Pilgrimage or Promised Land?
Earlier this weekend the New Brunswick Seminary had an online meeting for pastors of various denominations and traditions about what it might look like to begin to re-open our churches at a time when we still don’t have a vaccination or herd immunity to the Covid-19 virus. And this is something that we’re going to have to start talking about as a congregation because even though things aren’t as safe as we’d like them to be, some states are barreling full speed ahead with easing restrictions, while others, like New Jersey, are moving more cautiously, but still taking baby steps towards re-opening. And re-opening, moving back from online worship to in-person worship, is something that will be on our horizon. We don’t know when, but hopefully soon.
At this meeting we talked about a lot of different things – different ways that our worship experience might change from what we’re used to.
That could include things like taping out marked seating in the pews to maximize distancing. Wearing face masks through the duration of the service. During holy week a lot of churches observe a ritual of foot- or hand-washing – could ritual handwashing become a part of our normal Sundays?
How do we approach communion? One minister suggested that people could bring their own bread. Certainly the practice of intinction – dipped bread into a common cup – will be a non-starter.
The way we greet each other in the Passing of the Peace will likely change, at least for the time being. Handshakes and hugs will be out. Perhaps even elbow taps will be too close.
How will ordinations and confirmations work?
If our churches re-open and one of our church attendees then gets sick – what responsibilities do they have to the rest of the church, and what responsibilities does the church have to them and to the people they may have been in contact with?
The one issue that caused the most consternation, I’d say, is congregational singing. The presenter who talked about singing offered advice on how to go from a 75-person choir to a 12-person choir. That might not be exactly applicable to us. But how does singing work in a smaller congregation? Can people sing safely through masks? Can services be rearranged so that the indoor service only has organ instrumental music, and singing is done before and after the service outside?
The issue with singing is that when we sing and project our voice, we’re using a lot more air, creating a lot more of those droplet particles, and projecting them much further than the 6-foot distance we’re told is safe-ish. Masks might help, but it probably depends on the material, the fit, the enthusiasm of the singer – some of us are content to sing under our breath and keep our voices between us and God. Others of us hear the Psalmist’s instruction to make a joyful noise and so a noise we must make.
The bottom line is that re-opening is likely to be something that we phase in, and it’s going to necessarily be different from what we’re used to doing. I don’t have any hard and fast answers yet for what that might look like or when it might happen, and those answers will probably be somewhat different for each congregation.
That was sort of the practical substance of the workshop.
But one minister said something that stuck with me that I think is worth exploring theologically.
The Rev. Daniel Meeter of the Old First Reformed Church of Brooklyn said this, and I’m paraphrasing, because I don’t remember his exact words – the church behaves and acts differently when it is in exodus than it does when it is in the promised land.
We’re sort of used to doing church from the promised land.
We have our building where we prefer to meet.
We have our liturgy where we know the responses and the prayers and the creeds.
We have our traditions and our idiosyncrasies and the little foibles that make our church unique.
We all know what church looks like when it’s stationary and doesn’t have to go anywhere.
We’re not about 2 months away from being church in the promised land.
We’re not stationary anymore. We’re not all in one place.
The church is on the move.
And the question is, are we a church in exodus, moving away from something?
Or a church in pilgrimage, moving towards something?
For those of you who participated in our Bible Studies this past fall and winter, you’ll remember that we talked about how the peoples’ perceptions of God’s physical presence changed during the Babylonian exile.
For the people who stayed in Jerusalem, the home of the temple, when that temple was destroyed, it was a devastating moment for everyone. Without God’s home, where was God?
For the exiles taken to Babylon, while they certainly lamented the destruction of the temple and their descendants sought to rebuild it as soon as they returned, they had an easier answer to that question – “where is God?” Because they knew that God had been with them in Babylon – that God was, in fact, everywhere.
God’s presence never changed, of course. God had always been everywhere. But our perceptions of God changed, once the temple could no longer be the temple.
