By now you have all heard the report from our PRBC COVID-19 Task Force. We have pressed “pause” on any activities that would allow us to be together until February 14 at the earliest. It was not a hard decision, really. Everyone on the Task Force knew it was the right thing to do. Following the recent call of state and local officials for everyone to do everything we can to bring about a healthy and safe community during this time of record high cases, we understood that we had to do our part.
The truth is even though we had eased some of those early restrictions, we still remained mostly apart. We had returned to the office but with lots of precautions and very little in person contact; youth met outside, distanced and masked; very few people attended worship; and most organizations that use our campus are still not gathering. Therefore, going back to a closed campus for a month honestly doesn’t change that much in the day to day and week to week happenings of our church and campus.
I’ve worried about the people who don’t have internet or technology to keep them connected. Generous folks have tried to help us problem-solve to keep those folks in the loop. What we’ve heard is – it’s not the content they are missing, it’s the community. Technology doesn’t always solve that problem.
I’ve worried about the people who are dependent on technology for their own jobs and their kids’ school that they are “computered out” by the time it’s time to log on to church. Those folks have tried, but it’s just not the same. They would rather just wait to reconnect in person when everyone is vaccinated.
I’ve worried about our children and our young people – what it means for them to not be together to learn and grow. I’ve worried about people falling out of habits and not picking them back up. I’ve worried about the effect of trickling back together. I think we all like to imagine a grand day when we can be in the same space, but that day will not happen on one day. Instead we will come back together in small, incremental ways instead of that big, grand reunion we are all wanting. I’ve worried about 2 years from now, and the impact of going more than one year without being in person. How will that affect growth – not just numerical growth - but in deepening of relationships?
I’ve worried about the over-importance of content of sermon becoming too much of a focus in this one-way street of church where we preach and you tune in and then go about your week with little-to-no other interaction. We didn’t go into this work to be televangelists yet that is kind of what it has become.
I’ve worried about the impact of not being able to show up for each other – to hold babies and usher people through the waters of baptism and share a communion table and gather for funerals and weddings and celebrations of our senior adults and our seniors in high school. I’ve worried that now that it is so convenient to tune in whenever and wherever that some folks have already decided this will be their main mode of connection because it’s just easier in an already hectic world. I’ve worried that everyone so desires to go back to “normal” that we may miss an opportunity to let go of some things that needed to go and fail to embrace what we have learned that can open us up to creativity and vitality in new and transformative ways.
It’s an irony, then, that the very first sermon I ever preached was on Matthew 6: So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today. It’s difficult to practice what one preaches!
It is a part of the human condition to be worried or concerned about things as worrisome as global pandemics. If it were not so, it wouldn’t have been featured so prominently in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It’s when our worry turns to fear that worries me the most. I am not afraid of any of the things I have listed. I trust that we are in this together and God is with us. I believe that we will emerge stronger, even if we are different. I believe we will thrive in ways that we cannot know yet. I have faith that we not only CAN do hard things, but that we WILL do hard things – and that will not happen if we stick our heads in the sand and just hope that everything will turn out okay.
When we name our worries and are honest about our concerns, we find creative solutions. I hope you are thinking about all the “what’s nexts” of your lives both personally and as a congregation. I hope you are using this time of “pause” in our collective lives to ponder how we can be more fully alive to God’s calling in our lives. I hope we can begin to imagine together what new thing might be happening among us that we help us to live out our calling in this place.
How are you using the “pause” of your life right now? May it be to seek peace and work for justice. May it be to tend to your own spirit that you might in turn be able to tend to others more fully. May it be to be more fully alive to who God is and how God is at work in you and in the world. May your “pause” help you to listen for the still, small voice of God calling you Beloved. - Amy