Grace and Peace to you from the one who is, who was, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
I will be honest. My mind has not been very focused on the work of being a pastor this week. Instead, I have been working feverishly on attempting to finish out the work for this semester in seminary. Soon the first of hopefully four years will be finished. It has been a week of reading and writing, desperately trying to complete papers and course work that I have been putting off. Now, I am to a point where all that remains is a single 8-10 page paper on “A Trinitarian Articulation of the Theology of the Cross.” Don’t worry if that doesn’t make much sense to you, because, well it doesn’t make much sense to me and the paper is due Friday, well actually it was due May 1st, but like many of my fellow students I have been granted an extension to the end of the term. This week I have written (or rewritten) 21 pages for classes.
What has been on my mind this week aside from classes has been COVID-19, social distancing, rising rates of infection, new death forecasts, the two cases of COVID in the staff of Vice President Pence and President Trump, to mask or not to mask, and what should I say about all of this. I have been really particularly thinking about what about a theology of pandemic. What ought faith leaders, including myself, be saying to the members of our congregations, our communities, and in general all people concerning God in the time of COVID.
I am grateful for the work of Bishop Lorna Halaas, the Bishop of the Western Iowa Synod of the ELCA. She joined (digitally) with other faith leaders here in Iowa to release a statement on April 28th concerning Governor Reynolds’ proclamation that church can and should begin meeting in person again. In this statement 21 faith leaders from 10 denominations stated that while we want to begin meeting in person again, the scientific evidence does not point to this being a time to reopen and start gathering again. The denominational leaders ask the local congregations to exercise caution and continue to wait, continue to meet in other ways than in person.
This week our Governor traveled to Washington to meet with President Trump. There she was praised for re-opening Iowa (even as numbers throughout the state continue to rise, this week alone we have seen a doubling in the number of cases here in Sioux County). It is believed that the statement of the faith leaders was brought to the attention of the President because the next day it was announced that Vice President Pence would be traveling to Iowa and one of the stated goals of his presence was to convince faith leaders to reopen churches and start meeting in person again.
In response to this trip the 21 faith leaders, including Bishop Lorna, reissued their statement from April 28th, with an additional message.
“As church denominational leaders, representing more than 1.2 million Christians throughout the state of Iowa, we are grateful for the opportunity provided by the upcoming visit of Vice President Mike Pence to re-issue and recommit to our position regarding in-person gatherings of faith communities, whether for worship or group ministries.
With one voice, we want to assure the Vice President that Iowa’s denominational leaders are currently working closely with local faith leaders in developing plans for when it becomes time to gather again in person. That time is likely to arrive in waves, reflecting regional diversity, with particular attention given to safe practices and a close observation of the scientific and local data on the spread of this coronavirus.
We continue to abide unanimously to our statement of April 28th, which we reissue at this time.”
I want to read to you also the most relevant part of the April 28th statement:
“It is by our faith that we are compelled to love our neighbor. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, that love comes to expression by remaining physically apart. Loving our neighbor, and thereby the whole community, includes putting public health and the well-being of others ahead of the natural desire to be physically present together in community and in worship.
As faith leaders, our hearts grieve for the immense pain and suffering felt by so many during these times. Whether mourning the loss of a loved one who has died from the coronavirus; facing the economic stress due to the loss of employment, business, or income; feeling isolated or alone; experiencing the stress of managing children and work from home; carrying the burden of uncertainty from the disaster and when a new normal may emerge, we pray you might find strength and hope in God’s unending and ever-present love.
For the sake of the common good, we ask all congregations, their leaders, and their members to prioritize the safety and well-being of each other, those at particular risk, and those in their broader community. Please love one another and your neighbor by continuing to be in community together from afar.”
It was while the Vice President was here in Iowa, that it was announced that one of the Vice President’s staff has tested positive for COVID-19 and a valet for President Trump has also tested positive for COVID-19, both the President and Vice President have been exposed directly to individuals who had the virus, and have been in turn directly exposing others.
I want to share with you now the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Writing about the life together of the illegal seminary he co-lead during the years of the Nazi regime, Bonhoeffer opened his book with a discussion of the Christian community, particularly the gift of God that is present in the visible gathering of Christians living and worshiping together.
“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” (Ps. 133:1)
It is by God’s grace that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly around God’s word and sacrament in this world. Not all Christians partake of this grace. The imprisoned, the sick, the lonely who live in the diaspora, the proclaimers of the gospel in heathen lands stand alone. They know that visible community is grace.
