Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time         (today’s lectionary)
Following Jesus in days of pandemic
The first thing is to decide what to do about church. Sunday services every week have been part of both our lives since childhood. We moved from Lincoln to Waynesville to Urbana, we changed churches several times, but always on Sunday morning we went somewhere.
All you who are thirsty, come and drink!
Come receive grain and eat.
Heed me and you shall eat well,
Come to me and listen, that you may have life.
For awhile I visited several churches every Sunday. Margaret has done that too. Online, she does it now. We couldn’t get enough. We have heard thousands of sermons, sung countless worship songs, made our way across the country to evening revivals, eaten fabulous potlucks, been on church boards and committees, taught Sunday School, attended small groups of every kind, and traveled on mission trips.
The Lord is gracious and merciful
The Lord is good to all and compassionate.
You give us our food in due season
And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
We have hugged friends and strangers and looked into the eyes of So Many People. They have prayed for us, and we have prayed for them – for their healing, in their grief, for their well-being, for their spiritual breakthroughs, for their families and their friends.
The Lord is near to all who call upon him
To all who call upon him in truth.
And now?
Not so much.
What will separate us from the love of Christ?
If God is for us, what can be against us?
Over 70 years, we have grown to the rhythm of church on Sunday.
One does not live by bread alone
But on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
Our own small church has begun gathering again in our meeting place. With masks, without personal singing, without hugs or touches, and at least six feet apart.
When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
We still attend online, without masks, with personal singing, touching each other. Our Eucharist is not frequent, but it is intimate. Margaret attends parts of several services online, all over the country. But …
Jesus returned, saw the vast crowd and cured their sick.
Jesus was glad to see them. He wanted to be with them. And we want to be with our family of friends. Break bread together on our knees, so to speak.
Taking only five loaves and two fish, Jesus said the blessing and broke the loaves. The disciples gave the bread and fish to all of the crowd, those five thousand plus women and children, and there were twelve baskets left over. Everyone was satisfied.
This feeding of the multitudes has happened to us countless times. We’ve gone to church empty and left full. And many others too have also been filled. Not because of the sermon or the singing, conversation, coffee, or the architecture. None of these satisfies on its own.
We were reading a devotion together, and Margaret thought out loud about why we go to church. What really do we miss, now that services are changed beyond recognition?
For us church has been a weekly reminder of life with others and life with God deep below the surface of hours and days that pass and fly away.
We go to honor Sabbath and keep it holy. We go to celebrate the Presence that pours through us every day.
We practice Eucharist with others, and know the body of Christ between us and within us.
We go to place our BE-ing alongside the BE-ing of our brothers and sisters, in the presence of God’s BE-ing.
God comes to BE with his Created Ones, those he made to be creative alongside him. That’s all of us. He invites us to show up when He comes, and when we do, we know joy.
I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
Nor angels nor principalities,
Nor present things nor future things
Nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
Nor any other creature
Will be able to separate us from the love of God
Which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That’s why we come empty and leave full.
How we do this beyond these days of distancing is uncertain, undetermined.
But that is why we go to church. And what we miss so much.
(Isaiah 55, Psalm 145, Romans 8, Matthew 4, Matthew 14)
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