So how, then, does this experience, of being away from the church building, and being only tangentially connected to each other through screens and wires… how does this change, not only our perception of God, but our perception of church?
Well, I think it’s important to start with one idea that in some respects, the relationship between God and God’s people never changes. We read the Ten Commandments this morning, given to Moses and the people in the middle of the actual exodus, when the entirety of God’s people were on the move. And we saw the exhortation from Jesus in the Gospel of John, from the center of a very established faithful Jewish culture, basically speaking from God’s promised land, telling people to keep those same Commandments.
So it’s not we were on the move and now we’re not, or we were in one place and now we’re not, so all the rules go out the window. No. God’s love for us is constant. God’s law for us is constant. And remember – God’s law is based on God’s love. Love for God and love for each other – those are the basis of all the law and the prophets and those never change.
But certainly our practices change. Our expressions of love change. And our perceptions change.
The faithfulness of God’s people didn’t die out because the physical temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. They simply carried on in other ways. The temple necessarily became less important (because it wasn’t there anymore) – but the synagogues, not the place where God “lived”, but where the Torah was kept and taught – became more important.
If we think of our time apart from the church building as a sort of pilgrimage, we might then ask, which of these new ways of worship are likely to stick with us in the future?
Let’s think ahead 2, 3, 5 years – when presumably this is all but a distant memory and normality is restored. Will our worship 5 years from now look exactly the same way it did just 2 or 3 months ago?
Probably not.
I’ve gotten enough feedback from people to know that we should probably try to find a way to keep some part of the worship service online, even after we go back to church in-person. That we have enough people who have a physical difficulty getting to church and so they appreciate the option of watching the liturgy from home. So that element of our current pilgrimage is likely to stay in some form, I would think.
It might be a long, long time before we go back to taking communion by intinction, if we ever do. There’s no theological reasoning for it – it’s not a necessity of the sacrament. So rethinking how we serve the Lord’s Supper might be part of our pilgrimage.
The pastoral care we offer each other – and I know it’s always been one of our strengths, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called up a church member in the past 2 months and heard them say, “oh yeah, I talked to this person, that person, and that other person from church already this week.” It’s a tremendous joy to me that so many of us are taking a proactive interest in the welfare of our friends and neighbors. And that’s something I hope continues to stay with us long after this passes.
There are some parts of this pilgrimage that I’ll be happy to leave in the dust once we come through to the other side, into a new promised land. No one wants to spend the next however many months or years trying to sing under our breath through a mask.
And it might be best medical practice to never shake another hand again, but I’m a handshaker and a hugger. The idea of going years without those is not a road I want to go down.
So yes, we can expect some things to change. Some things will be adapted. And re-opening might come in fits and phases, a step or two at a time, possibly with the occasional step or two back.
We know that church as it will be will not be the same as church as it was.
That our worship experience has changed and will likely change again. That our experience with the Word and the music and the flow of the liturgy is not what it once was.
But we also know that even as our expressions of faith adapt, that the God whom we worship, the God whom we serve, the God whom we love, is constant. That the things that really matter – the Word that God writes on our minds, the love that God places in our hearts, the bond of covenant between Creator and Created… those things never change.
The optics change, the window dressings change, the worship styles change – the ways in which we reach worship – that especially has changed over the past couple of months – but the essential substance of God the Creator, God who is all love, God who offers us hope and redemption through Jesus Christ – that never changes.
To God be all glory, power, and honor. Amen.
Let us pray.
Holy and majestic God,
We worship you for all of the ways you are with us in all the seasons of our lives. When our world is filled with comfortable predictability, you challenge us through faith and mission. When our world takes a turn towards the chaotic, you embrace us in reassurance and love. Lord, there may be times when we grow angry and shout to you in frustration, but we also know that without you we would be lost. Guide your church and your people through this time of pilgrimage into a new promised land, dedicated to the glory of your Name. Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.
