I've been pretty quiet on this blog for over a month. This does not mean that I have not been ruminating! But in fact, day-to-day work (both personal work and vocational) has kept me focusing on one day at a time. That's a good thing! It's at the core of Biblical faith; it's what the manna in the wilderness was for and I think it takes us to the heart of the teachings of Jesus.
Even so, it is helpful from time to time to take the long view. My vacation time this summer came late - just last week in fact. It allowed for some time to step away from the constant flow of emails and daily work - to walk and to listen to the sound of the waves and to enjoy delicious food and wine and the company of loved ones. As I return to work in the midst of COVID, it is still true that this pandemic affects the way we think about Christian community, and what it means to be the Church. But it does help, even when we are called to live one day at a time, to take the long view.
If you are an Episcopalian reading this post you probably own a Book of Common Prayer. If you are not, but have an interest in this resource for prayer, you can find an online version here. The portion I want to call your attention to is called "An Outline of the Faith, commonly called the Catechism," which begins on page 845. More specifically, I invite you to consider the four sections that begin on page 853: The Holy Scriptures, The Church, The Ministry, Prayer and Worship.
First, a reminder: the Catechism is what it claims to be, an outline of the faith. Not the last word. Catechesis means, literally, oral instruction. The catechism is like a diving board - a place from which we jump into the deeper waters. It's a beginning.
But I think that it is helpful, from time to time, to return to the beginning. Especially after a kind of trauma like we have been experiencing over these past six months. We have experienced tremendous loss. We old dogs who are creatures of all kinds of habits (including and especially liturgical habits) are learning new tricks. And learning can be exhausting.
This post is meant to focus on the four sections named above, as a way forward. But I want to get there by speaking of the one that immediately precedes and then follows these four. The Holy Spirit comes right before Holy Scripture. And the Sacraments follow Prayer and Worship.
Here is the question I want to ask, and have been asking for some time: what is the Holy Spirit up to right now? If you are not a believer, then this question is irrelevant. But if you are, you are in the practice of examining your life and the world to see where God is at work. For me this is primarily about the ways that the Holy Spirit is on the move as comforter and as goader leading us into all truth, one step at a time usually but also sometimes with amazing epiphanies. So the catechism asks: how do we recognize the truths taught by the Holy Spirit? And the answer is that we discover those truths that are in accord with Holy Scripture in both the Old and New Testaments.
We can take a fresh look, ordained and lay people, at God's Word in these times. And that is happening. I keep hearing (lay) people say that they never attended a Bible study before but they are doing so now, in online groups. They are forming communities that are not virtual, but quite real and authentic, even if they require technology that makes virtual rooms in which to gather. But I think the seminary-trained ordained folks are also rediscovering that the Bible goes deeper than preparing to preach on the Gospel reading on Sunday morning. Together, in the midst of these challenging times, the Holy Spirit is taking us by the hand and leading us into Scriptures we had forgotten about, or maybe never knew. The psalms are not afraid to tell the truth about grief and loss and lament. The time in the wilderness of Sinai and even more the time of the Babylonian exile are readily available sources for new exploration. With Ezekiel we ask, "can these bones live?" and the answer is still, yes, by God's grace.
The Church that seeks to follow the risen Christ doesn't just have a mission; it is a mission. It is not a building. It is a people We all knew this and know this and yes, we also miss gathering the people and singing and tasting and seeing that the Lord is good and even our attempts to do this in limited ways remind us of what we have lost. All true. But those things are not Church. Church is about restoring all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. It's about prayer (which is not the same as worship) and proclaiming the good news and promoting justice, peace, and love. When we say that the buildings have been closed but the Church's work has not stopped we mean this. I see it "on the ground" across the diocese I serve - congregations that saw their sole purpose through the lens of Sunday mornings at 8 or 10 that now have a deeper grasp of what it means to follow Jesus.
In short, the work of calling and then making disciples continues. The sections on ministry and prayer remind us this was never about the ordained or about Sunday morning Eucharist exclusively. I enjoy Facebook - I get all kinds of notices now about the daily office being prayed, daily. Imagine that! Morning Prayer. Noonday Prayers. Evening Prayer. Compline. Usually all of these aren't being offered in every place. But Episcopalians are discovering and rediscovering pages of the Prayerbook that have been underutilized for a long time.
