April 5, 2020 Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion Emmanuel, Norwood, MA
Communion Reflection Pastor Amanda Warner Zoom Worship
Like many people, I enjoy playing games on my phone. I find it to be a
relaxing pass time. I play sudoku. I play word games. I play those block puzzles that
remind me of Tetris, even though they’re not called that. And yet sometimes I
wonder, as I lose myself in a half hour of figuring out a word to solve a puzzle to
gain points in an imaginary world, what could I be doing if I weren’t doing this?
Would I read more? Would I go to bed at a more reasonable hour? Would
my pictures be in better order? Would I stay better in touch with friends and family
members far and near? Would I be more present to my surroundings? Would my
time be better spent?
Of course, I have known all along deep in my heart that the answer to all of
those questions is yes.
So, on February 26th, as I woke up on Ash Wednesday, I decided that I would
give up those phone video games for Lent this year, in the hopes that God would
use this new little discipline of mine to help me be more faithful with my time; a
better steward of my time.
At first it was a pretty simple thing to do. I didn’t even find myself missing
the games that much. I was going to bed earlier and getting more sleep. I did find
myself with more time for things that were more important to me than games on
a screen.
But then, of course, everything changed.
About two weeks into Lent, I, like the rest of you, found myself being asked
to give up almost everything. Going out to eat, going to the store, except for
essentials, going to the doctor, except for life or death types of situations, seeing my
parents, having guests in our home, sending my kids to school, spending time with
the other moms on the playground after school while our kids played.
And, of course, I was asked, we all were asked to give up in person worship,
and as a subset of that, communion. This Lent, circumstances have required us to
fast from Holy Communion.
And while, next week, on Easter Sunday, if I want to, I can pull out my phone
video games again, I know that our fast from Holy Communion will not end with
Easter this year. It will not end until it is safe for us and for the larger community
around us for us to gather for worship in person again.
You might have heard that some of our neighboring churches of other
denominations, and even some other Lutheran churches, have been having on-line,
also called virtual, communion. You might have heard of churches having drivethru
communion. You might have heard of some churches trying to deliver
communion by drone. You might have heard of pastors going out to homes and
neighborhoods, to give communion to small groups of people.
I actually thought of doing that one and then realized that me, moving from
house to house, could potentially be just as bad as us being together, due to the
dangers of asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19. In addition to that, me traveling
from house to house would violate our governor’s stay at home advisory, which
was put into place for the safety and well-being of all people, as I understand it, so
that just wouldn’t work.
There are ways that pastors and clergy-people of all denominations are trying
to find creative ways around this strange Lent and beyond time of fasting that we
find ourselves in. You might have wondered why we’re not doing something like
that.
Know that this is not a criticism of any other church’s beliefs or practices, just
a statement of our own. For us, as Lutheran Christians, communion at a distance or
individualized, simply does not fit with our understand of what communion is.
Communion is a sacrament that requires pastors and community in each
other’s physical presence. It is not an emotional connection, it is not symbolic,
it is the true presence of God coming to be with God’s gathered people, feeding us
individually and as a community of faith, for our shared mission and ministry in the
world.
Communion that takes place outside of communal worship, like communion
to our sick or homebound members of the church, in their homes or in hospitals or
nursing homes, flows from that experience of communal worship.
In other words, it is shared by the gathered community with those who, for reasons
beyond their control, cannot be a part of communal worship.
So, long distance communion does not fit with our understanding of
communion as a sacrament,
But you know what fit into our understanding of faith? Lament, like I talked
about in my sermon last week, times when we acknowledge that life is not going
the way that we want and need it to, times when we cry out, “How long”,
times when we recognize that there is some disconnect between what we have and
what we yearn for, even as we trust that God is still at work to bring life and
salvation to us and to all people.
Our Bishop, Jim Hazelwood, has encouraged us to avoid getting imaginative
about ways that we could deliver communion to people, but instead, to get creative
about the ways we can be in communion with each other, the way that we can
care for each other, even at a distance, ways we can experience God’s presence in
stillness and silence and in the midst of worry and sickness.
I know that the first time that I am able to preside at Holy Communion again,
with you gathered here, in our beautiful, church, I’ll probably cry. Tears of joy might
be running down my face as I lift the bread and the cup as I see your faces in person
again, and as we celebrate that God has brought us through to the other side of this
strange time of fasting and loss and sickness and dread.
But in the meantime, while we fast from Holy Communion, I believe that we
will experience God in other ways, in the stories that we will share this Holy Week,
in the songs that we will sing, in the unfolding of the spring, in the healing work of
so many around us, in the ways that we will care for each other, even in the meals
we eat, that we begin by giving thanks, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, let these
gifts to us be blessed.”
I know that, while we can’t celebrate the sacrament right now, God will still
find ways to reach us, still be in communion with us. Because no matter what,
God is still Emmanuel; God is still with us. Amen.