Resurrection Unbound

Reading for Easter Vigil

With churches closed for the last few weeks of Lent and also for Easter due to the COVID-19 pandemic, churches of all sizes and denominations have scrambled to find ways to stay connected. At a time when we need each other most, we cannot gather – at least not in person. Clergy on Twitter and Facebook have reached out to each other with suggestions and support, everything from hosting Zoom bible study to sharing cringe-worthy stories and videos of when things went sideways. The English rector who lit his sweater on fire during evening bible study and calmly patting out the flames on his shoulder before continuing his meditation was a prime example that it’s okay for things not to go perfectly. No one needs perfect right now. We need what is honest, heartfelt, and genuine even if it’s messy, awkward, or clumsy.

As we all realized that churches would be closed for Easter, and likely beyond, there was almost an immediate knee-jerk response from clergy and laypeople alike that Easter would be celebrated the first Sunday our congregations could gather. That quickly shifted to discussions of the need to celebrate all of Holy Week together as many people would be grieving losses and would need the journey to the cross, the darkness and grief of the tomb, and then, and only then, to celebrate the victory over death. It didn’t take long for the liturgy police to point out that Easter is the first Sunday following Passover, which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox and thus, is a feast which absolutely cannot, must not be moved. To quote Doctor Who, ‘Fixed point in time. So sorry.’

I was, and still am, pretty solidly in the camp of celebrate Holy Week whenever we can gather again, even if it’s July. Why? Because somehow I have a hard time accepting that God is bound by our calendars or our sense of timekeeping. God rested on the seventh day – so for the sake of argument, what if God started creating the world on a Wednesday and we’ve been celebrating this Sabbath on Sunday thing wrong all along? Just as the Sabbath is about remembering to take time to rest with God, so too our remembrances of the events of Holy Week and the celebration of the Resurrection are about taking the time to retell the stories and celebrate the promises of God which have been fulfilled in Christ.

Of all the days on the church calendar, the Easter Vigil is far and away my favorite as we tell the stories of God’s promises throughout the generations, waiting in the darkness for the light we know will come. This year, it was a little different. For the first time, I had the opportunity to read for the Vigil. I read not in a church but in my sons’ bedroom because it was the quietest room in the house. I read not in the darkness of evening, but in the brightness of mid-morning, waiting patiently for the young football player and his father to finish working out on the field to their hype music with it’s window-rattling bass. I read not to the familiar faces of my congregation but to a stuffed dog who propped up my iPhone so I could record with a steady camera angle. I read not on Holy Saturday but on Monday morning so that I could email the recording to our choir director, turned tech guru extraordinaire, who would have to splice together all the readings, songs, prayers and sermon that would make up our Easter Vigil. I spent Easter Vigil not in my lovely church but in my bedroom, not at 7:30 but at 9:30, not with others but alone, and yet – not alone. The end result was beautiful and moving in ways I could never have imagined. Each from our own homes, we came together and yet did not gather, separate and yet united.

Time feels strangely fluid in these odd days we’re living in right now. We have to remind each other what day it is. Most of our social obligations have been cancelled en masse, for how long, no one knows. And where is God in all of this? God is beyond all time, unencumbered by our human record keeping and calendars. The victory over death happened over 2000 years ago, it happens now in this moment, in this breath and in the one we are about to take, and it will happen until the end of time because in ways we will never be able to fathom, the resurrection is unbound by time.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

We Are Church

What strange days we find ourselves in right now. The news from all over is ever more concerning. Cases of COVID-19 have appeared in two schools near my home and a friend for the university was exposed to it at their internship. I started to prepare a couple weeks ago by buying paper goods, hand soap, Tylenol, and cold medicines. Still, I was profoundly shocked to walk into the grocery store Thursday afternoon, right after the announcement that schools were to be closed indefinitely, to see the meat case nearly empty. Saturday, I was able to go early in the morning to get meat but the vast array of produce I’m used to so casually picking through was mostly empty. Instead of rows upon rows of colorful fruits and vegetables, there were only empty black bins. It struck me in that moment how spoiled I have always been. I’ve never in my lifetime walked into a store and not been able to buy everything I need for several days worth of complete meals to feed five of us. I have never before seen entire grocery store aisles empty – totally and completely empty – of bread, eggs, milk, juice, meat, frozen vegetables, and fresh produce. In any other time, I’d probably crack jokes: hashtag first world problems, hashtag toilet paper famine, hashtag where’s the beef. But this isn’t like anything I’ve ever faced before and, for once, my dark gallows humor is failing to keep up.

Then the churches started to close.

I have watched and talked on social media over this past week with many of my clergy friends who agonized over whether it was enough to warn those considered vulnerable to stay home or whether they should cancel services altogether.  How do we share the peace? How do we share in communion? How do we keep people safe? How do we best minister to anxious people in this frightening time of crisis? In some cases, bishops made the call for them but many others had to make the best decision they could for their own congregation. Many decided that, for right now, love looks like an empty church.

This morning, I scrolled through social media and I saw church after church after church had found ways on very short notice to connect via livestreams, recorded videos, posted reflections and emails. Pastors preached to empty churches. Organists and musicians played on without their choirs. People shared links to services and reflections from all over the country, across all denominational lines. And there, my friends, is the Body of Christ in action. Right here, right now. Maybe we’ve gathered a little differently this Sunday, but make no mistake, we are still church and Jesus is in our midst. There is no shortage here. There are no empty shelves. There is no worry about what will be restocked or when. There are no quantity limits.

It can be easy to fall into a routine of receiving communion every week in the same way that we pick up groceries. I got the grace I need to get through the week. I can come back next week and do it again. But here’s the thing, Jesus is so much bigger than that. The gift of our Lord that we receive so blithely, so routinely is so far beyond anything we can ever hope to understand. The grace given to us in the sacrament is boundless, infinite, and endless. The grace we receive never runs out. So no matter how long we have to wait to receive communion again, Jesus does not leave us wanting.

For now, let us keep finding new ways to connect safely and let us hold fast to promise of Jesus in the Eucharist.

And may God hold you in the palm of his hand, until we meet again.

Saint James grads, I know y’all sang that last line.

Hashtag we are church.