Service sheet, with readings and links to hymns
In the past week or so, I have done something rather interesting and also chilling. Twice I have met in one of our churches with some Vestry members, and we have measured out and marked the church for seating according to the demands of two-meter social distancing.
In both cases, we had fun doing it. It was good to see each other, to chat, to share stories, and together to see how we could prepare the church so that we could once again gather in church to worship together. It was interesting to see just how many people we could fit in Adare, a large building, or in Kilmallock, a small one. I can tell you that the possible attendance changes drastically depending on whether people come as individuals or as family or social units. Adare varies between 18 and 57 people, and Kilmallock varies between about 12 and 29.
The chilling part of the exercise was the fact that we were doing it at all. Who wants to measure out the church so that we are all neatly spaced in order to reduce the risk of infection from a virus? How much better to just stuff us all into the building, sit in our own favourite pew, sing our hearts out, maybe receive Holy Communion, and then slowly drift out to our cars, with some milling about and chatting on the way, maybe with a cup of tea or coffee. How much better, indeed.
But this will not be what church will be like. We’ve been trying to get the word out that worship will look different: seating from the front of the church back, no singing, no Holy Communion for the moment, getting in our cars and leaving, no milling about, and certainly no hugging or shaking hands. How weird it will be.
We are, of course, following rules put out by the health services, and passed down to us. We are not setting the terms of how we can gather in church; someone else is setting the terms for us.
But you know, that’s the way life is anyway. We try to set the terms for how our life will go, and then what happens? Life happens! And invariably events occur that were not in our well-mapped scenario. And suddenly everything is changed, and we have to adjust. We are not setting the terms for life.
Our Old Testament reading is like this. I think this is one of the hardest passages in all of the Bible. Abraham hears God tell him to kill his son Isaac. This is the son promised to him, the one whom God said would be the forefather of many peoples and nations. And suddenly God is telling Abraham to kill Isaac? How can this be?
But Abraham already knows that he does not set the terms in his dealings with God. Abraham is known for his faithfulness: for trusting in God’s promises even when they seemed absurd and impossible — that he and Sarah would even have a child to begin with. And then trusting in God even when God tells him to kill Isaac. This is the part that seems impossible to us: that Abraham can keep trusting and believing and having faith, but he does, even as he takes up the knife to kill his son, and then an angel stays his hand.
As an aside, this story is understood as teaching that those who worship God Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, the God who became flesh in Jesus Christ — we do not have to practice child sacrifice in order to be right with God. Many cultures in Abraham’s time did practice child sacrifice. We do not have to.
But we still do not set the terms for life. We try to: as one colleague points out, we try to make deals with God — that if we do such-and-so, then God will do what we ask. We try to plan out our lives and make things just as we want them to be.
For the past few months, Covid-19 has forced us to abandon any notion that we can set the terms for life. It has shown us that right now we cannot. But the same will be true going forward. We will still have to keep learning from these events a new way of being, instead of just returning to the previous status quo.
There’s a word to describe what Covid-19 has been like. The word is “biblical.” I have heard people say it, beginning back in the winter, when we heard a strange virus was spreading in China, at the same time that a swarm of locusts was invading parts of Africa. It’s biblical, I started to hear people say, and I said it myself.
What do we mean by that? It’s not just that the Bible tells of plagues and swarms of locusts. It’s that in the Bible massive events seem to come from nowhere, but the events seem to be in response to human behaviour. The events affect thousands of people, calling on them to change something, calling on them to let go of their attempts to control life and set the terms, and instead to put their trust and faith in the Lord God Almighty, who is beyond all our attempts to control, but who nevertheless is as close to us as our breath and who will hold us and guide us through all of life’s trials and difficulties. God offers us life, beyond what we could possibly imagine.
And that brings us to the Gospel reading. It’s a short one, but seems a little strange. Jesus is teaching his disciples, as he sends them out to teach and heal and tell people of the kingdom of God. He says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous.”
We can set the terms of life in this one respect: we can choose how we will receive Jesus Christ, how we will view him. (That is, unless the Lord gets a hold of us and changes our mind and heart, as the Lord did to me.)
If we see Jesus as a good man, that is the reward we will get: we will have some guidelines for ethical behaviour.
If we see Jesus as a prophet, that is the reward we will get: we can have an inspiration, perhaps, for standing up to unjust structures in society.
If we see Jesus as simply a teacher, that is the reward we will get: access to some intriguing parables that teach a few lessons, but probably won’t make much sense if we try to put them all together.
But if we see Jesus as the Son of the living God, as the Creator of heaven and earth become flesh; if we see Jesus as the Redeemer who took all our sins upon himself and continues to do so; if we see Jesus as one to whom we can devote ourselves and our lives, then what we will get is forgiveness of our sins, peace of mind and heart, and guidance through all the trials and difficulties of life, including all the strange events that we did not ask for or expect. We will receive life abundant.