Second Thursday of Lent
Lectionary Texts:
OT: Genesis 17:1-7
NT: Romans 4:1-25
What's going to happen next? Who's going to win?
At times I feel as if this 25 episode High Church--Low Church blog is a historical study rather than a current event study. For the last year it has not been High Church--Low Church. It's been NO CHURCH. I watch at least two services every Sunday, but I still, even after a year, don't have much sense of having worshiped. When will things get back to normal? Will they ever get back to normal? I don't want to live in a permanent Zoom/U-Tube world. Yesterday I got worked on for an hour in the dentist office. It oddly felt good just to be there with real people, masked but not six feet away.
I had my monthly spiritual guidance meeting with Justin Coleman today (Zoom of course). Among other things we talked about when and how church would resume. I realized some of the complications but not quite how complicated it all is. Some of us 65+ers are, like Marianne and I, more than two weeks past our second shot. We want to party! We want to go to church! It's not happening soon. Clergy aren't considered essential workers. Families with children will have the parents being vaccinated before the kids. Kids may not get vaccinated till the end of the year.
Will church reopen in stages? Socially distanced and masked? Strict attendance limits? No choir? No singing? No even saying the Lord's Prayer in unison? That's the way a retired pastor friend of mine has the church he goes to. He's not finding it a good worship experience.
Will a lot of people who for a year have been watching U-Tube church just keep on doing that? The challenges for clergy are going to be huge.
What kind of worship experience will work best when we finally resume? Will their be some new category of worship besides Traditional (high church or low church) and Contemporary (and those various offshoots of Contemporary)?
I think I have never had this many questions marks in a blog before. I'm feeling joy that I think we are going to conquer this pandemic but a little apprehension about its long term damage to so many aspects of our lives, but especially church.
Lord Jesus, husband of your bride, the Church,
We pray for all clergy and church leaders. Grant them wisdom in this long going crisis. We thank you that technology allows us a measure of worship, even if not in all its fullness. Lead us back into our churches and forward into your Kingdom. Amen.
2 comments:
This post spoke directly to a concern that I’ve had for awhile. How will this pandemic affect church and worship? And I’m not just concerned about those who have been worshipping online during this time. I’m more worried about those who have become completely disengaged from church. Will they ever come back? I think the passing of the peace and shaking the pastor’s hand on the way out are gone for good. CUMC returns to outdoor worship the first Sunday of March. These outdoor worship services will only take place once a month and they weren’t that well attended before they were paused for the winter. Church was my community. Our week revolved around church. There is no doubt that, at least here in our area, church/worship has been altered forever.
I am a COVID Case Investigator and spend my entire weekdays talking with people, mostly those over 65 years of age, who have just been diagnosed. I am terribly familiar with the consequences of gatherings of any kind. This disease does not negotiate, does not respect social graces, and does not discriminate against any faith or lack thereof. People's idea of safety is far, far from accurate. Masks are not full PPE - they are great for walking down the sidewalk, but in close contact or a not ventilated area, they do not stop the spread. All it takes is one person who is sick, many of whom are asymptomatic or barely have symptoms, to infect an entire group of people. The idea that people will come together and not hug, not breathe, not transmit the disease by using the same bathrooms and standing close together at the sink, etc. is unfortunately quite unrealistic. I edited out "absurd" but that's what I meant. This is way too easily spread, and the elderly are at great risk, but so are young people. The long terms effects are just beginning to be known, including terrifying neuropsychiatric effects that some of my close colleagues are investigating.
The Early Christians figured out how to worship God and follow Jesus when they were faced with getting crucified or eaten by lions. This is perhaps a bit more concrete than a virus, and they got to eat together and hold hands and pray. But we as Christians have to be very serious about the call to stewardship of our community's health. If you go to church and catch the disease but are asymptomatic, you can go about infecting people you don't even know. Even those who have been vaccinated are not immune from catching the disease - just a lot less likely to become seriously ill. If already compromised for whatever reason, they could become seriously ill. Here is a great article in the NY Times about why vaccinated people still need to wear masks: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/health/covid-vaccine-mask.html.
The party isn't over for the virus, and it isn't starting for us humans. I am so grateful that my father and Marianne have gotten both their doses and my mother has gotten her first, with the next scheduled for March 17. But it's still not 100% safe. Please, no wild frat parties with hymn sings, Dad. I know, I am curmudgeonly. At least you get to go to Wegmans.
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