1.

I can keep my response relatively short and sweet, not only because I agree with much of what’s been said to this point (apart, mostly, from Colvin’s concerns), but also because of Jenson’s own penchant for the succinct. For the uninitiated, a quick testimonial aside: Jens’ first email reply came to me, years ago, with only two words: “Why not?” He did not use either capitalization or punctuation. He also did not greet me with my name or sign off with his—a fitting beginning to a beautiful friendship!  

2.

First, a testimony. Last March 27, I risked opening Facebook to post a picture of Pope Francis processing alone through an empty St Peter’s Square and to share a brief reflection on the image:

I will remember this moment, this image and the homily that followed, for the rest of my life. I read the homily, then watched the service. And as I watched, I kept thinking of Zizioulas’ words, which I read just this morning: “The Liturgy requires our presence... A televised broadcast of the Liturgy is not the right thing to do.” The Spirit is not so easily stymied.

I believe Francis’ words are prophetic: we feel like we’re lost, but we are finding “the creativity that only the Spirit is capable of inspiring,” a creativity through which “new forms of hospitality, fraternity and solidarity” emerge, making room for those in need.

I believe his actions today were prophetic, too. They reveal that these new forms of being-together are breaking forth all around us, near and far.

There is no need to be afraid.

In that Public Orthodoxy interview, which as I said I had only just read, Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas explained his hesitations with the Liturgy being served during a pandemic:

For me, the Church without the holy Eucharist is no longer the Church. On the other hand, the danger of transmitting this virus to others imposes on us the need of doing whatever is necessary, even if that means closing the Church… I think the best decision, instead of completely closing the church, is to have the priest serve with up to five people. Therefore, the Liturgy should be served in churches, but the possibility of spreading the virus should be reduced to zero.

Asked what he makes of the fact that churches in Greece and in America intend to broadcast the Liturgy online, Zizioulas did not mince words:   

I don’t agree with the Divine Liturgy being transmitted by television. I’m confined to my home and will not be able to attend Liturgy. However, I will not turn the television on in order to watch the Liturgy. I consider that an expression of impiety. It is impious for someone to sit and watch the Liturgy… Personally, as I said, I don’t like the Liturgy to be broadcasted on a TV channel. In Greece there is at least that one liturgy that will be served in the Cathedral church. In my opinion it could have been served in more churches, but there is the fear of spreading the disease.   

And asked what Christians should do when it is not possible to attend the Liturgy, he offered sharp advice:  

Let a person remain at home and pray. The Church can prepare some service texts to encourage the faithful to read, for instance, the morning service in their homes, but not to read the text of the Liturgy. The Liturgy requires our presence. One cannot participate in the Liturgy from a distance. Therefore, let the faithful pray from their homes. 

That morning, reading these lines, I simply nodded in agreement. That afternoon, however, having been leveled by what had unfolded simultaneously in a rainy St Peter’s Square in Rome and my miserably hot living room in Lakeland, I had second thoughts.

3.

In the essay that jumpstarted our conversation, Stephen Long concludes that “Zoom-gathering” cannot be a substitute for Church-gathering “because there is no social body available via Zoom that may be ‘intended’ by embodied persons.” Acknowledging that “virtual reality” has its uses, he nonetheless insists “it does not make the church.” Following Jenson’s distinctive formulations, he argues that Jesus is available both as the church and to her in the sacrament only insofar as both availabilities are simultaneously realized. Thus, it matters, definitively, “that bodies actually be gathered together around a common table.” “Zoom-communion’’ (Zoommunion?) is necessarily invalid because virtual meetings cannot give us the “true availability of Jesus.”

In his follow-up, Jim Keating affirms Long’s Jensonian conclusion:

Long correctly discovers in Jenson a resource for explaining how essential it is that the bodies that make up the body of Christ be available to one another whenever Christ makes his eucharistic body available to the Church. Paul the Apostle long ago warned the Corinthians against tearing the two bodies asunder, and Long, with the help of Robert Jenson, rightly alerts the Zooming Church of the judgment that awaits.

