Growth in the Dark
/Create in me a clean heart, O God, *
and renew a right spirit within me.Cast me not away from your presence *
and take not your holy Spirit from me.Give me the joy of your saving help again *
and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.-Psalm 51:11-13
I’m writing on the Monday morning of Holy Week, as we enter our second “pandemic interrupted” high Holy Days. I was looking back at some of the videos we’d made last year at this time and noted how much has changed in the past year, and not just the fact that I have many more inches of hair now. It was an interesting exercise to go back and listen to what we were saying at this time in the church year, 2020.
Last year as Holy Week started, we were devastated that the lockdown that had started in March had not yet solved the pandemic. We were disoriented, as you are right after a blow. We were shocked and saddened that our Holy Week festivities had to be online. We were still hoping that things would resolve imminently, but of course, that was not to be. Looking back with a year of experience, I saw the naiveté of our assumptions.
However, our videos nonetheless continually stressed our need to trust in God, and that message has remained unchanged, as indeed it has remained unchanged since the dawn of our faith. That eternal message has been able to sink into us through the experience of the past year. We have all had new and profound awareness of our helplessness and vulnerability in this world, and have been given new reasons to grieve and lament. A conscious awareness of our need for the saving help of God has been driven deeper into us.
Throughout history, whenever tragedy strikes, people turn to their faith. The pandemic has been no different. We can see it in our own lives of faith at St. James. Our corporate prayer life has deepened over the past year. Not only have we continued to worship together despite severe limitations, but we’ve seen more active participation with the Word and in our intercessory prayers in our Sunday worship. Our corporate prayer life outside of Sunday has been transformed from just one midweek service to 14 well attended services each week. Our individual prayer lives have deepened also, with people practicing new ways of prayer and worship at home and experiencing worship offerings online from all over the country and world. Our ties to our sibling churches in NH have also deepened as we’ve worshiped together as a diocese more in the past year than we have in any year in history. During good times, it’s all too easy to become “people of Sunday morning church-going.” This year has supported us all in being more intentional people of the Way.
So despite over a year of no access to our usual Sunday morning well of spiritual nourishment around the communion table, our faith has nonetheless spread out, widened and deepened in this time of wilderness. Faith and prayer have moved into all hours of the week and every location of our lives. Despite the pandemic, despite the frustrations of zoom and facebook, despite our being apart, we have stuck together spiritually in saving ways during this crisis. And all this has unexpectedly renewed us as a church.
I believe we are entering into this online Holy Week with a firmer faith footing. We enter into it as a stronger community of faith. We enter into it with a more conscious hope and longing for God’s salvation, and a more humble willingness to lay down our defenses and recognize our need for that salvation. This has been a deep gift that I pray we do not lose into the future.
We clergy know how people flock to church in the wake of a tragedy. Church attendance rose sharply after 9/11 and Sandy Hook, only to fall off again when the story left the front pages. But the pandemic, unlike a senseless act of violence, came on quickly but has stayed for the long haul and has formed us all in the process. I pray that the past year of deepening prayer and personal loss will keep us strong in our worship and prayer lives as we slowly emerge from the darkness.
The day will come when we gather together around the table again, and I know we all look forward to that with a deep hunger and thirst. Until God leads us to that joyful day, may we continue to pray and practice and deepen in Christ together, that the growth of this past year will not fly away like chaff, but take root in good, rich soil and yield a hundred fold.