The believer need not feel any shame when yearning for the physical presence of other Christians, as if one were still living too much in the flesh. A human being is created as a body; the Son of God appeared on earth in the body for our sake and was raised in the body. In the sacrament the believer receives the Lord Christ in the body, and the resurrection of the dead will bring about the perfected community of God’s spiritual-physical creatures. Therefore, the believer praises the Creator, the Reconciler and the Redeemer, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for the bodily presence of the other Christian. The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian living in the diaspora recognizes in the nearness of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God. In their loneliness, both the visitor and the one visited recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body. They receive and meet each other as one meets the Lord, in reverence, humility, and joy. They receive each other’s blessings as the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if there is so much happiness and joy even in a single encounter of one Christian with another, what inexhaustible riches must invariably open up for those who by God’s will are privileged to live in daily community life with other Christians! Of course, what is an inexpressible blessing from God for the lonely individual is easily disregarded and trampled under foot by those who receive the gift every day. It is easily forgotten that the community of Christians is a gift of grace from the kingdom of God, a gift that can be taken from us any day—that the time still separating us from the most profound loneliness may be brief indeed. Therefore, let those who until now have had the privilege of living a Christian life together with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of their hearts. Let them thank God on their knees and realize: it is grace, nothing but grace, that we are still permitted to live in the community of Christians today.”
Currently we are being denied the ability to meet in person, that grace and gift has been taken from us for the time being, but it will only be a temporary separation. This text reminds me of the fact that we have quite a few members who are unable to meet with us weekly. Let alone the unbelievable number of Americans who are incarcerated or who are alone due to illness or age. I think of the fact that the vast majority of disabled Americans are unable to worship weekly, particularly as we live in a community with an agency dedicated to the care of men and women with intellectual disabilities. While we claim to be a Christian community, we make very little effort to insure that those with disability are able to attend worship and events of the church. I think not only of our members who live at Whispering Heights, but also the other residents and those who are unable to leave their homes who receive very few, if any visitors. I also think of a congregation of the Western Iowa Synod, Church of the Damascus Road, a prison congregation.
I know that until recently I have taken for granted the opportunity to worship together with other Christians, to have visitors, friends and family, and to feel the presence of Christ through the bodily presence of other people. I took for granted the practice of weekly (or more frequent) communion.
I imagine that many of you too have also not thought about what it might mean to not be able to worship together or partake in the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist, until this pandemic and physical distancing has continued to wear on.
So, the first thing that I think we will need to think about whenever this passes is how do we minister and bring the message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to those who are consistently separated from the worshiping community, how do we share the joy and gift of being physically present with the lonely in our community and beyond? How do we become a welcoming community, beyond greeting and trying to make people feel accepted, how do we invite others to participate in the life of Christ in the world? How will we live out our faith in our daily lives?
After all of that, a word on the texts this week.
The gospel reading this week is one that I have used in some way or another in almost all of the funeral services that I have presided. It is a comforting text. Jesus has gone before to prepare a dwelling place for us in heaven. We know the way there, believe in God and believe in Christ also. It is a particularly comforting text when we are faced with the loss of a loved one, to know that they are in the Father’s house, dwelling with Jesus through eternity. The pains and sorrows of life have past, and now they live in Christ, in paradise. It is our hope that we too will someday (hopefully not all that soon) be able to dwell there with God.
But, what does this mean about our lives here? We know that in the future, our hope will be realized, because God, through the death and resurrection of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in the world to give us the Grace of God through faith, has already accomplished all that is necessary for this to be a future reality for each of us. But, today, now, in a world where suffering still exists, were illness, pain, loneliness, despair, incarceration, violence, and rejection still exist, where COVID-19 determines so much of our daily lives, what does this mean for us today?
Interestingly, today’s gospel comes immediately after Judas has left the last supper to gather to soldiers and Jesus has told Peter in front of the remaining disciples that even Peter will betray Jesus. Jesus speaks into the room, do not let your hearts be troubled. Sure, there is a hope for the future togetherness with God, but that is already a reality in the here and now. While Jesus goes to the Father, the Holy Spirit remains with us, and Christ intercedes for us to the Father, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”
We live in the time in between. The time of Christ’s resurrection and the return of Christ. We live in the time of the already, but not yet. God’s kingdom has begun here on earth through the death and resurrection of Christ and is manifested by the Holy Spirit working in and through us in the world, but it is also not here yet in its entirety. We wait and continue God’s work of reconciliation through our relationships in the here and now, while we wait for the new life and new creation at the end of time. We experience in our lives together, even when we must be physically distant, a foretaste (the fancy theological term is a prolepsis) of the kingdom of God.
Today, we live as people truly apart, called to love our neighbor because of the love God has shown us. We long for the time in which we can be gathered together by the Holy Spirit, until then show love in whatever ways that you can, call, email, video chat, write one another. Even in this time of difficulty we can speak with the Psalmist,
“You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name's sake lead me and guide me... for you are my refuge. 5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God... Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.”