"What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?"
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked heated debates about what it is Christians do when they celebrate communion, many of which have centered on arguments about the validity of online communion services. In her blog post, On Hoarding the Eucharist in a Hungry World, Diana Butler Bass frames the questions as follows: “Can Christians celebrate the Eucharist—the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion —through technology? Is the sacrament valid if it happens virtually?”
These questions and the online back-and-forth that followed led me to return to the first historical reference to the Lord’s Supper and the words of institution. This occurs in Paul’s chastising of the wealthy Corinthian for how they were separating themselves from the poor when celebrating the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). This passage and the chapter on the Body of Christ that immediately follows suggest the early church understood the celebration of the Lord’s Supper to involve the coming together of people across socioeconomic divides.
To what extent does a communion service - whether held in-person or online - represent the coming together of the wealthy and the poor for a common meal? To what extent can a participant “discern the body” of the wider community, including the most vulnerable and less respectable members of society, during the service?
1 Corinthians 11 - 12
In 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, Paul chastises the wealthier Corinthians for the way that they have separated themselves out from the poor when celebrating the Lord’s Supper. “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?”[1] Specifically, Paul is accusing the wealthier Corinthians of bringing their own food and drink to the assembly, separating themselves out from those who are hungry, and eating their meal among members of their own social class.[2]
The recipients of Paul’s letter were likely surprised at his indignation as status-specific dining was a widespread practice in the Roman Empire. The Roman magistrate Pliny the Younger groused about how his wealthy host served different meals and wines according to social status, even among those seated at the same table.[3] There is also historical evidence of clubs and associations serving different types of meals and drink to different levels of donors.[4]
Nevertheless, Paul’s fury at this humiliation of those who had brought nothing leaps off the page, and it is important to consider why. In Loving the Poor, Saving the Rich: Wealth, Poverty, and Early Christian Formation, Helen Rhee describes Jesus and his disciples (Matt 8:20), the Jerusalem Church (Romans 15:26; Gal 2:10), and Pauline communities (1 Cor: 26-27; 2 Cor 8:1) as belonging to the “lower socioeconomic stratum and ‘the poor’ in varying degrees” and she notes that “they regularly described experiencing oppression and maltreatment by the rich and powerful in one way or another (cf. Luke 12:11–12; Acts 4:1–3; 8:1–3; 12:1–4; 2 Cor. 11:23–27; Heb. 10:32–34).”[5] The wealthier members’ act of separation should be seen as part of a whole lifetime of humiliations.
Paul, therefore, forcefully condemns the way the Lord’s Supper had become yet another opportunity to display social division and class status. There is bitter sarcasm when he says, “Indeed, there have to be discriminations among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are distinguished.”[6] In Remember the Poor, Bruce Longnecker somewhat medically describes Paul’s indignation as tied to “a situation in which economic factors of corporate identity were being overlooked by some Jesus-followers.” Indeed, the socioeconomics of this common meal continued to be so fundamental that Justin Martyr, writing to the Roman emperor Antonius Pius in 155, began his outline of how Christians worship on Sundays with “those who have means help all those who have want and we continually meet together.”[7]
One of my concerns is that we too tend to overlook the ‘economic factors of corporate identity’ when discussing the validity of communion services, whether they take place in-person or online. Based on 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, one might ask the following of any service: Is this communion service an example of the wealthy separating themselves out from the poor for a status-specific meal? To what extent does this service represent a coming together of people across socioeconomic divisions, including the wealthy and the poor?
The earliest reference to the words of institution are part of this broader condemnation of the actions of the wealthier Corinthians, and this is followed by Paul warning that the Corinthians eat and drink judgment against themselves when they fail to ‘discern the body.’[8]
In addition to the individualized, spiritual significance of ‘discerning the body’, it is reasonably clear that Paul sees this phrase as connected to the need to wait for one another, share a common meal, and his subsequent discourse on the church as the body of Christ in the following chapter. While the broader Roman culture encouraged the wealthy to separate themselves out from the poor for status-specific dining, Paul notes “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you. On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this.”[9]
To be absolutely clear, I am not negating the tradition of interpreting ‘discerning the body’ as an inward, spiritual awareness. I’d argue that in addition, the broader context of this passage suggests there is a social dimension to this phrase, a ‘discerning of the body’ made up of rich and poor, the strong and vulnerable, those deemed respectable and not-so-respectable.
Based on Paul’s insistence that the Corinthians take time to ‘discern the body’, one might ask a second set of questions of in-person and online services: Is this an example of one part of the body saying to another, ‘I have no need of you?’ To what extent are members able to ‘discern the body’ at this Eucharistic service?
