Assisting with Communion

You might be interested to know that your question is asked and answered in a Northwestern Publishing House publication: A Bible Study on Man and Woman in God’s World. The question and answer follow:

“It is clear that the Lord’s Supper should be administered by the pastor or by a man authorized by the congregation to administer the sacrament in his absence. But can a distinction be made between administration and distribution? The Roman Catholic Church uses a number of lay altar assistants to speed the distribution of the elements to the entire congregation. In many parishes women distribute both the wine and the bread.

“Some European Lutherans argue that the pastor must retain distribution of the bread since it is at this point that the authority to exclude someone from the Lord’s Supper must be exercised, but that women could distribute the wine since admission has already been determined by this point.

“If the form of celebrating the Lord’s Supper among us was such that the distribution of the elements was understood as simply assisting all of the congregation in receiving the elements (sort of the opposite function of gathering the offering) and if some other means of upholding the scriptural principles of closed communion was in place, it would be possible to defend the position that there are no theological grounds for excluding women from assisting with the distribution. For example, in the ancient church women were sometimes permitted to carry the consecrated elements to the sick. This was considered to be a form of distribution of the elements which enabled home-bound members of the congregation to participate in the sacrament along with the congregation.

“Such a form of distribution without consecration of the elements in the presence of the communicant is not practiced among us. Although there are some precedents for the practice in the history of the church, I do not believe women altar assistants could be introduced in our congregations under present circumstances without serious problems of misunderstanding and even offense.” (Pages 35-36)