Earlier this weekend the New Brunswick Seminary had an online meeting for pastors of various denominations and traditions about what it might look like to begin to re-open our churches at a time when we still don’t have a vaccination or herd immunity to the Covid-19 virus. And this is something that we’re going to have to start talking about as a congregation because even though things aren’t as safe as we’d like them to be, some states are barreling full speed ahead with easing restrictions, while others, like New Jersey, are moving more cautiously, but still taking baby steps towards re-opening. And re-opening, moving back from online worship to in-person worship, is something that will be on our horizon. We don’t know when, but hopefully soon.
At this meeting we talked about a lot of different things – different ways that our worship experience might change from what we’re used to.
That could include things like taping out marked seating in the pews to maximize distancing. Wearing face masks through the duration of the service. During holy week a lot of churches observe a ritual of foot- or hand-washing – could ritual handwashing become a part of our normal Sundays?
How do we approach communion? One minister suggested that people could bring their own bread. Certainly the practice of intinction – dipped bread into a common cup – will be a non-starter.
The way we greet each other in the Passing of the Peace will likely change, at least for the time being. Handshakes and hugs will be out. Perhaps even elbow taps will be too close.
How will ordinations and confirmations work?
If our churches re-open and one of our church attendees then gets sick – what responsibilities do they have to the rest of the church, and what responsibilities does the church have to them and to the people they may have been in contact with?
The one issue that caused the most consternation, I’d say, is congregational singing. The presenter who talked about singing offered advice on how to go from a 75-person choir to a 12-person choir. That might not be exactly applicable to us. But how does singing work in a smaller congregation? Can people sing safely through masks? Can services be rearranged so that the indoor service only has organ instrumental music, and singing is done before and after the service outside?
The issue with singing is that when we sing and project our voice, we’re using a lot more air, creating a lot more of those droplet particles, and projecting them much further than the 6-foot distance we’re told is safe-ish. Masks might help, but it probably depends on the material, the fit, the enthusiasm of the singer – some of us are content to sing under our breath and keep our voices between us and God. Others of us hear the Psalmist’s instruction to make a joyful noise and so a noise we must make.
The bottom line is that re-opening is likely to be something that we phase in, and it’s going to necessarily be different from what we’re used to doing. I don’t have any hard and fast answers yet for what that might look like or when it might happen, and those answers will probably be somewhat different for each congregation.
That was sort of the practical substance of the workshop.
But one minister said something that stuck with me that I think is worth exploring theologically.
The Rev. Daniel Meeter of the Old First Reformed Church of Brooklyn said this, and I’m paraphrasing, because I don’t remember his exact words – the church behaves and acts differently when it is in exodus than it does when it is in the promised land.
We’re sort of used to doing church from the promised land.
We have our building where we prefer to meet.
We have our liturgy where we know the responses and the prayers and the creeds.
We have our traditions and our idiosyncrasies and the little foibles that make our church unique.
We all know what church looks like when it’s stationary and doesn’t have to go anywhere.
We’re not about 2 months away from being church in the promised land.
We’re not stationary anymore. We’re not all in one place.
The church is on the move.
And the question is, are we a church in exodus, moving away from something?
Or a church in pilgrimage, moving towards something?
For those of you who participated in our Bible Studies this past fall and winter, you’ll remember that we talked about how the peoples’ perceptions of God’s physical presence changed during the Babylonian exile.
For the people who stayed in Jerusalem, the home of the temple, when that temple was destroyed, it was a devastating moment for everyone. Without God’s home, where was God?
For the exiles taken to Babylon, while they certainly lamented the destruction of the temple and their descendants sought to rebuild it as soon as they returned, they had an easier answer to that question – “where is God?” Because they knew that God had been with them in Babylon – that God was, in fact, everywhere.
God’s presence never changed, of course. God had always been everywhere. But our perceptions of God changed, once the temple could no longer be the temple.
