big “is”! So much is said and unsaid in these two words. If we’re still unsure about their significance, we also have John 6, where Jesus gives some seriously clear and emphatic teaching on eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Even the disciples pushed back to clarify, but Jesus did not appeal to metaphor or symbol but doubled down on what he said the first time.
What Did the Early Church Think?
We also have the writings of the Early Church Fathers like Irenaeus, Ignatius (who succeeded St. Peter in Antioch), Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origin, Cyprian, Cyril of Jerusalem—all who affirm the mystery of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. There’s a bunch here to dig into, but all that is to say there are strong biblical and Fathers of the Early Church that give us a lot of help in answering our question about how Jesus gave us this meal.
We could also look to Justin Martyr who wrote around 150 AD, “For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these… as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.” (First Apology, 66). In other words, this is no common bread and drink, but is a sharing in the life of Jesus in-the-flesh.
What is the Eucharist?
Lastly, there’s another hidden question involved in our initial one: What is the Eucharist?
The Eucharist is not simply a priestly act, but the collecting up of the whole church in an offering of thanks to God. Eucharist literally means “thanksgiving” or “good gift”. Our thanksgiving is offered in bread and wine, in our tithes and offerings, in bodies, and our sacrifice of praise—all of this is represented at the altar with the priest. At the altar, with the priest, deacon, and assisting ministers, we join “angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.” We are revealed to a global, eternal, and heavenly community that is Christ’s “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,” as we say in the Nicene Creed.
That’s not all. In the celebration of the Eucharist, Christ meets us, gathers us, and joins us with his most perfect sacrifice on the cross offered to the Father for our sake. The cross is the perfect Eucharist, offered freely in Christ’s perfect liturgy as a pure, sufficient, and holy gift. When the priest lays hands over common bread and wine and invites the Holy Spirit to “sanctify these gifts” and then the congregation makes the sign of the cross on themselves when the priest prays “sanctify us also,” both are made into something they were not before the Holy Spirit got a hold of them and united them with the sacrifice of Christ. In this great mystery we are joined to and offered with Christ to the Father by the Spirit. In the Eucharist we receive unimaginable heavenly gifts: the forgiveness of sins, nourishment of body and soul, being made the Church, being named living members of Christ’s Body, and so many more. The Church receives this gift as a gift (not as a quid pro quo, or some other coercive or transactional exchange) by responding “Amen.” In his book, The Sacraments, the great French theologian Louis-Marie Chauvet describes how we confirm our receiving of this gift as a gift with the ongoing “amen” of our daily lives given to the work of the Kingdom in the world. This is major part of what we mean when we say, “let us keep the feast!”
It’s Not In The Pantry
Breaking bread and pouring wine at home, even while watching your priest on the screen, is not gathering up the Church in this unique way as an offering to the Lord. But it doesn’t need to be. Let the priests serve the Church in the way they have been called by celebrating the sacraments, knowing that we are being gathered up in Christ and offered, and that we too receive a spiritual communion at home. Our concern need not be about eating at home but about discerning that we receive the benefits of Christ’s presence even when we cannot be together. The great lengths of God’s love are amazing, nothing can separate us from it! (Romans 8:38-39)
If we want to confirm that we have received Christ and enjoy his presence, we won’t find that in the pantry, but in the ongoing “amen” of our lives continually offered to works of the Kingdom.