In summary, whether speaking about in-person or online worship, 1 Corinthians 11-12 suggests two evaluative questions for thinking about what’s happening at communion services. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that these considerations determine the validity of a service, I believe it’s in the spirit of 1st Corinthians to ask:
- To what extent does this Eucharistic service represent the coming together of people across socioeconomic divisions, particularly the wealthy and the poor? Or is this an example of the wealthy separating themselves from the poor for a status-specific service?
- To what extent is one able to ‘discern the body’ at this communion service, including those who Paul describes as the most vulnerable and least respectable/honorable?[10] Or does this represent one part of the body saying to another “I have no need of you”?
Of course, the tendency of the wealthy to separate themselves out from the poor is alive and well within both broader U.S. society and mainline denominations such as the Episcopal Church. We are currently living in a period of nearly unprecedented disparities in wealth and poverty and all too often this inequality is echoed, rather than countered, by our churches. In this, it is helpful to be reminded of Paul’s fury at the wealthy Corinthians’ separating themselves from the hungry, and it is eye-opening to then ask how that applies to in-person and online communion services today.
I. To what extent does this communion service represent the coming together of people across socioeconomic divisions, particularly the wealthy and the poor? Or is this an example of the wealthy separating themselves from the poor for a status-specific service?
Several years ago, during a visit to a diocesan office in the Midwest, I was shown a unique diocesan map. The map was divided into zip codes and within the various zip codes I could see little crosses representing the locations of currently existing Episcopal congregations. A few zip codes were shaded pink to represent the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, whereas others were shaded yellow to represent the poorest. It will surprise no one when I note that the pink zip codes had a cluster of Episcopal congregations and the yellow zip codes had very few, if any at all.
I was being shown this map because the diocesan staff member I was meeting with saw this as a major problem, and she was working hard to plant and sustain Episcopal communities of faith in those zip codes which hadn’t been of particular concern to prior generations. Nevertheless, when one asks how it could possibly be that the Episcopal Church has remained more than 95% white and wealthy amidst the changing demographics of the United States, we should bear these sorts of maps in mind.
In this Midwestern city, and many others across the United States, dioceses engaged in concerted church planting campaigns shortly after the end of World War II. Both where diocesan leaders chose to locate those new churches and which of those churches still remain reflect a long-standing, obsequious relationship to wealth and whiteness that still characterizes the Episcopal Church today. Further, there is a tragic story, one that has yet to be fully told, about the role that racially restrictive covenants played in keeping those zip codes white and wealthy.
Following the publication of Richard Rothstein’s groundbreaking book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, several cities began to create other maps, ones that track the neighborhoods where the deeds of historic homes explicitly name the exclusion of non-whites for the preservation of property values. These racially restrictive covenant maps denote those zones where community associations embedded racial exclusion clauses into deeds on the grounds that home values dropped when people of color moved into neighborhoods. The mainline churches nestled in these communities had a significant role in these covenants. Rothstein cites one example in which a Roman Catholic priest in a wealthy Chicago suburb was an outspoken, organizing force behind the creation of its racially restrictive covenant, and a single racially restrictive covenant was executed by religious institutions on Chicago’s Near North Side including the Moody Bible Institute, the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church.[11] The Color of Law traces how racial disparities in home ownership created through red lining, reverse redlining, restrictive covenants, and other factors were all major contributors to the generational wealth gap between whites and people of color that we see today.
As it happens, the same Midwestern city that I visited a few years ago now has such a racial covenant tracking project, and I would be curious to one day overlay the map of where Episcopal congregations are currently sited and the emerging map of which neighborhoods had racial covenants.
I mention this history because we need to have a more developed understanding about why it is that so many Episcopal congregations do not represent a coming together across socioeconomic divisions, a fact that in the United States inevitably requires examining issues of both economic inequality and race. Our denomination isn’t more than 95% white because only white people like the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican choral music. Rather, we remain overwhelmingly white and wealthy as a result of the much more banal but insidious story of ongoing conscious and unconscious, structural decisions, including decisions about where we chose to plant congregations and which congregations we have chosen to sustain.
As the Episcopal Church now explores online communion services, I think there are important lessons to be drawn from that history and those maps I reference above. Clearly, geography is not a neutral reality. We’ve chosen to plant and sustain congregations in particular zip codes, and these choices have frequently reflected our denomination’s obsequious relationship to wealth and whiteness. To my mind, the physical location of many of our congregations make it challenging for communion services to be a coming together of people across socioeconomic divisions, including the wealthy and the poor. But what about online spaces? Are they neutral spaces?
