Pandemic Disgrace

Lent 4, Year B

Joshua 5:9-12**

This week I spent a few hours on the phone with two different companies, trying to use a credit I received from a flight that was cancelled in March 2020. These were frustrating hours, made more complicated by the grief they brought up in me. In early March 2020, I was supposed to go   to Texas to see some friends. We were going to laugh, run a 5K, go to the spa, and visit a pickle festival. Several of the friends are Episcopalian clergy. We began to wonder if we needed to cancel the trip when word of a new coronavirus, COVID-19, began to spread. And then a co-worker of one of the priests was found to have this illness, brought back from a clergy conference in another state. The trip was cancelled.  

 

At the time, the airlines said too bad. Much later, they decided to issue credits for scheduled flights and, thus, I found myself trying to apply that credit this week to a future trip, only to get a run-around and to experience grief all over again. Grief for the trip that didn’t happen. Grief for all that has happened. Grief for the losses and the changes and the time and what cannot be undone. 

 

When looking at the texts for this week, the easy sermon and, perhaps, the better sermon is with the Luke 15 text of the prodigal sons, but I could not stop thinking about the reading from Joshua. Here are God’s people, coming into the land they have been promised. They can now stop wandering. Their stillness, their new location, permits this generation - one removed from enslavement in Egypt - to observe the holy rituals of circumcision and celebrating the Passover. 

 

These short verses are a reminder of how God provided for them and their parents in the wilderness. Today’s passage begins, though, with a curious phrase, “The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.”” 

 

Surely the “disgrace of Egypt” belongs to Egypt. The shame of having enslaved other persons, the embarrassment of having those persons escape, the humiliation to one’s own personal gods and idols- this disgrace should be ascribed to the Pharaoh and his associates. Why would the people of Israel, the enslaved people, the now free people, have disgrace ascribed to them? 

 

We are not only marked by the history of our actions, but also shaped and scarred by how others have acted toward us. Our ancestors experienced stresses and pains that continue to affect us through family stories. Even more deeply, things like enslavement, pandemics, and wars shape our epigenetics, the history and future of our genes, stirring deep responses within us that are beyond our understanding. In our own lives, this includes our past two years and all those years have entailed. 

 

For us, the disgrace of COVID-19 is still with us, by which I mean the pain, the frustrations, the losses, and the changes. We must tell the truth about these things. We must acknowledge that in our congregation, things that took years to build- Sunday school programs, choir, youth group, WELCA- all of these and more have suffered and we cannot simply go back to what was. We have to grieve what has been lost and then, and only then, can we consider the richness of the place where we currently are. 

 

The disgrace of Egypt lingered with the people of Israel in their fear, their questions about their ancestors, and their understanding of the nature of the Lord. After all, if divine intervention could bring them into freedom, why were they permitted to be enslaved at all? They can fully embrace the joy and possibility of the promised land only when the reproach and shame of the past is lifted. 

 

The years of wandering contained stories of the people’s frustration, rebellion, and anger. The story of the golden calf, the complaining about God’s provision, even Moses striking the rock- all these stories are intertwined with the reality of having been led by God into freedom and a way of being. We have our own stories of frustration, rebellion, and anger.  

 

Some of those stories have changed relationships between people in our congregation, in this town, and across the world. Just as in the story of the Israelites, our own stories feature hardened hearts on all sides.  And, frankly, we do not know yet what our promised land will be. We know it is likely that this strain of coronavirus, with its variants, will likely be with us for some time to come. We may enter our promised future with yearly vaccines and advised precautions, as with most flu strains, or there may yet be more serious realities to come. We do not declare when we have arrived. God does. 

 

This kind of burden, the disgrace of Egypt as well as the pain of COVID-19, does not fall away instantly. God’s provision for the people through their wilderness wandering removed the burden slowly. Through each bite of manna, God rebuilt trust with the people of Israel. Through each sip of clean water, the people of Israel perceived the power and mercy of the One in whom their hope was anchored. 

 

The disgrace of Egypt defined them by pain and by the actions of others. The promise of Canaan, the promised land, redefined them as a people who had been led and fed by God. Thus, equipped by grace, they ate the produce of the land and feasted on the promise of tomorrow. 

 

At some point in the future, the generations that follow us will see how we acted to the various realities we are currently experiencing- a pandemic, social shifts, international crises, changing weather patterns. They may well judge us, even though they will not be able to imagine what we have experienced. In our own little corner, we can tell our own version of that story

- how God provided for us through science, mail, social media, and video, 

- how we were patient and faithful even when how we did church looked different, 

- how we were willing to be uncomfortable for the sake and the health of others, 

-  how we took risks on new ways of doing things for the sake of the gospel of Christ in our midst and in the world. 

 

Today is not yet the day when the complete pain of COVID-19 is rolled away from us. It remains, but bigger and greater is the God who remains with us, who is still making all things new, who is loving and merciful, who saves us through Christ. In this wandering, in this journey to a new way and time of being, God is with us. This is truth is our feast, in our present time and always. And it is enough. 

**This sermon in no way deals with the complications of this text, including but not limited to - history  of enslavement, the occupants of the land when the Israelites got there, or the violence of the rest of Joshua against those people. 

Additionally this sermon only addresses COVID-19 and is not clearly speaking to any other situations of the  past two years. 

I am not afraid. I am heartbroken.