So how, then, does this experience, of being away from the church building, and being only tangentially connected to each other through screens and wires… how does this change, not only our perception of God, but our perception of church?
Well, I think it’s important to start with one idea that in some respects, the relationship between God and God’s people never changes. We read the Ten Commandments this morning, given to Moses and the people in the middle of the actual exodus, when the entirety of God’s people were on the move. And we saw the exhortation from Jesus in the Gospel of John, from the center of a very established faithful Jewish culture, basically speaking from God’s promised land, telling people to keep those same Commandments.
So it’s not we were on the move and now we’re not, or we were in one place and now we’re not, so all the rules go out the window. No. God’s love for us is constant. God’s law for us is constant. And remember – God’s law is based on God’s love. Love for God and love for each other – those are the basis of all the law and the prophets and those never change.
But certainly our practices change. Our expressions of love change. And our perceptions change.
The faithfulness of God’s people didn’t die out because the physical temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. They simply carried on in other ways. The temple necessarily became less important (because it wasn’t there anymore) – but the synagogues, not the place where God “lived”, but where the Torah was kept and taught – became more important.
If we think of our time apart from the church building as a sort of pilgrimage, we might then ask, which of these new ways of worship are likely to stick with us in the future?
Let’s think ahead 2, 3, 5 years – when presumably this is all but a distant memory and normality is restored. Will our worship 5 years from now look exactly the same way it did just 2 or 3 months ago?
Probably not.
I’ve gotten enough feedback from people to know that we should probably try to find a way to keep some part of the worship service online, even after we go back to church in-person. That we have enough people who have a physical difficulty getting to church and so they appreciate the option of watching the liturgy from home. So that element of our current pilgrimage is likely to stay in some form, I would think.
It might be a long, long time before we go back to taking communion by intinction, if we ever do. There’s no theological reasoning for it – it’s not a necessity of the sacrament. So rethinking how we serve the Lord’s Supper might be part of our pilgrimage.
The pastoral care we offer each other – and I know it’s always been one of our strengths, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called up a church member in the past 2 months and heard them say, “oh yeah, I talked to this person, that person, and that other person from church already this week.” It’s a tremendous joy to me that so many of us are taking a proactive interest in the welfare of our friends and neighbors. And that’s something I hope continues to stay with us long after this passes.
There are some parts of this pilgrimage that I’ll be happy to leave in the dust once we come through to the other side, into a new promised land. No one wants to spend the next however many months or years trying to sing under our breath through a mask.
And it might be best medical practice to never shake another hand again, but I’m a handshaker and a hugger. The idea of going years without those is not a road I want to go down.
So yes, we can expect some things to change. Some things will be adapted. And re-opening might come in fits and phases, a step or two at a time, possibly with the occasional step or two back.
We know that church as it will be will not be the same as church as it was.
That our worship experience has changed and will likely change again. That our experience with the Word and the music and the flow of the liturgy is not what it once was.
But we also know that even as our expressions of faith adapt, that the God whom we worship, the God whom we serve, the God whom we love, is constant. That the things that really matter – the Word that God writes on our minds, the love that God places in our hearts, the bond of covenant between Creator and Created… those things never change.
The optics change, the window dressings change, the worship styles change – the ways in which we reach worship – that especially has changed over the past couple of months – but the essential substance of God the Creator, God who is all love, God who offers us hope and redemption through Jesus Christ – that never changes.
To God be all glory, power, and honor. Amen.
Let us pray.
Holy and majestic God,
We worship you for all of the ways you are with us in all the seasons of our lives. When our world is filled with comfortable predictability, you challenge us through faith and mission. When our world takes a turn towards the chaotic, you embrace us in reassurance and love. Lord, there may be times when we grow angry and shout to you in frustration, but we also know that without you we would be lost. Guide your church and your people through this time of pilgrimage into a new promised land, dedicated to the glory of your Name. Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.