Moving worship services online is not quite the same as moving worship outdoors to a public park. Online worship frequently requires access to high speed internet. While unlimited data and high speed broadband may not be prohibitively expensive for many who are currently within our denomination, we have an obligation to take into account those on the other side of the digital tracks.
At this moment, no one knows exactly how many people are living on the other side of those tracks. The U.S. government estimates that 21 million Americans, mostly in rural areas, simply don’t have access to fast internet access, and Microsoft estimates that 157 million Americans aren’t using fast internet connections, whether or not they have access. “Either way, a lot of people are being left behind. In rural and suburban areas, people may have the choice of only a modern version of dial-up internet. In cities where fast internet is widespread, many lower-income people can’t afford it.”[12] In an April Pew Research center survey, they describe how the loss of income from rising unemployment is resulting in greater anxiety about ability to pay for internet and phone bills. “Some 28% of those who have a high-speed connection at home say they worry a lot or some about paying for this service over the next few months, and 30% of smartphone owners say they worry at least some about paying their cellphone bill. Hispanic or black broadband or smartphone users and those with lower incomes are especially likely to say they worry about these types of bills.”[13]
The transition to online education has been particularly challenging for students from low-income Black and Latino households. Some students are simply not able to attend classes anymore because their parents cannot afford unlimited data plans. Pew research on this “homework gap” notes “Roughly one-third (35%) of households with children ages 6 to 17 and an annual income below $30,000 a year do not have a high-speed internet connection at home, compared with just 6% of such households earning $75,000 or more a year. These broadband gaps are particularly pronounced in black and Hispanic households with school-age children – especially those with low incomes.”[14] The situation is, of course, far worse for the more than 21,000 kids living in New York’s homeless shelter system. “There are about 450 shelters for families and single adults in the main shelter system, and most of them do not have Wi-Fi available for residents, according to the city Department of Social Services.”[15]
While I don’t think the fact of a digital divide should prevent us from engaging in online worship, the fact that online access is considerably less accessible for lower-income Black and Latino households should give us pause when the internet is described as a leveling force. While the barrier of physical distance might be taken away, other barriers related to whether people can pay for high-speed internet and the platforms we use come into play.
Ideally, communion services - whether in-person or online - are spaces where people across socioeconomic divides come together for a shared meal. Paul’s chastising the wealthy in 1 Corinthians and Justin Martyr’s First Apology speak to the fact that the coming together of “those with means and those in want” remained fundamental to how the early church understood what it meant to gather for the Lord’s Supper. I think we need to pay a great deal more attention to whether or not our communion services - whether in-person or online - are abiding in this spirit.
II. To what extent is one able to ‘discern the body’ at this communion service, including those who Paul describes as the most vulnerable and least respectable/honorable? Or does this represent one part of the body saying to another “I have no need of you”?
I want to take a step back from Eucharist services and instead think through what it means to discern the body generally, especially with regard to the inclusion of very marginalized communities. I will do so by looking at two memorial services for homeless people that I attended over the course of the past twelve months, one of which was held in-person and the other online. While these were not Eucharist services, they are important because both services attempted to gather people across socioeconomic divides and were careful to include some of the most vulnerable members of society.
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| Oct 2019 Chinatown Memorial Service |
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how we gather, of course, but the vulnerability of the more than sixty thousand people living in New York’s shelter system and more than seven thousand living on the street has only increased. Last month, I attended an online memorial service for the shockingly large number of homeless people who have died as a result of COVID-19 in New York city. I attended from my desk in my apartment in downtown Brooklyn. It required no travel and almost no interaction. Due to the large number of attendees, the memorial was held using Zoom’s webinar format and so I could only see the faces of the nine people who had roles in the service. Among the nine were community advocates, a formerly homeless shelter worker, a few city officials, and a musician. The service focused on a reading of the names of those who had died. The names came in blocks of ten, and each of the blocks of ten ended by naming one or two Jane/John Does whose names were unknown. During a musical performance that followed, unseen participants typed in the names of people they had known who had died as a result of COVID-19 but whose names had not been included in the first part of the ceremony. I found myself wondering who the people were typing the names in.
When the service ended, I reflected on the fact that the online service meant I never had to go to an unfamiliar setting or engage with unfamiliar people. Indeed, quite the opposite. My laptop and Zoom meetings are now a home away from home for me, a space I’m more thoroughly familiar and comfortable with than, say, a gathering of diverse people in an open plaza. Further, I was struck by the way the webinar format meant I couldn’t ‘discern the body’ at that memorial, even though ‘the body’ gathered was undoubtedly far more inclusive of some of the most vulnerable members of society than many other gatherings I attend.