I live in Montana, a state with a very low number of diagnosed COVID-19 cases. Even more specifically, my county has not as yet had any cases. This passover is both a blessing and a curse because it divides the community, with some of our citizens feeling as though we have been spared because we have been careful and others suspecting that our precautions were "sound and fury, signifying nothing". (Macbeth)

Now we have the ever-present questions about what we can do, what we should do, and from what should we abstain. In the conversations around masks, distance, and open v. close, the word "fear" gets bandied about. It is murmured that people who are cautious are "fearful" or being led by fear, as opposed to faithfulness or freedom.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself. As a mother, as a wife, as a sister, as a friend, as a pastor, as a neighbor, as a daughter, as a citizen, I am not afraid. I am heartbroken.

My heart broke when I posted a sign in March, closing the church to the public and to in-person worship. Praying for those who depended on the building for 12-step help, a source of community, and actual sanctuary, I ached and I grieve.

Another fissure came through weeks of preaching without seeing faces, feeling the energy in the room, or hearing singing other than my own. Learning that singing may be off the table for awhile brought tears and sorrow too deep even for sighs. Remembering our harmonies between the Yellowstone and the Boulder, I hung up my harp. I ached and I grieve.

The experience of Holy Communion brings heart wholeness through Christ's presence in the elements and in the community as we eat, drink, and breathe together. In our present fast from the physical sacrament, the pieces of my heart vibrate with longing. Making the decision for the fast was right for our community, but I ached and I grieve.

This past week, I denied a person a hug because I had permitted a person outside my family to hug me the day before. In embracing one another, I also embraced a waiting period to be sure I neither caught nor transmitted anything but love and compassion. To be physically present to one meant denying another. For the same reason, I am continuing to only eat takeout from local restaurant and not to sit inside. In the waiting, I ached and I grieve.

A friend of mine, another pastor, talked with her community about the fact that continuing to worship virtually permitted the pastors of the church to be present- with masks and other precautions- to the sick and dying of the church. When a pastor hasn't been exposed to 50, 60, 90, 150 people on a Sunday, he can more easily go to a bedside or home because it is a more calculated risk for himself and the person he is visiting. This isn't the case in all places right now, but it is for this church and the pastors in question. In choosing the needs of the few for the sake of spiritual care, I am hoping not to drive away the many. For the whole church, I ached and I grieve.

I have offered commendation of the dying over the phone. Heartbreak. I have watched divisions and harsh words in online spaces and in-person conversations. Heartbreak. I have stood on steps and talked across the porch to people who are bored, lonely, and worried. Heartbreak. I have wept over whether I am currently an effective pastor to the 13 people with no internet connection at all. Heartbreak. I have seen an increase in our church's attendance online and wondered how we may be true community to those who are experiencing church in a helpful way for the first time. Heartache.

Recommendations about how to space people in pews, skipping coffee hour, and how to encourage masks in church are difficult to decipher and painful to consider.

Worry about people whose marriages were struggling, children and teens who need structure for their mental well-being, seniors who live alone and receive little information or communication- these things fill my mind.

Navigating tense political, emotional, and social conversations is a tightrope that I balance across, Bible in hand, not because I want to be liked, but because I want the relationship to remain open for the sake of Christ in both of us.

This is the truth, but not all of it. All of it would be too much to write and too much to read.

One final truth, though, I am not afraid of re-opening because of COVID-19 or because I am "cowed" by rules and regulations.

I am afraid my heart and my spirit cannot take it if someone or several someones became sick at church.

I am afraid my heart and my spirit cannot take it if we resume in-person worship, which means I am unable to visit the most vulnerable, even on their porch.

I am afraid my heart and my spirit cannot take resuming worship only to refrain from Holy Communion, sharing the peace, corporate speaking, and group singing.

I am afraid my heart and my spirit cannot taken it if I have to do more funerals, by interment only, and mourn apart from the consolation of being physically together.

So, yes, I am afraid. I am afraid not of the virus, but of more unending, bone-deep wearying heartbreak.

Some of these things will not be avoidable. They will likely come because this will be a long journey. But you can carry the baton for your pastor (and your neighbor) a little way if you understand and respect that they are not afraid. They are heartbroken.

Eternal Light

In 2012, I wrote about changing the eternal candle in the congregation I served at the time. It is a very short post. I still think about this, even though I am not always the one to change the candle in the current congregation I serve. 

When Montana went into "hunker down" mode for a few weeks, I stayed home too. Even though I could have continued to cross the street to the church and worked there alone, it seemed important to set a good example. Since I also believe that the church is the people, not only the building, I set up a little place in my house. On March 26, I brought the eternal candle into the parsonage where I live. 

I lit at the start of each work day. Making phone calls, praying, working on videos, reading the Bible, leading Bible study, the candle burned. I would go up at night and blow it out, just because I didn't want to keep a candle burning all night- no matter how stable and safe. (I also have to set a good example for my kids.) 

Somehow these candles in red globes have become, in my mind, a symbol of what it means to be a pastor of a congregation. I am not the Savior. I am not God. I do not control. I lead, I pray, I mess up, I repent, I try, I forget, I remember, I grieve, I rejoice, I long, I stretch, I ponder, I proclaim. And over and over, I make sure that the symbols of light remain visible- so that we can all trust in the true Light of the World, which cannot be overcome. 

This morning, across an empty 4th Avenue, with only bird song for accompaniment, I carried the eternal candle back to the sanctuary. 

In the vow portion of the Service for Ordination to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament (being a pastor), the final comment of the bishop is this, after the pastor has asked for God's help and guidance in fulfilling many promises: 

Almighty God, who has given you the will to do these things,
graciously give you the strength and compassion to perform them.

And then the congregation responds, "Amen."

 Being a pastor creates a restlessness in me for service and creating community. This restlessness is the Holy Spirit stirring at my will. In the details, though, I am met by Christ who provides the strength and compassion.

No one carries a candle home and tends it for glory. They do it for love. And it is the same love that keeps on hoping for the day when we can all safely worship together in person, again.