We have been offering Zoom trainings on how to lead these prayers for lay people. None of them need to be led by the clergy. We have had three sessions limited to twenty at a time fill up in very short order. In addition we've had a section limited to twelve that will gather over six weeks to train lay preachers fill up with four on the wait list for the next time. The Holy Spirit is doing something really important and we are starting to notice.
The Church will not be the same at the other side of COVID. We will not "go back to normal." But it will be recognizable - maybe more so than at any time since the conversion of Constantine. It will be about communities - real ones even when they gather virtually - that are reading scripture and learning to pray. There is energy and creativity and excitement in this work that we must not miss in the midst of all the very real losses. In my tradition the biggest loss has been the regular celebration of Holy Eucharist among the gathered community. That Sacrament goes beyond this post but you can still read about it in The Catechism if you like. But for now I just add that after the sections on the Holy Scriptures, and the Church, and the Ministry, and Prayer and Worship, we are asked: what are the sacraments? And the answer: "...outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace."
Baptism and Eucharist, then, are not ends in themselves but signs of and means of grace. It seems to me that we do well, in these times, to look for outward and visible signs of grace all around us. This post began with the sounds of waves hitting the shore and some Sabbath time carved out in what had been a long summer of work for me. In the midst of all the disruptive time there has been healing and signs of God's grace in daily COVID walks for me and then most recently the sound again of waves hitting the sand. God's grace hasn't disappeared from our lives or from our world. This is not to dismiss the challenges. It is simply to say that two things can be true at once. We can be in the midst of difficult days and still pay attention for the places where God is present.
I don't think I've said anything very profound or original here. It's more of a gathering of what I've been reflecting on - ruminating on, if you will. In any given day there are ups and downs and those seem accentuated in this time. I am also convinced that we have harder days ahead of us with fall and winter and a "second wave" that, at least in New England, will cause us to move back indoors and hunker down. There will be an end, but there is no vaccine coming like a miracle by election day that will be distributed to everyone safely. But eventually we will get to a new place.
For me, in my personal and vocational life, I am asking what we do to prepare for that. And I think the answer that seems clear to me is that we, who seek to follow Jesus, are meant to be forming disciples. And that work does not require of us that we all be together in one place. It requires small groups that are praying and reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting scripture.
I have observed more than once that lay people seem to be embracing this new calling with more hope than many clergy. I say this only as one who is paid to listen to both groups regularly. I amend that after an experience yesterday with a group of bi-vocational clergy who seem more hopeful than the ones who are focused only on church work. Having a foot in a couple of different worlds seems to allow this group, at least, to see some things that the full-time folks do not yet see as a group. Our working theory was that this is because of the very real anxiety about the future and about what the work of clergy will look like on the other side of all of this - and how many full-time jobs there will be. I care very, very much about clergy wellness and I see it in their eyes how scared and how tired many are in working harder than they've ever worked before. But I also think that this is a moment to trust God and God's people and open our hearts to the new thing God is up to. It may be that some of the folks who are learning to pray the Daily Office and show up at Bible Studies on line are "outward and visible signs" of this new thing, and a revitalized Church on the other side of all of this.
With this in mind I offer one closing thought. It has stayed with me for some time now. Earlier this summer, I heard a layperson say in a Sunday morning Zoom gathering for Morning Prayer: look at this screen! We can see each other! We see faces. In worship - in pews - all I ever saw were the backs of people's heads -and the face of the preacher and other worship leaders. It was like being at a play. But now we are a community and even if gathered virtually we are all very real. We are more vulnerable. We are able to engage and share stories and find connections. Across my diocese I've heard similar things especially about Zoom coffee hours which are way better than most real ones where people gather with the usual suspects and have the usual conversations. Real relationships are forming which bond and kit together God's people.
How long, oh Lord? That I don't know. But I think that living "in the meantime" we keep at it. We keep forming disciples and we find new ways to do this old work. Always with God's help. Always with the comfort and goading of God's Holy Spirit.