In Jill Lepore’s These Truths: A Political History of the United States, the author focuses extensively on telling the impact of computers on our political and economic history. She notes that while new technologies such as the personal computer and the internet are first hailed as great equalizers, they have proven to instead be catalysts for increased political polarization and economic inequality. As others have already pointed out, there is a ecclesiastical equivalent in that I, a Brooklynite, can now attend worship at the National Cathedral from the comfort of my home. Were online communion services to begin, I would be partaking -- in some form or another -- without ever having to leave my 700 square foot apartment, one that sits thirty one floors above anyone experiencing housing insecurity. How, exactly, is that not an example of the wealthy gathering in their own separate rooms, away from those struggling to eat?
Of course, it is unfair to level such criticisms at online services without also speaking about the many instances of in-person services where it is hard to ‘discern the body’. In light of Paul’s description of the Lord’s Supper as a time for coming together across socioeconomic divides, I’ve long wondered how one ‘discerns the body’ at, say, a Eucharist service aboard a cruise ship, or at a summer resort chapel, or how one ‘discerned the body’ at the Eucharist held during the 2015 Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes conference on Amelia Island Plantation Resort, with its theme of “Connections Matter.” Few question the validity of such inaccessible services -- instances in which separation from the poor seems to be part of the point -- so why bring these socioeconomic criteria up at all?
My hope is that the conversation swirling around online communion will help us to think through what we’re doing when we gather together to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, whether in-person or online. The first historical reference to the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 suggests there are socioeconomic implications to this gathering that have long been downplayed if not ignored. Paul angrily chastises the wealthy for separating themselves out from those who have nothing to eat and insists that this is contrary to the spirit and purpose of the tradition he has received. Indeed, it is in this context that the first reference to the words of institution and ‘discerning the body’ occur. That broader context should matter to us! And the hope of coming together to share a common meal, across the socioeconomics of both our zip codes and digital divides, should guide us as we think critically about where we are locating worship today.
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[1] 1 Corinthians 11:20-22
[2] Malina, Bruce. Social Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul, 109-111
[3] Pliny the Younger in Bruce Malina’s Social Science Commentary on the Letters of Paul, 110
[4] Theissen, Gerd (1982) The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth, ed. and trans. John H. Schütz. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. / Quoted in Vernon K. Robbins (1996) The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology, London: Routledge: 115-118 http://www.religion.emory.edu/faculty/robbins/SRI/Examples/texts/paul/paul20.cfm
[5] Rhee, Loving the Poor, Saving the Rich: Wealth, Poverty, and Early Christian Formation. 35
[6] NRSV commentary on 1 Corinthians 11:19
[7] 1 Apology 67 in Gordon Lathrup’s Holy things: A Liturgical Theology, page 45
[8] 1 Corinthians 11:23
[9] 1 Corinthians 12:21-24
[10] The language of this question is based on 1 Corinthians 12.23. Paul is using sarcasm in saying “less respectable” and “less honorable”.
[11] Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. 2012. See chapter on IRS Support and Compliant Regulations.
[12] Ovide, Shira. “We can do better” New York Times, April 2020 - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/technology/coronavirus-digital-divide.html
[13]Emily A. Vogels, Andrew Perrin, Lee Rainie, and Monica Anderson. “53% of Americans Say the Internet Has Been Essential During the COVID-19 Outbreak” Pew Research. April 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/04/30/53-of-americans-say-the-internet-has-been-essential-during-the-covid-19-outbreak/
[14] Anderson, Monica. “As schools close due to the coronavirus, some U.S. students face a digital ‘homework gap’” Pew Research. March 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/16/as-schools-close-due-to-the-coronavirus-some-u-s-students-face-a-digital-homework-gap/
[15] Stewart, Nikita. “She’s 10, Homeless and Eager to Learn. But She Has No Internet.” New York Times, March 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/nyregion/new-york-homeless-students-coronavirus.html
[16] Edgar Sandoval, William K. Rashbaum, Jeffrey E. Singer and Yonette Joseph, “In Chinatown, Rampage Against Sleeping Homeless Men Leaves 4 Dead” New York Times, October 7, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/nyregion/homeless-men-killed-chinatown.html
[17] Molly Crane-Newman, Graham Rayman, and Leonard Greene. “Chinatown residents mourn homeless murder victims; police say attacks were 'random’.” New York Daily News. October 2019. https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-homeless-victims-attack-20191007-augh42bxjnhkndnypcb3wtri4a-story.html
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