I wholeheartedly agree that bodies matter, that the gathering of bodies for worship in the same space and at the same time matters, that eating and drinking around the same table matters. And I agree that Zoomunion is no substitute for Communion. Still, I have a lingering suspicion that we’ve not yet taken seriously the possibilities of Jenson’s theology of the body. Are we sure we know what Jesus’ body is, how it matters? We are talking about the body of God, after all!

4.

In one of our email exchanges, Jens corrected what he recognized as my latent “receptionism” with a single question: “Suppose that through some egregious violation, a proper consecration etc. occurs, but no one at all communes. What is on the table?”

A week or so later, I responded, explaining how Pentecostals, at least at the beginnings of the movement, very often talked about God’s presence at the Supper but never about Christ’s presence in the bread and wine. In fact, they talked not only about God's presence, but also without distinction or qualification about Jesus’ presence or the Spirit’s. For them, “God,” “Jesus,” and “Spirit” served as more or less completely interchangeable names for the Presence they encountered at the Table. Then, I asked a trio of questions:

1. What do you think gives rise to this? Is the problem an undue emphasis on the experience of the participants, their feelings and sensations? 
2. Do we not need to make a distinction between the way in which Christ is present and the way in which the Spirit is? If so, how best to talk about the Spirit's presence/activity?
3. It is not enough, right, to talk about Christ being present at the Table?    

This was his response:

1. Yes
2. Yes, and the Spirit is to be invoked: the epiclesis of any proper eucharistic prayer
3. Right

I share these exchanges to draw attention to the fact that Jenson’s theology of the body depended at every point on his theology of the Spirit. In his thought, the Spirit is not bound to any supposed limitations of Jesus’ body. Indeed, the opposite is true: Jesus’ body is transfigured by the boundlessness of the Spirit, so that he is present to us just as we need him to be.   

So, forced to take a position, I’d say something like this: we do not make the Eucharist by gathering, however faithfully; it makes us. For that reason, we should refuse to accept any discussion framed by the assumption that we can and should determine the boundary conditions for God’s action. If Yannaras is right, such talk is a symptom of backsliding from the authenticity of “church” into the abstracted “orthodoxy” of “religion.” And if Baldwin is right, abstracted orthodoxy inevitably turns the preacher into a lawman.

5.

Jens never tired of saying that the gospel is a promise, and that a promise is a because… therefore not an if… then utterance. Just so, it’s seems like something of a mistake to talk as if our bodies are required to make the Eucharist the Eucharist. We should say instead that our gathering is possible because Jesus offers himself to us without reserve or restriction. Instead of denouncing Zoomunion, we should announce Communion, and allow the Spirit to gather those who have been scattered.

What about those who cannot gather? If the Spirit is truly Lord, if the Spirit did indeed fashion the flesh of the Word from nothing in Mary’s womb, if the Spirit did indeed raise Mary’s boy from the dead, then we cannot seriously think the Spirit lacks whatever is needed to overcome the limitations imposed on us by this pandemic and the measures taken to protect our most vulnerable neighbors. Who knows what the Creator might do to and through the “virtual” for the sake of those he loves? Jesus’ availability is not limited to my grasp of him, after all: the Spirit is not so easily stymied. Ask Elijah outside his cave! Ask Ezekiel by the river! Ask Philip in Azotus! Ask John on Patmos! Ask Thomas a week or so after Easter!

In the end, then, this seems to me the bottom line: if everyone who wants to and needs to cannot gather with us in the room when we offer our thanks to God, if they cannot eat and drink with us or lift their hands with our voices, we should at least offer them the chance to join us “virtually,” trusting the God for whom all things are possible. I mean, why not?

Chris Green is Professor of Public Theology, Southeastern University; author of The End Is Music and co-editor of The Promise of Robert Jenson's Theology.