Dear Trinity,
Last Saturday night we invited the most vulnerable members of our congregation to pioneer an outdoor evening service called Evensong. Each family or individual wore masks, sat in their reserved seats, and did their best to make the most of a challenging but beautiful night. Pastor Carson led worship from his guitar, and I preached a short sermon on how the Spirit is guiding us into all truth, and how Jesus is inviting us to stay humble, to keep learning, and to keep on creating.
This Saturday night we are expanding to two services and inviting anyone to join us by signing up HERE, bringing masks (or using ones we provide), and giving us your name and number of people coming in advance so we can set up accordingly. Like everything else these days, the conditions under which we meet are not ideal, but let’s pray we do more than “grin and bear it” (especially since we can’t see each other’s grins). Let’s pray the Holy Spirit moves in & through & despite us on Saturday night at Evensong, and on Sunday morning at drive-thru church. In fact, my prayer is that the virus will make us more aware of how dependent we are upon the Holy Spirit, now that many things we took for granted are no longer possible. Simple things, and powerful things like seeing each other’s faces, passing Christ’s peace with a touch, and hearing the sound of someone beside you sing. I can tell you it was hard preaching last Saturday because I couldn’t tell what people were thinking. I didn’t know if people were smiling, crying, or falling asleep. I couldn’t tell what Joel Barger was thinking as he prepared to fly to Baltimore for his second surgery, or how fresh-from-Texas Valarie Johnson felt as a second-time visitor, or how Joyce Callsvik felt sitting alone in a single chair.
What I do know is that when God’s Word goes out, it does not return empty. I know that I am praying the virus does not have the final word on how, whether, or why we worship. In fact, I am praying that the virus will somehow draw us c l o s e r to seeing God, our neighbors, and ourselves in Christ. Please join me in this prayer, and may the meditation of your hearts be pleasing to our Lord Jesus Christ, even if our faces cannot yet fully show it.
Through a glass darkly,
Father Matt